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Comment by snarf21 | Hacker News Reader

Because Facebook wants to run Snap into the ground. That is why they are trying to steal all of their users to their own messaging apps. Instagram Stories has done that some but they want more. There are also some users that would prefer to just use one app than have 5 to switch between. The carrot is 'You already use WhatsApp and now you can do Snapchat without leaving. Cool, huh?' I'm not sure I agree but I think that is the attack vector.

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> Facebook wants to run Snap into the ground

I think it's more Facebook wants what Snap's got. Snap has visibility into bits of time social graph Facebook doesn't, and the latter doesn't like that. Vindictiveness isn't a good long-term strategy; ruthless territoriality is.

I think this is Facebook's 9th or 10th thinly-veiled attempt to siphon users away from Snapchat. Previous direct attempts at cloning included Poke (2012) and Slingshot (2014), which didn't work at all, so they've settled for slowly cloning and integrating Snapchat features into Whatsapp and Instagram.

Have to agree with the conclusion of this Guardian article that has documented the phenomenon:

"With attempts six and seven coming in the same month, and eight, nine, and 10 coming in the same weekend, it’s clear that Facebook’s attacks on Snapchat are accelerating. Some back-of-the-envelope maths suggests that at the current rate of acceleration, there will be more Facebook clones of Snapchat than there are atoms in the universe by the year 2030. And yet Snapchat will probably still be more popular among teens."

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/31/facebook-...

facebook learned well the myspace lesson - users don't like to use on multiple social networks - and the generational nature of cool - and snapchat is having monster growth in the younger population

> I think it's more Facebook wants what Snap's got.

You know, you can do both. Even though FB can get its users make stories in its apps, the teens/millenial audience which Snapchat has is what FB want.

The more I think about Fb's strategy, the less I'm convinced they are worried about Snap's dominance in the younger crowd.

Instagram Stories is FB's direct shot at Snapchat and from my understanding, it is doing pretty well and growing.

WhatsApp is barely used in the US but heavily used outside the US. I think WhatsaApp Status is FB's play to bring Snapchat to the millions of users not in the US - stifling Snap's international growth through network effects.

My bet is they'll add SMS ( maybe + RCS) support to WhatsApp soon as well and then more slowly go with the WeChat model of becoming your everything app.

I am intrigued. What messaging app do people in the US use? SMS? Or iMessage? What cross-platform messaging is the most common in US? I mean to ask "used overall" and not by a particular age group.

Here in India I used to think it's only WhatsApp pretty much then I realised there are many apps which have substantial user-bases e.g. hike messenger (hike.in). I was surprised that Viber still has decent number of users in India and then of course there is Fb Messenger.

people I know from US mostly use, Line or iMessage. And yes whatsapp is not much known in US to many people. Strange but true.

Teens aren't millennial. They're gen z.

Different users of the "Millenial" label start the cohort, by birth year, anywhere between 1976 and 1984 and end it anywhere between 1994 and 2004, with some assigning no end point yet or suggesting a potential later end point than 2004. [0]

Depending on the which of those end points is taken, either all teens, late teens, or no teens are Millenials.

[0] A (probably incomplete) breakdown is available on Wikipedia, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennials#Date_and_age_ran...

Facebook is just never going to get the same demographics as Snapchat. Period. Snapchat is currently seen as something that is used exclusively by teens and younger people while everyone and their grandma is on facebook, making it "uncool". I'm curious to see what happens when the older generation moves into Snapchat.

You're making that assuming from a US viewpoint. In Germany every kid in school is on WhatsApp, as my teacher friends tell me. The same is probably valid for other markets.

In The Netherlands everyone is on WhatsApp, and instead of sending a text message or something like that, it is common to hear "Ik zal even een appje sturen" (I will sent you an WhatsApp message), or "Ik app je wel" (I'll WhatsApp you).

It got shortened... to just "app".

Brazil too. Everybody use WP.

But, to be honest, I think this is a horrible move. Make clear that WP will move more in the direction to become more Social. I have thousands of contacts saved that I have no intention of having any social interaction that is not straightforward. My mechanic, the person who cuts my hair, my gardener, a girl I met yesterday, the person I sold my car to. With all these, I interacted using Whats app. But with none of them, I want to share what I share with my friends, my relatives etc.

My facebook is frozen exactly because of this. WP, especially its groups, was a territory of segregated interaction, this was spectacular. Facebook inc could kill this by including functions like that.

I remember when MSN, Skype, and others message programs have tried put a feed inside their app. They failed.

Not cool, imagine sending your x-rated shit to grandma or dad. You could with one app, harder to do on different apps.

heh

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