[HN Gopher] Snapchat's product is booming
___________________________________________________________________
Snapchat's product is booming
Author : kantrowitz
Score : 116 points
Date : 2022-04-22 14:15 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (bigtechnology.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (bigtechnology.substack.com)
| Fargoan wrote:
| I'm 34 years old and stopped regularly using Snapchat when I was
| ?27? Mostly I used it to split bills with my roommates, but the
| snapcash feature was removed so I downloaded Cash App. I know I
| haven't used Snapchat since 2017. I remember this because I was
| visiting Seattle and viewed geotagged stories to figure out what
| was going on around town. I deleted the app again when I got back
| home.
| kart23 wrote:
| I'm in college. I see a lot of people doubting snap's popularity
| in this thread.
|
| Literally everyone has snapchat and most people use it on a daily
| basis. I do think they provide the overall best group chat
| experience out of any app, you can just send text if you want,
| but also save funny pictures or video that people send. And only
| the good stuff gets saved, so you're usually not dealing with a
| bunch of clutter and random irrelevant content in the chat's
| history. The private stories are cool too, but I personally don't
| use them.
| thawaya3113 wrote:
| I don't buy Snapchat's numbers.
|
| Their metrics all suggest an inflated user count.
| rvz wrote:
| > Their metrics all suggest an inflated user count.
|
| Evidence?
| hbcondo714 wrote:
| How so? They define a Daily Active User "as a registered
| Snapchat user who opens the Snapchat application at least once
| during a defined 24-hour period" in their quarterly report:
|
| Source:
| https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001564408/000156459...
| liuliu wrote:
| Snapchat has been more aggressive at push notifications (such
| as @xxx friend posted a new story!) to move more MAUs / WAUs
| into DAUs category.
|
| These strategies have been employed by other competitors as
| aggressive as well though. So it is probably still
| comparable. I would say Snapchat's metrics are more
| "authentic" a few years ago, but now it is more "comparable".
| thtpol wrote:
| To be fair over counting users will affect ARPU as well, no
| free lunch (and we sorta saw that in the numbers this
| quarter tbf)
| thesuitonym wrote:
| > Messaging is infamously sticky: once you start messaging in one
| place it's rare to go elsewhere to reach the same people.
|
| IRC, ICQ/AIM, Y!M, MSN, Skype would all beg to differ.
| [deleted]
| cft wrote:
| Arguably those ones disappeared together with desktop
| messaging: main use of messaging migrated from desktop to
| mobile, but they either never developed compelling mobile apps
| or developed them too late (Skype)
| smm11 wrote:
| YouTube better change.
| bradleyjg wrote:
| _Millennials, the first generation to grow up with social media,
| loved broadcasting their lives. Gen Y was more ambivalent. Gen Z
| kind of hates it._
|
| Wait, what? I thought Gen Y was the placeholder name until
| Millennial stuck.
|
| greatest, lost, boomer, gen X, millennial, gen Z
| jaywalk wrote:
| There's a pretty wide gap between the "older Millennials" and
| the "younger Millennials" which I would assume is what they
| were trying to address by using "Gen Y" to refer to the younger
| ones. Although I've never heard that before.
| gsibble wrote:
| I've never heard it either but the definition of millennial
| is like 20 years of births which all had vastly different
| experiences.
| jaywalk wrote:
| Yeah, so much changed in that 20 year span that the
| beginning and end are very, very different.
| downrightmike wrote:
| You are right
| instagary wrote:
| Snapchat was novel because of the ephemeral nature of the
| messages (and introducing stories). However in the late twenty
| teens they began focusing of face filters and introducing cringe
| ads & news networks which made it unusable for me.
|
| Good to see they are still thriving though. Compared to Instagram
| they have maintained to be an app solely to communicate with
| friends vs. Instagram's philosophy of a feed of edited photos
| that can cause you to compare yourself to others.
| KSPAtlas wrote:
| Irc
| metadat wrote:
| I haven't thought of Snapchat in many many months. Last time I
| logged in was only sync my bitmoji avatar. Their chat
| "experience" really sucks, this article is not even remotely
| plausible.
|
| This is a laughably poor attempt at astroturfed buzz generation.
| KSPAtlas wrote:
| I was going to use it to chat with some friends but the app is
| so annoying I decided to leave.
| dpweb wrote:
| Do they count it as a daily active user, if I stay logged in,
| don't open the app, and the app sends me a notification or
| something?
