Telegram’s GIFs were thrown completely out of order when the Tenor API shut down (which, to some extent, only benefited Iranian users). The whole incident illustrates a lesser-discussed aspect of development quite well: what happens when dependencies put developers in a chokehold.

What's the story?

Tenor is probably the biggest GIF platform. Apps like Twitter and Telegram used its API to add GIF support. It’s the sort of decision any developer might make: "Let me take the easier route and reduce my work and costs by adding a dependency." The result? Google announced in January 2026 that it would shut down the Tenor API, and on June 30 it did exactly that.

Telegram, like many other platforms, wasn't ready. Even though Google gave six months of notice, a dependency of this size isn't something you can eliminate in six months. The best option for platforms like these is switching to another service, such as GIPHY, but that comes with its own challenges and limitations: a different API format, different costs, and even different rules and policies. All of these problems stem from one thing:

Dependency

We all know from everyday life that dependency brings limitations. If you're dependent on someone for even the smallest purchases, your freedom becomes limited by that person. The exact same thing applies to software development, and it's something that becomes even more important in the age of AI.

  • The creator of Zig mentioned in one interview how becoming independent of LLVM allowed him to achieve things that weren't possible before, and he doesn't regret that decision.
  • The creator of Odin explained in one of his videos why he dislikes package managers and will never add one to the language: he considers it bad practice to add packages to production environment without understanding their details and code.

If...

If Telegram hadn't treated Tenor as a permanent resource from the very beginning, it might still have all of its GIFs today. That's what a dependency does to a project: it creates the illusion of speed and progress while you're really playing with the lion's tail. Just like projects that invested effort into adding a GIF feature only to be hit almost immediately by the news that Tenor was shutting down.

This post isn't meant to criticize the use of Tenor or any similar third-party dependency. It's simply a reminder to developers: be careful about the dependencies you add. Stay independent whenever possible. In the age of AI, the easiest thing to do is add another dependency. Left on its own, even the best AI may introduce a new dependency, because that's been one of the most common bad practices in development. And this time, thanks to the stronger result-oriented mindset that AI encourages, we might not even notice that a new dependency has quietly been added to our project. Heaven help us if that dependency also carries a GPL license and gets the project reported in the blink of an eye.