Are people really that stupid to give some mobile app company access to their contact list? On iPhone you have to explicitly give permission, I presume on Android as well. I find that hard to believe everyone is doing it.
Many apps will refuse to work if you don't allow access to your contacts, so people just give in and allow it.
Google is the biggest abuser in this area just grabbing all your contacts and linking them to your Google account once you add any Google account (like Gmail or Youtube) to your Android device.
Whats the point of that? You dont need to exchange phone numbers for telegram just the @username and only one side needs to know the others username.
And once you have a chat with someone both can share their own contact directly in the chat with 2 clicks and add it with 2 clicks as well.
(which is still rather useless because there is no real benefit from adding someone as contact. But I guess if you want to store number then this is easy)
You're thinking like a technically enlightened person -- if not an engineer -- who prioritizes efficiency and control.
You're not thinking like a "normie" goal-oriented user, who doesn't care about understanding the system, and for whom the shortest path to achieving their goal generally passes through saying "sure, whatever" to any requests the app makes.
You put the @username (the @ is optional) in the search field then click on the user and send a message. Once a message is send the chat will obviously stay in the chat list. Same for public groups/channels.
Alternatively you can share/click a link with the format t.me/username to skip the search part.
Afaik WhatsApp (on Android at least) requires you giving access to your contacts. So roughly speaking a huge chunk, probably the majority, of smartphone users shared their contact list to at least one company, which strictly speaking might not even be legal in many cases.
After all that's how WhatsApp populates its contact list, it looks which users have each other's phone numbers. That way it doesn't need a user login and friend/contact requests, but in return you give up your privacy.
Everyone doesn't have to. If one person with your number gives up their contact list, they have yours. I'd guess about 10-12% of the populace would have to cooperate.
Actually now that I look into it again, it looks like since the middle of March of this year it's even possible to invite others without sharing your phonebook.