| Zigurd wrote:
| Social media has low barriers to entry. Several new entrants have
| grown super-fast and have overtaken incumbents. Facebook was very
| clever to identify and buy up some of these fast-growing new
| entrants.
|
| This holds lessons for the people who want free speech in social
| media. There are at least 10 social media apps/sites that say
| they practice what Elon Musk says should be the norm: Anything
| legal is allowable speech on social media.
|
| And yet i do not see anyone pouring in the same levels of capital
| that Snapchat and some other newer entrants got. Why not? What is
| preventing first tier investors from backing these platforms? Why
| have several of them failed outright? What could turn that
| around?
| holler wrote:
| Compelling product > advertised speech philosophy.
|
| Are there any serious social networks who overtly advertise as
| anti-free speech? Making speech the hook when the site looks
| like a third-rate ripoff of Twitter isn't a winning strategy.
| adra wrote:
| Nobody's willing to pay for the access to use the product and
| if you want to be the free speech wing of the free speech blah
| blah them you're going to get popular backlash from people and
| most notably potential advertisers dollars. I feel like
| investors have lived through too many years of bad #metoo
| publicity to turn a blind eye and advertise on platforms with
| toxic (to many) content. If you don't charge users and you
| can't get the high margin ad revenues, who's supporting your
| unicorn company that just may luck out and dislodge a small
| segment of the social media landscapes?
| TremendousJudge wrote:
| Serious question, who actually uses Snapchat? I haven't heard it
| mentioned anywhere in at least six months.
| jaywalk wrote:
| It's the only social media I actively use.
| Brystephor wrote:
| I use it every day as my primary method of talking to non
| family members. That's been true for at least a year, probably
| about 3-4 years now.
|
| Texting is not nearly as engaging. So much of communication is
| visual and tone. Emojis can only go so far
| MattGaiser wrote:
| I am just a bit older than heavy users of snapchat. My year in
| university somewhat used it. The year after us were heavy daily
| users.
| holler wrote:
| Lots of people, and I think the narrative that they died when
| instagram copied stories is sort of bogus. I know way more
| people who use and have used snapchat than who use Twitter. -
| Millenial
| tootie wrote:
| I can honestly say I don't even know what Snapchat does. It's
| like chat? I'm a social media grump, but I can't avoid
| passively absorbing what they do. Snapchat has not entered my
| consciousness and/or its value can't be easily summarized.
| multiplegeorges wrote:
| The answer is in the article. Young people do.
|
| How old are you?
|
| No one I know uses it, but that makes sense to me. I'm
| internet-old now.
| TremendousJudge wrote:
| Right, I wasn't implying that I should be in the demographic
| or anything of the sort. I don't use TikTok either, none of
| my friends do, but I've heard it mentioned a zillion times
| (in the media, IRL conversations, etc) in the past year. Same
| with other big social platforms: reddit, youtube, discord,
| facebook, instagram, telegram, and so on. Snapchat? nada,
| I've heard nothing. So it comes as a surprise to me to hear
| that it's alive and growing, which prompted my question.
| thtpol wrote:
| I would put Snapchat above discord and telegram for general
| public awareness, especially in main stream media coverage
| jarboot wrote:
| I am 25 and from my observations of social media-active people
| I connect with that were born and are living in the US, it's a
| split between instagram and snapchat. Many are active on
| snapchat stories and instagram.
|
| My observation is that that IG is more popular with urban,
| liberal, artistic (people create and/or sell art), style-
| oriented, older audience. It feels more professional and
| public, and it's common to follow accounts like celebs,
| artists, businesses, or generally people you haven't met in
| person. Artistic and lifestyle people will use IG chat to
| communicate and connect. For example a yoga studio or music
| venue may post events there. It feels like it's taking the role
| of a more image-oriented facebook. The stories are very popular
| too.
|
| Snapchat is (in my observation) more popular with
| midwestern/rural/suburban people, and the network is more
| friends of friends or maybe people you met at parties. It's
| much more casual and it's more likely you have met the people
| you connect with. Trendy urban people I have met have shunned
| it for a while and think it's childish, but some are coming
| back. Either way it's the primary way I communicate with
| certain contacts besides imessage/sms (mainly through the
| chat). I'll post something to a story and someone will comment
| on it or vice versa.
