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Russia orders state-backed Max messenger app to be pre-installed on new phones
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2025
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I work with lots of people with higher than average education level, mostly 30-50yo apolitical liberals.
Never heard anyone refering to Max like they do inviting someone to a TG/VK/Whatsup/Viber/Teams chat. No work chats there as far as I know, none in the context of schools/neighborhood communication group talks. Most people do use other replacement products like RuTube/VK VIds/Yandex video search, Yandex products are very popular amongst them, and like one eight of them uses VPNs to access YT but doesn't boast about it.
There were and are a wave of paid influencers and ads promoting it, but I've always heard about it second-hand, so compared to the likes of VK, Ya and others that do even billboard advertisement at my place, it's not that well promoted, and I only encounter it in local news articles. I'm yet to see any business advertise their Max channel like they did with Insta, VK and TG. It kinda suggests there are no money to make there.
I have an obviously skewed sample, but I don't see anyone signing in for a chat platform when no one is there. I suppose, besides pre-installs, they'd softly push it onto a public sector to gain base (september is a good month since schools and colleges start their year cycle there)(I'm sure I've heard some employers did promote it), then they'd seemingly lock some government functions behind it, then, probably, it'd start to roll and people themselves become their ad agents and reasons to join. If it'd start to roll.
I suspect it's more profits and profiling for VK, Max parent company, it's owner's dad being a top henchman who's likely gifted him that monopoly, but it is still too dangerous to have it at your device. Many people I described aren't pessimistic about the government's line like I am, but I do feel the buzz of generalized lack of trust to things suggested by the gvmnt. I assume, they won't join it unless it's needed or beneficial, and right now it's not.
AMA if you care, but I won't disclose anything leading to me.
chatted just now:
Some friends of my friend do install that shit for they don't care. They don't see many people or services there, so it's pretty stagnant, but they are on the edge of switching because they are afraid theit TG/WS chats would get blocked.
Thanks for the insights!