Is Snapchat Really Confusing, or Am I Just Old?

I think the authors has issues with Snapchat because he doesn't use it a lot.

Snapchat's best User manual is Word of mouth.

First time users just send a picture, then receive a picture back from their friend _With Text On It_ ! , what do they do: Send a text to the friend to get an explanation on how to do this magic trick. Same thing with drawing on the picture, lot of people gets it but didn't discover by themselves that you could actually change the color of your pen. When they first receive one with multiple colors, they ask how-to. Same thing with the embedded MPH, etc etc.

You would also receive some gossip from your friends: "Did you see that pic on Joe's story?" "His story?" And you get another explanation

On a side note, I think the ads "stories" are coming too early, Snapchat might loose its Cool factor.

Just because something's popular doesn't mean it's good. I'd bet that those 200 million "users" really only send a pic or two and then never use the app again.