|
| Anecdotally snapchat was very popular in high school and early
| college and then waned, but became more popular again recently
| for some reason (I'm getting more and more views on my stories
| than before even though I'm not adding friends that
| frequently). Also when I talk to foreigners, they see it as a
| childish thing that was a fad in the 2010s, but people in the
| US (especially suburban types) are very active on it and have
| been for a while.
|
| I'm bullish on snapchat and it's my largest "fun"/risk
| investment in a single company because of the stickiness it has
| with people my age and younger, specifically in a more
| midwestern rural/suburban demographic. Also the snapmap feature
| is phenomenal and will be the next thing other tech companies
| start imitating.
| [deleted]
| searchableguy wrote:
| 13-24 year olds. Majority of HN users aren't Snapchat users
| based on polls I've conducted on the past.
| jasonlotito wrote:
| 42M. I use it. Easy way to chat with people, send quick pics,
| nothing serious. The ephemeral nature makes it much less of a
| hassle to communicate with people because that's what
| communication normally is: ephemeral. My brother and sister-in-
| law use it, and numerous friends. Easy way to keep up to date
| on what they are doing without the hassle of FB or IG.
| Basically, a self-container group of friends that can easily
| share without hassle.
| username923409 wrote:
| At least high school- and college-aged people do.
| trellad wrote:
| Cam girls use it as an upsell, sending dirty pics and sexting.
| It's great for that sort of flirty business because of the lack
| of persistence. No receipts.
| zwieback wrote:
| My whole family (parents in their 50s, kids in 20s), we use it
| for fun and family group chats. When it was new it became the
| defacto IM standard in the kids' age group and it just stuck.
| Save for straight SMS, which pre-paid users don't like, it's
| the least obnoxious of the IMish tools, I think.
|
| Outside of the US I mostly use WhatsApp, I suspect if that (or
| Signal) was more widely used in the US Snapchat would be less
| popular.
| [deleted]
| martinmunk wrote:
| I'm 31, male, SWE, Danish.
|
| I use it a couple of times a day and have done for years.
| Primarily to keep up with close and loose friends from high
| school ect. Pictures from friends everyday life that are not
| necessarily meant to provoke a response still keep you in the
| loop and not drift apart.
| daniel_reetz wrote:
| I had my first intern last summer - she's going to college this
| fall. She used Snapchat throughout the day to communicate with
| friends. I asked why-- it's non-public, informal, and low-
| friction in social terms (easier to ask for snap than a phone
| number). I got the sense that she was continuously lightly
| dropping in to various group conversations, while
| simultaneously talking to close friends, often by simply
| recording reactions on camera.
|
| I've never used Snap so forgive any ignorance on my part.
| qchris wrote:
| This is pretty close to my own experience. I actively use
| Snapchat more than any other social platform because in many
| ways, it's not really a social "platform", in the same way
| that Instagram or Facebook or Tiktok are platforms. There are
| some people that use it that way, but largely, Snapchat is a
| convenient way of ephemeral, low-friction way to include a
| few people into your life. A picture here, a link to a cool
| article there, to a few friends at a time in a non-public way
| (very few people use it to cultivate an online persona in the
| way the above platforms encourage) that disappears within a
| day or so unless explicitly saved.
| rvz wrote:
| It is more like _more humans than bots_ are using Snapchat.
| Unlike the rest of the other platforms plagued by tons of bots
| doing nothing but spamming, scamming, etc its seems to have
| prevented that and optimised their product to be used by actual
| humans.
|
| It's quite a difference, but isn't surprising to see and may
| also explain the rise in users, given the unlikelihood of
| millions of bots ruining and inflating the usage numbers.
|
| But once again as I predicted, it is far from dying, [0] or
| even going to allow itself to getting acquired. [1]. In fact,
| they are the ones continuing to acquire more companies.
