I agree with you that it's mostly not good. However, I wandered into a conversation with a bunch of DC journalists late at night and they were openly gossiping (probably all slightly inebriated) and saying things that almost assuredly were supposed to be off-the-record. It was fascinating and eye-opening as well as very entertaining.

The attraction of CH is exactly this: getting to hear things you would ordinarily not be "allowed" to hear. When it first started more of these types of conversations were happening and it did feel like you were part of the "in group" getting to hear things that ordinary people weren't privy to.

Making secrets explicit as a business model is not sustainable though. As more and more people file into the app creators are going be less and less explicit and all that will be left is the banal and boring (which may be enough actually, as the app is still addicting if you're a lurker).

Here's my prediction: CH is here to stay, but it will hit a ceiling. Additionally some people on the app are clearly playing with fire and we will likely see someone important get into trouble on the app and that will be the end of the (already dying) cool factor of the app.