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Free the server source code so anyone else can create their own server, and have an option to decide to which server you want to get connected. This way, companies could use telegram the way their way, the amount of data managed by Telegram servers would be reduced, and the community could help improving it.
Conversations and data would be obviously stored in the server to which the account is connected to in that moment. By default, the app would be connected to the official Telegram servers, and we would simply have to change it to our own server. Greater security, and even better: the opportunity to show that Telegram is definitely legit, and doesn't spy us.
App: all
It's quite easy to request something for free, instead of investing in taking care of it. I guess the whole platform should be designed differently instead. Take look at Matrix or Wire for example.
The biggest problem is server security. Right now it's only you and Telegram who can store your messages. With private servers here comes MITM attacks, packet stealing etc,etc,etc, and all your messages may end up in more then one location. Good for some governments but not quite good for you.
Let's take Belarus for example. Imagine state cut off all Telegram connectivity leaving people with no means of using Telegram. Let's put aside obvious choices like switching to Viber/WhatsApp/Discord/etc. Setting up server for the people would mean setting up server inside the country, so it will be vulnerable to corrupted officials, or whoever has a clue bat. There's even no need in hacking into, you just need to own the admin. Same goes to Russia, same goes to literally any country out there.
Ok, now let's look on the corporate side of things. There might be requirements to selfhost anything you need, but that generally means it's not safe to selfhost whole telegram service, as it includes a huge number of functionality that even might be harmful for locked installations due to the way they require and use internet. The problem comes from the other side: I don't recall any project surviving the free/corprate divide. Jabber died due to being too open and thus very hard to change, it ended up having number of "extensions" which were mutually incompatible. The other good example would be Chrome - that locks up the codebase totally preventing any changes that are not part of the final product. For example, FreeBSD ports are rolling 5MB of patches to build it without any chances of committing them upstream. Telegram choose GPLv3 as a code locking solution which is coming as a industry standard for a vendor-locked code novadays. So this leaves a question open: what would be a balance between open server and open code, and how would Telegram protect it's IP while starting the monetization adventure.
I'm not against the idea tho… just want to make clear this is not an easy choice for Telegram. And that it might get a lot of consequences.