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27628706
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29020758
| vmception wrote:
| > It is more like more humans than bots are using Snapchat.
|
| ehhhhhh.... there are LOTTSSS of bots on snapchat. especially
| if you ever add a pretty person's snap from their dating
| profile.
| mgh2 wrote:
| This sounds like an advert for Snap investors...
| illwrks wrote:
| What I've noticed in the past two years... my daughters friends
| mother had it on her phone, her daughter showed my daughter the
| app when we were having lunch. They were trying on 'masks' and
| various filters. The kids get a real kick out of it, and taking
| pictures of the adults.
|
| My wife installed it on her phone, and likewise when we have met
| other families the kids have done the same. It's not used for any
| messaging element, just purely as a digital novelty for the kids
| to pass 15 - 20 minutes while we wait for food.
|
| One random occasion led to about 6 families with 7-10 year old
| kids downloading and using the novelty aspects of the app. I
| expect the same ripple effect has happened with other children in
| each of their networks.
| mandeepj wrote:
| I find Snapchat app to very complicated and cluttered. I guess
| it's just me.
|
| FB has almost cloned Snap's features into Messenger and Insta.
| So, do you think - Snap's UX is still far better?
| illwrks wrote:
| I honestly don't care about their UX as no one I know uses
| it. It's primary use in my "family life" is as a digital
| camera toy and for that purpose it's UX must not be that bad
| because my 8yo daughter is able to find the app, take photos
| with masks and filter she 'tries on' but not send them to
| anyone.
| Thlom wrote:
| On Snapchat it's extremely easy to take a quick photo and
| send to your friends. Open snap, take photo, edit photo (if
| you want) and select one or many friends or groups. Doing the
| same in any other messaging app is slower and more
| complicated. For me this is the killer feature.
| bombcar wrote:
| Telegram seems as fast to me but I have groups for friends
| so I don't have to do much selection.
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| You have to remember the target audience. When they first
| launched, their app was extremely unintuitive, to the point
| that it was very regular for someone to show their friends
| some feature they had just discovered. But that was part of
| what made it fun: Snap straddles the space between social
| media and toy in a pretty aggressive way.
|
| And their primary audience of teenagers to young adults eats
| that up. Hell, it being baffling to "old people" was half the
| appeal.
| vyrotek wrote:
| Agreed. I've seen the app used by so many kids as nothing more
| than a camera toy. The parents didn't actually use the app.
| nikolay wrote:
| Seems true as I keep getting a lot of notifications that my
| friends are joining it.
| tssva wrote:
| My survey of 1 teenager, my 15 year old daughter, reveals that it
| is the preferred messaging platform for her friends and others at
| her school. Due to one of her activities she travels regularly
| along the east coast and a few times a year to other locations
| across the US. When she makes friends during the trips the
| preferred means to stay in touch from both parties is SnapChat.
| So I tend to believe the numbers being thrown about. She used to
| make some Tiktok videos and checked it regularly. She hasn't made
| a video in almost a year and unless something is shared with her
| never checks the app. This seems to be the trend among most of
| her friends. When I asked her why it was because everyone's
| parents are now on Tiktok.
| anonymouse008 wrote:
| Evan had this right - tracking as the primary value prop for
| advertising is a loser's game. Marketing is much more than just
| ads, and Snapchat has rebuffed going the easy route, honored by
| market participants, to uphold this principle. They will be an
| enduring company because of this. How 'big' of a company is up
| for debate, but honestly not worth the bits to transmit - they
| are one of the few, if only, doing good business in the social
| space.
| cmckn wrote:
| I think they're making money, sure; but the promoted content on
| Snapchat is a total tabloid cesspool of click-bait garbage. I'd
| rather see ads for the Amazon product I bought last week, tbh.
| libertine wrote:
| >Evan had this right - tracking as the primary value prop for
| advertising is a loser's game.
|
| The problem is that nowadays people mix Direct Marketing with
| Advertising.
|
| Direct Marketing is where there's a need to track. Advertising
| is about attention, so if Snapchat has the attention of an
| audience, that alone is extremely valuable for advertising.
| pbuzbee wrote:
| I wish Snapchat had kept its momentum among my friend groups.
|
| I much prefer social media where you explicitly choose who to
| send things to. It feels way more personal than the usual model
| where you post to your whole network on some public feed. I
| enjoyed taking a picture/video of something interesting, then
| quickly choosing which friends would find it amusing. It felt
| like I was saying, "I think that YOU will like this!" rather than
| "SOMEONE will like this". And if the recipient wanted to reply,
| that conversation was one-on-one and more personal.
|
| There were other perks too: taking/sending snaps was pretty
| quick, their ephemeral nature lowered the bar of what you'd send
| (in a good way), the filters could were fun, and recipients could
| review snaps at their leisure.
|
| Sadly only one or two of my friends are still active on it.
