What is Snapchat, now that Story sharing has stopped growing?
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
Submitters: it'd be good if you'd take a minute to do some due diligence on articles like this before submitting them. The HN guidelines ask for original sources (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html), and this is the opposite.
The chief product architects of Instagram
No idea why it isn't that way today.
Otherwise save to your “memory” and have it long term for your own public consumption.
If they start going to be like Facebook and Twitter. I’ll immediately stop using it and i’m sure millions others will too.
However, I don't use Snapchat because none of my friends do, I've met some Americans traveling who use it and that is all, I think a lot of people don't even know what Snapchat is while everyone knows what Instagram is even if they don't use it, that is all because of network effects.
(And, to clear myself of the charge that I am invested in other platforms: I have neither a financial investment in, nor am I a user of, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, or any broadly similar product. I do use Whatsapp, very minimally.)
In the US, there are 23.8M children aged 12-17. If we average it out and assume that every year when a kid turns 13 they start using Snapchat, that's only 4M users a year. Given their growth of users is higher per quarter than that, they very well could be growing from exactly this source.
Just because they aren't growing at the same rate doesn't mean they aren't growing. In fact, if we expect the model you suggested, it seems that their growth rate will continue to slow as they accumulate more users but the birth rate of wealthy countries (primary users of Snapchat) stays at the levels expected. Even though the birth rate is increasing, I don't think it will as much as the percentage of users of Snapchat increases.
One thing I really, really like about what Snapchat is trying to do is go against what makes them money in order to make their user base happier. Separating Friends and Discover is bad for cash but good for customer experience. If they can keep my friends' snaps and advertisers' snaps entirely separated I would happily start snapping more.
As it is, I can't watch my friends' stories on either app without being forced through ads and I find it incredibly annoying.
The answer to this article's headline is, hopefully, "a fun place where I can share photos with my friends and not see an ad."
I'd hesitate to call Millennials 'kids' at this point. Hell, Millennial poster-person extraordinaire Lena Dunham is in her 30s.
> Millennials aren't looking down ...
pst, youngest millennials 18 now days[0], oldest 37.
So some of them get upset to get lumped with generation z[1] as kids. Other old enough to not care anymore.
btw, get of my lawn.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennials [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_Z
At some point the generation using Snapchat will realize that all the experiences they've been sharing have actually been going into the trash. Snapchat will then either become Instagram, or pivot, or die.
Because of this, I have been utterly fascinated by Snapchat's continued existence, partnerships with major media brands, and being publicly traded. It boggles my mind that the app I use to buy weed and see titty has such a large footprint. It always feels like reality will catch up to Snapchat, and the ecosystem will come crashing down once everyone else realizes the Emperor is not wearing any clothes, and he's using the app to send pictures of his unclothed behind to everyone else.
We sit on high and talk about the kids and perceptions of cool. But the elephant in the room is never discussing what people are actually doing with the app.
And to me, that is where the divide comes in. There is the Snapchat that is presented, the stories tab, and Snapcode links in Pepsi commercials. Then there is the Snapchat that is, how people are actually using it out in the wild.
Lets be real here.