I found it interesting to read that their approach is supposedly to split encryption keys across jurisdictions. It sounds like they believe that they should therefore not be able to be compelled to reveal any plaintext because the keys are not in the jurisdiction asking for data, but as far as I can tell this is obviously rubbish, because a computer is not subject to the law, an individual is, and in this case an individual with the power to comply who is seemingly deciding not to.
What's weird is that there aren't really technical blockers to E2E encryption anymore (maybe different 10+ years ago), and with such a weak alternative, you'd expect Telegram to want to switch. The fact they haven't for so long, and have essentially doubled down on their flawed approach suggests that there's a reason we're not privy to as to why they don't want to move to E2E encryption. I'd hope not, and I don't want to throw around conspiracy theories, but when a decision doesn't make sense that's usually due to missing information, and I do wonder what we're missing.
What's weird is that there aren't really technical blockers to E2E encryption anymore (maybe different 10+ years ago), and with such a weak alternative, you'd expect Telegram to want to switch. The fact they haven't for so long, and have essentially doubled down on their flawed approach suggests that there's a reason we're not privy to as to why they don't want to move to E2E encryption. I'd hope not, and I don't want to throw around conspiracy theories, but when a decision doesn't make sense that's usually due to missing information, and I do wonder what we're missing.