| ElectronShak wrote:
| Stories seem so obvious right now but wow, that was some
| creativity from Evan Spiegel. Snapchat is built on genuine
| innovativeness.
| coolspot wrote:
| Was it Evan himself who came up with stories?
| gsibble wrote:
| Highly doubt it.
| me_me_mu_mu wrote:
| I don't mean this to be mean, but do people really believe these
| active user counts at face value?
|
| I personally see these numbers and assume half are bots or
| controlled marketing accounts to boost viewers or spam comments.
| Just going off personal experience using these sort of apps.
| ffggvv wrote:
| the growth is about in line with independent surveys
| https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2021/04/07/social-media...
| caleb-allen wrote:
| I would guess that you could uncover this information in
| Snapchat's 10K filings.
|
| In fact, I found the answer to your question on the 4th page of
| their annual filing to shareholders[1]:
|
| > While these metrics are determined based on what we believe
| to be reasonable estimates of our user base for the applicable
| period of measurement, there are inherent challenges in
| measuring how our products are used across large populations
| globally. For example, there may be individuals who have
| unauthorized or multiple Snapchat accounts, even though we
| forbid that in our Terms of Service and implement measures to
| detect and suppress that behavior. We have not determined the
| number of such multiple accounts.
|
| It seems to me that Snap is quite open about their active user
| counts.
|
| [1] https://seekingalpha.com/filing/6183813
| bombcar wrote:
| All 10Ks include enough weasel words that if you take them at
| face value they say nothing.
| admiral33 wrote:
| > For example, there may be individuals who have unauthorized
| or multiple Snapchat accounts, even though we forbid that in
| our Terms of Service and implement measures to detect and
| suppress that behavior.
|
| Weird. If a person is not a bot, you'd expect that when they
| are making an nth account they are attempting to apply
| another use case for the service in their life. More time in
| app.
|
| I'd also expect there are fewer incentives for creating bots
| on snap versus other platforms. Its a messaging app, people
| only use it with people they know.
| Bilal_io wrote:
| Probably the quality of the content in the app goes down
| dramatically if you allow multiple accounts. But I can see
| a use case where people need to manage their business
| profile and their personal one, or a celebrity needing to
| have an unknown account for close people only. I am sure
| there are many more.
| jasonlotito wrote:
| > If a person is not a bot, you'd expect that when they are
| making an nth account they are attempting to apply another
| use case for the service in their life
|
| No. In my experience, it's because they lost access to the
| older account for whatever reason. Accounts are cheap and
| ephemeral and forgot password flows are horrible.
| liuliu wrote:
| Snapchat has been more proactive on fighting bot than other
| competitors. You can easily copy the cookie from instagram.com
| and write a bot with puppeteer. You cannot just sniff the
| traffic from Snapchat app and hope to write a bot with that. It
| has been aggressive at binary obfuscation for request signing,
| and cracking down the 3rd party mods (such as the Snapchat
| Phantom mod).
| mardifoufs wrote:
| Snapchat's userbase is more organic than most other social
| media platforms. I don't think I've ever seen a bot, and the
| "social circles" are much more private since it's less
| optimized towards meeting/finding new people. I'm sure there
| are still ways to profit from spamming or botting on snap but I
| can't really think of any. And not only is the social discovery
| potential pretty limited ( a part from celebrity accounts) but
| it's also only available on mobile apps (maybe the new
| snapcamera changed that but that's recent).
|
| Maybe it's just me but in general, I use snap in a way that's
| pretty different to any other social media. I don't use it a
| lot anymore though, and it's still hard to explain that
| "difference" honestly
| pphysch wrote:
| I don't really use Snapchat right now, but I constantly get
| spammed with friend invites from random "women" that I assume
| are fake accounts. Of course, Snapchat doesn't let you refuse
| obvious spam requests via notification (but they do let you
| accept them), so you have to open the app to clear the spam.
| A clear dark pattern and I would take these usage metrics
| with a huge grain of salt.
| olah_1 wrote:
| Certainly there are many, many bots. BUT, I have personally
| noticed a resurgence in snapchat popularity. It did indeed die,
| but it came back after (I think) people have gotten burnt out
| on the super public nature of Instagram.
|
| Snapchat is more amenable to having a "persona". If you make an
| second account on Instagram, Instagram will literally start
| recommending it to the followers of your main account.
|
| So Snapchat just allows for a use case that Instagram simply
| does not. Instagram is the new Facebook. They are not friendly
| to being anonymous or pseudonymous.
