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Comment by kevando | Hacker News Reader

I think snapchat's timeout feature is a novelty that attracted users, but people ultimately just want to send private messages to their friends. Not everything needs to be broadcasted, and that's part of the OG instagram userbase - people that wanted an alternative to the facebook feed.

What's wrong with texting though? My friends and I have been texting and group texting images and short video for years. Why do people like having an app for this?

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Snapchat is the best way to have a quick conversation with someone that is photo-based. That is particularly useful for seeing someone's emotions outside of being face-to-face.

Text is dry. Snapchat lets me quickly message someone what I'm feeling.

It has almost nothing to do with disappearing messages.

I agree with this. At the risk of sounding nebulous, snapchat 'feels' different. It feels personal like the handwritten notes you pass in classrooms.

A text is more like someone handing a a slip of paper with a typed message.

An email is like someone handing you an 8.5x11 piece of paper.

Snapchat lets you be really gestural, for instance I draw on >95% of my snaps. In instances where I want to add text I draw it on with my finger.

The last snap I sent was to my girlfriend, it was an image of our dog with a ripped up shoe, I scrawled "How mad are you?" on it.

Not having to manage and deal with all the images people send you all the time is not a novelty. Smartphones all assume that every picture you have on your phone is a prize that you want to save forever. Snapchat gives people a way to send pictures that just avoid all that.

See that's what I'm saying. Someone texts you a photo, it doesn't go into your photo list. It stays in your text convo. I'm all for data management and removing clutter, but I can think of 500 items to clear out before I consider private photo messages from my closest friends.

I don't know what kind of smartphone you are using but every photo someone texts me ends up in my Android gallery.

iOS doesn't save images people send you automatically. It will save pictures you send to others on your Camera Roll though.

WhatsApp on iOS does that. Every Picture I receive is automatically saved.

You can simply turn this off in the settings ("Save Incoming Media": OFF).

I didn't know Android did that. If you're texting tons of photos I can see it getting out of control

Snapchat's timeout feature is not just a novelty, is it allowing for a whole different type of digital communication. The sender does not have to worry about where their image might show up. It frees people to take goofy photos and act more naturally (as opposed to all the posed, staged shots on Instagram and Facebook).

I don't know why this misconception keeps getting propogated. If the motivation to save pictures is there then a person will save the pictures. I have to believe it's the fad. I mean poke had this same feature yet it never took off

> If the motivation to save pictures is there then a person will save the pictures.

Considering most "snaps" are sent between friends and family these days, it's important to understand that friends aren't fucking each other over to save pictures of cats with finger-painted mustaches.

Of course, if someone is dead-set on saving a picture from Snapchat then it's possible... but Snapchat isn't about sending dick pics anymore. I believe it's outgrown that, the same way when Vine started with was essentially an amateur porn broadcasting app. For the general public, Snapchat images appear and then they go poof, but I agree with you... it's hard to stop dicks from being dicks no matter how you send your photos.

But the one objective fact about the situation is that Snapchat is still the most convenient way to send photos and videos that are reasonably guaranteed to virtually disappear. Saving them out of Snapchat secretly isn't a priority nor is it trivial for 99% of people using the service.

the point is that assumption should always be made that anything you share on any service will be saved our available. I have to believe it's more the fad and brand vs this false sense of security

No, it's not that they are guaranteed to disappear. It's that there is no expectation for them to last. It is an ephemeral image that doesn't need to be saved or managed or taken with the gravitas that living in your camera roll or being posted for the rest of time has.

taking the perspective of the receiver is hard to justify as well. I mean really deleting a mms or just disabling it in any of the messaging services really is not that hard.

And yet, here we are with snapchat being hugely successful. Maybe you just don't understand what makes a product like this successful, and why things that are "not that hard" may be something that literally nobody does for a certain reason because they are hard enough.

im not saying its not hard and im not saying I dont' understand it, but to claim its something more than just the fad and brand is what im questioning.

You send random things in SnapChat since you know it won't clutter your receiver's phone. It enables a whole new type of conversation and I'm sorry if you don't understand that. Fad or not SnapChat is a big part of me and my friends' life right now.

I agree it frees people up to do the goofy, but as someone who's been doing the goofy my whole life, snapchat does nothing to add value in that respect. It just promotes it and now people understand the goofy.

Regardless if you are goofy or not SnapChat enables you to share that goofiness in a whole new way. You wouldn't send the stuff you send on SnapChat in a text or share it on Facebook.

And it's about much more than just being goofy. You share random things from your daily life that are interesting but not interesting enough to be sent in a text or be posted on Facebook.

Image editing within the same application that sends the message is a real benefit vs. just sms-ing an image.

"What's wrong with texting though?"

Cost

Who is still paying for text messaging?

pretty much everyone outside the US, afaik...

Honestly I had no idea. I have TMO in the US, and haven't paid for texting (unlimited) in years.

Well, "not paying" would be more accurate. If you're paying for unlimited text it's not free.

Other places may have a fee for SMS but the monthly payment is still much lower than in the US

And yes, I'd rather have my phone, and pay less per month then get a phone "for free" but shell out $100 per month

I pay $50/month for unlimited calling, text, and data (5GB LTE speeds, then 2G) on T-Mobile. I pay outright for the phone (had a GalaxyNexus, moved to iPhone 5s). Its really not a bad deal.

Disclaimer: T-Mobile customer for 13 years.

True, not a bad deal at all

Some comparison values:

With 20€ per month on Ireland (pre-payed) one can get 250Mb AND Free calls in the network + free texts AND the 20€ for calls to other networks http://www.meteor.ie/pay-as-you-go/anytime-all-in/?linkid=pa... (if you go contract, the 20€ get you 1Gb Internet + 200Mins + Unlimited texts)

That is a shockingly low amount for prepaid data. T-Mobile has a $30/month unlimited (5GB 4G, then 2G) data and text plan (100 voice minutes).

> Why do people like having an app for this?

Cost. International availability.

Good point. My plan offers unlimited text and 98% of my friends are in the US so I often forget this.

MMS is horrendous and the picture quality is poor, plus you can't view it off of one's mobile.

Huh? MMS itself is completely irrelevant to the quality of the photo you send over it. If your phone's camera is good, the photo quality will be good also.

I wouldn't say it's completely irrelevant -- MMSes are heavily compressed by every phone OS I've ever used. Wikipedia lists a "recommended limit" of 300 kB[1], and Verizon's developer site lists a hard limit of 1.2 MB[2].

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multimedia_Messaging_Service

[2]: http://developer.verizon.com/content/vdc/en/verizon-tools-ap...

According to Wikipedia[1], "300 kB is the current recommended size used by networks due to some limitations on the WAP gateway side". While that is listed as "Citation Needed", other links from the the same search query lists sizes varying from 600KB to 1.2MB. A quick look at the files sizes at the images I've taken shows that most of my images are over 1000KB. So, there is some kind of re-sizing that needs to occur over SMS. Instagram and other similar services don't necessarily require such re-sizing, or possibly get around it by having you crop the image yourself, so the relative quality of the remaining portion remains higher quality as opposed to shrinking the entire image to fit the size restrictions.

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multimedia_Messaging_Service#Ch...

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