Alternative Messaging Platforms: The New Social Media?

Over the past 2 years, the popularity of alternative messaging apps like Telegram and Discord has surged to new heights. These platforms largely serve the same purpose as traditional social media, facilitating group discussion and information sharing. However, their decentralized format makes them ideal for focused communication amongst niche communities. Additionally, they avoid some of the censorship and privacy concerns that plague the likes of Facebook ($FB) and Youtube ($GOOGL).
U.S. Consumers’ Mentions of utilizing Telegram, a cloud-based instant messaging system, surged in January 2021, largely due to censorship concerns surrounding larger social media sites.
Telegram Usage Mentions have pulled back the January peak but are still trending higher, up +52% QoQ and +169% YoY on a 30-day moving average.

Telegram's userbase growth was further bolstered by the recent Facebook service outage, which caused Telegram to gain 70 million new accounts.
It’s unclear how many Facebook users (if any) have switched away permanently, but the underlying data suggests that a decent portion are still using Telegram regularly.
Discord, a voice and text chatting platform which initially gained popularity with the gaming community, experienced a significant uptrend in Mentions during the 2020 lockdowns, mirroring the influx seen in broader gaming trends during the same period.
Despite the unprecedented growth seen last year, Discord’s popularity has continued to rise in 2021-- Usage mentions are at a new all-time high level: +14% QoQ and +22% YoY (30d MA).