| tomlin wrote:
| Don't get the flowery speak for a platform that is objectively
| the world's largest distributor of cp.
| dvngnt_ wrote:
| true, when i was a teen we used sms now they're probably on
| snap. not sure what the solution is
| WpgRubyDev wrote:
| source on that? i don't want to search those terms
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| It's an ephemeral photo-based private messaging platform
| popular amongst teenagers. I have zero doubt that it's
| carrying a ton of underage illicit content, but most of it
| is probably being made and consumed by teenagers
| themselves. Still a legal nightmare for Snapchat.
| paxys wrote:
| Lots of people showing their age in this thread. The discussion
| is essentially "I and my social group don't use Snapchat
| therefore their numbers are fake". If you go talk to people under
| 25 you will see a very different picture. Snapchat and TikTok are
| dominating the social media landscape.
| TheAceOfHearts wrote:
| Does TikTok really remain that popular with the younger
| generation? I know content creators use it, but I'd expect most
| kids would prefer to keep content private. Is it really that
| popular for regular kids?
|
| Truthfully, whenever I open Instagram or TikTok it's almost
| entirely thirst-traps in my timeline. But maybe that's just how
| the algorithm has been trained for me.
| rattlesnakedave wrote:
| Snapchat is fun for stupid pics between friends that are meant to
| be ephemeral, and that's why I like it. It's the last social
| platform where my friends are creating the majority of their
| content posted as opposed to re-sharing something.
|
| HOWEVER- their "discover" pane is full of the most repugnant,
| degenerate, or otherwise braindead bullshit I have ever seen in
| my life. If I could pay to turn it off permanently they could
| command a significant sum for me.
| willio58 wrote:
| As a user of Snapchat since high school (now 25), I'm noticing a
| resurgence in my friends using the platform. I never left because
| I never joined Instagram due to my distain for Facebook. Snap is
| a great app to keep in contact with "real" friends. I only have
| groups with true friends and only watch my friends' stories.
| hardtke wrote:
| My teenagers use Snapchat regularly, and Snap Maps seem to be
| the "killer app" for them. It allows them to see which of their
| friends are around when they travel or are out and about on the
| weekends.
| vmception wrote:
| I guess thats nice because its cross platform. But do they
| also use iOS' built in Find My app?
| edaemon wrote:
| I think what those groups like about Snap Maps is that it
| can show not only where your friends are but what they're
| doing. Imagine if you were having drinks at a bar and a
| friend posted a snap of them doing the same just a few
| blocks away -- I'd reach out to meet up with them.
| vmception wrote:
| yeah I like that aspect of Snap Maps too but it lacked
| usefulness when everyone stopped using it no matter how
| densely populated the area was or where my friends are.
| I'm glad to know people are using it again and posting
| relevant snaps.
|
| Protip: for those not looking for their own friends
| specifically, you can/could use snapmaps without a
| snapchat account, just in your browser and see the feed
| of whats happening in the heatmap.
| 12907835202 wrote:
| Having this on Instagram would be awesome.
|
| Instead of a feed of stories in an order being able to see
| thumbnails of stories over a map and clicking around the map
| would be far more engaging for me.
|
| It would also help me alot as a digital nomad/traveller as it
| would very quickly let me know which friends are in which
| cities/countries, as opposed to just the same street as
| others have suggested.
|
| Similarly if you want to know what XXX bar or street is like
| right now you could see public stories from there.
|
| Just landed in a city? Browse the Instagram map to get an
| idea which streets are party to visit/avoid or see random
| pics of food and think fuck let's go there.
|
| I wonder if this is possible via the API?
| guelo wrote:
| I always cheer for Snapchat just because of the courage it took
| to turn down Zuckerberg's $3 billion offer in 2013.
|
| If you compare Evan Spiegel to Kevin Systrom (Instagram founder),
| Spiegel is 6 times richer and he didn't have to kowtow to
| Zuckerberg for all those years. Hopefully that's a lesson to
| founders to go for it, build something real and don't sell out.
| paxys wrote:
| It's not as straightforward a comparison. Instagram is still
| worth 3-5x more than Snapchat today. It's not obvious that they
| would have seen the same growth had they stayed independent.
| idoh wrote:
| Snap - booming product, public since 2017, so where's the profit?
| What are they waiting for?
| tibyat wrote:
| paul7986 wrote:
| Their Cameos stickers are fun ...no other chat app I know offers
| that. They are jib jab like stickers you can send of yourself and
| your friend and yourself looking dumb lol
|
| Chat is more fun using Snap!
| wepple wrote:
| I'm not up to speed on the social app market, but isn't TikTok
| eating their lunch?
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Snapchat is for your own social graph. TikTok explicitly
| ignores your network. Snapchat is basically a messaging app
| with a social network twist.
| wepple wrote:
| Thanks, makes sense
| jasonlotito wrote:
| Best way to think about Snap is it's a replacement for normal
| conversation. Normal conversations are ephemeral. Snap follows
| that. You take a picture, you show your friends, and that's it.
| You say something, and that's it. You don't store it somewhere
| for later. That's it.
|
| And once you realize Snap allows you to carry on with that
| ephemeral experience even when you aren't near, you realize why
| it does so well.
| 52358 wrote:
| I wonder how many people here are aware of Snapchat's thriving
| underground OnlyFans-like ecosystem. I also wonder how much of
| that is driving Snap's user metrics.
|
| As far back as 2014, I remember there being a huge ecosystem of
| "premium" snaps (sometimes known as "prem(ium) girls"), whereby
| you would pay the account owner a one time or recurring fee for
| access to a "premium" snapchat account where the owner posts
| nudes/etc, essentially OnlyFans-like content. Owner would
| typically accept payment through any number of ways
| (paypal/cashapp being most common), and "customer" would provide
| proof of payment by sending screenshot of receipt that the owner
| then confirms.
|
| The premium account owner would also typically have a free/open
| account where they would post free content / teasers/etc,
| essentially marketing/advertising for their premium account. They
| would sometimes also market their account on Twitter and Reddit
| and especially Tinder (and one less popular app by the name of
| Whisper), much like OnlyFans content creators do today.
|
| As far as I know, this preceded the popularity of OnlyFans and
| remains a popular use case for Snapchat. I don't use Snapchat
| much myself nowadays, but I used to be a customer of many of
| these premium snaps years ago. When I do log in once in a while,
| many of these accounts are still active, though some are also
| advertising their OnlyFans.
|
| I think Snap officially bans this practice, but by nature these
| accounts are private and the owner adds users on a one by one
| basis, so I don't imagine they get reported a whole lot.
|
| The fact that the content is ephemeral surely helps and is
| probably one of the main reasons the content creators choose Snap
| as their platform. Snap also tells you when users screenshot your
| content, which would often result in getting banned from the
| premium Snap. Unlike OnlyFans, which cannot get in the AppStore
| and is relegated to being web-only, Snapchat is mobile-only,
| making it harder for users to download the content, which is
| another appeal for these "premium" content creators.
| nonameiguess wrote:
| It's kind of still amusing to me that Snapchat ever moved
| beyond being a niche platform like that. Heck, I might still
| have an account, but the only reason I ever did was around 2012
| or so when I first divorced and started seeing women again,
| they offered to send nudes, but only via Snapchat. What other
| purpose could a service that let you send disappearing pictures
| serve? It was clearly for sending nudes. Watching them become a
| VC darling and totally rebrand to something for kids was
| surreal.
|
| I'm kind of sad at your scenario, though. Receiving pictures
| from someone I actually got to meet and go on dates with was
| quite a bit more personal and fulfilling than subscribing to a
| mass semi-public feed from a professional adult performer. Pros
| always have to ruin everything.
| saos wrote:
| > I don't use Snapchat much myself nowadays
|
| Yeah It just disspeared out my life. Pretty sure its for
| youngens now. But, I did see it moving in a weird direction
| before deleting my account
| jsemrau wrote:
| I tried to use their filters for Zoom / Teambuildings (yes,
| It's tacky, I know) but had to realize that their filter
| discovery just doesn't work on the MacOS (at least)
| shoulderfake wrote:
| I still don't understand how onlyfans succeeds as a product
| when there is pornhub etc...someone explain this to me.
| cercatrova wrote:
| Interesting question. The answer is because people pay to
| have quasisocial relationships with the OnlyFans providers.
| On other sites with just videos, you don't get that same
| feeling.
|
| Basically, people are lonely and will pay to feel seen,
| heard, or loved.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| I haven't paid attention to Snapchat at all because my
| assumption was that the OnlyFans type ecosystem made up the
| majority of the platform's content.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I assume half of Reddit is only fans type content too.
| 52358 wrote:
| Some other things to mention: the premium content is almost
| exclusively in the form of stories, which disappear after 24
| hours of course. Sometimes creators offer extra services at an
| additional fee or if you buy a lifetime membership or whatnot
| (duck/face rates, custom photos/videos, phone calls, etc), all
| of which go through the Snap app. Some even have a menu which
| they re-post on their stories daily ($20 for a custom 3 minute
| video, $10 for a 5 minute phone call, etc, etc). Sometimes
| these are also sold as "packages". Photo/video archives in the
| form of links to folders on mega.nz and similar websites are
| other assets commonly sold this way.
| Ancalagon wrote:
| I really don't buy this. Almost all of my friends, who were
| prolific snap users in college, have converted away to instagram.
| Stories are so dead, and despite adding people most of my stories
| get the same ~15-20 views per 24 hours period.
|
| That's all very anecdotal, and so is my next point: I get a new
| bot or porn spam account adding me once or twice a week, some of
| which have large karma counts indicating they've been around for
| a while.
|
| So yes all of that is anecdotal but I suspect the bots I'm seeing
| are just the tip of the iceberg of what is actually making up the
| growing userbase of the app. Most of the young'ns appear to be on
| tiktok these days anyways.
| vmception wrote:
| Sex workers drive the story use on Snapchat.
|
| Every dating app is filled with sex workers and bots that act
| like them, advertising their snapchat username in their
| profiles 24/7 next to "I'm not on here much use my snap".
| People check it out whether they really interact with the
| broader platform or not.
|
| It doesn't really matter what you think your friends do
| socially, when people are hopping on when bored or on the
| toilet or before going to bed or when horny or lonely.
| rvz wrote:
| > Almost all of my friends, who were prolific snap users in
| college, have converted away to instagram.
|
| Anecdotes are not evidence. Is this what it has come to just to
| make a _' point'_?
|
| > So yes all of that is anecdotal but I suspect the bots I'm
| seeing are just the tip of the iceberg of what is actually
| making up the growing userbase of the app. Most of the young'ns
| appear to be on tiktok these days anyways.
|
| Some social networks have more bots than others. Especially
| more bots if the product is available as a web page unlike an
| app-based product which the barrier is higher. Given the
| security there, I doubt that there are millions of bots
| actively posing as users on Snapchat, verses the ones anyone
| encounters on Twitter, TikTok and Instagram.
|
| The kids these days are also certainly using TikTok, but
| clearly that has been banned in some countries. Take India for
| example, which Snapchat seems to be thriving there. [0]
|
| Regardless, I don't like or use either of these products since
| they are both essentially digital addictive drugs companies
| manipulating people on what is seen and unseen on their
| platforms. But I don't see how _' anecdotes'_ from anyone here
| hold true when the numbers from the earnings say otherwise.
| [1][2]
|
| [0] https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/technology/snap-
| hi...
|
| [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/20/snap-reaches-500-million-
| mon...
|
| [2] https://ca.movies.yahoo.com/snapchat-growing-faster-
| facebook...
| paxys wrote:
| What's your age group? There are very few people under 25-30
| who use Instagram. Everyone I know younger than that is
| religiously on Snapchat and TikTok.
| dlivingston wrote:
| I'm a big fan of Snapchat. I use it as a messaging app to keep
| up with a handful of close friends (edit: I am a late-20s male,
| for context).
|
| I have Instagram, TikTok, and the rest, but Snap is truly and
| unironically my favorite social media platform out there - bar
| none.
|
| The "disappearing-as-default" messaging, filters, snap map make
| it a fun, casual messaging app.
|
| The lack of public profiles, of "likes", of "discoverability"
| makes the app feel genuine. Few people are trying to be
| "Snapchat influencers."
|
| It's just nice (esp. in comparison to Meta's platforms) and I
| wish more people felt that way.
| twobitshifter wrote:
| How many views would you expect for your stories? 15-20 people
| caring about what you just did seems good to me on the surface
| atestu wrote:
| I'm in the same situation (minus bot since I delete the app),
| but I interpret it as: Snapchat is for young people and I'm not
| longer young. To me it means they're not growing old with their
| audience, they keep reaching new teenagers every year, which
| makes them very valuable to advertisers.
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