Snapchat's decline and the secret joy of internet ghost towns

https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/18/17366528/snapchat-decline-internet-ghost-towns

by paulpauper • 8 years ago

79 36 8 years ago

natrik• 8 years ago

One of my friends who is still resolutely on Snapchat has told me that it gives her, “a space to be visible just to some people, to not have to share everything with everyone in order to share anything with anyone. That, to me, is too high a cost, and it’s a cost that so many other platforms require you to pay.”

One of the main reasons why I still use Snapchat.

jamesb933• 8 years ago

What I don't understand about snapchat is its functionally useless. Me and a small group of friends send funny images and like the silly bitmoji's but we never have a proper conversation on there or exchange anything of value. I don't really see it as a true social media.

aplummer• 8 years ago

What you just described (useless jokes) is not useless at all!

allthenews• 8 years ago

I find that it is a non committal means of getting to know a person through humor. At least within the context of dating. It is an excuse to share random, humorous nonsense about your life that would be out of place in text, and does not require a response.

rixed• 8 years ago

Wasn't that the main idea behind Google plus also?

ArtWomb• 8 years ago

Another "secret joy" is getting in early to new networks before the brands come rent seeking. Telegram communities have this feel, though many are invite only. Mastodon may be the next big one, and has a bit of an early Tumblr vibe.

eternauta3k• 8 years ago

You might be interested in this article about subculture dynamics: https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-sociopaths

jamesb933• 8 years ago

I really find Mastodon really empty. I had a look and the first things that popped up into my federated feed were escorts.

CrystalLangUser2• 8 years ago

It depends on where you look and who you follow. Swifter.at became a refuge for sex workers and is one of the larger instances.

However, you can filter instances, and/or sign up on an instance that blocks switter users.

There is activity, especially if you sign up on a huge instance like mastodon.social (although I don’t recommend this). instances.social lists all active instances that you can peruse through.

deevolution• 8 years ago

Thats likely because sex workers are being banned from centralized social media services and censorship is difficult on a federated network such as Mastadon.

fjsolwmv• 8 years ago

Is Snap considered a doomed failure now? It got to IPO and tanked, did early investor/owners effectively bilk the sharebuying public?

skybrian• 8 years ago

I use Google Plus in a similar way, except as a link blog. Hardly anyone is listening. At first that was a concern, but I've come to enjoy it.

olivermarks• 8 years ago

Remember the echo in Apples old 90's social network eworld? There was never anyone there, it was like being in an empty shopping mall

vackosar• 8 years ago

urbex of the web?

joejerryronnie2• 8 years ago

Every young person I know and see around me in general is using snapchat as a primary means of communication. The real user base is not boomers, gen-xers, and perhaps not even millennials but rather gen z. As such, it will take some time for them to grow into their full earning potential as a generation. If snap continues to innovate and meet the needs of this user base, they could do very well in the future.

This also assumes snap hires people who know how to run a successful tech business. They may need to move their HQ and primary strategic operations away from LA and up to SV or SF to take advantage of the concentration of tech talent (not just devs but execs, sales, product mgmt, devops, marketing, etc).

bitpush• 8 years ago

I find this hard to believe (I'm not doubting you, your experiences are valid)

Snapchat used to be where gen-z were, but now with Instagram "adopting" the story format it became easy for all those folks to post stories on IG itself.

joejerryronnie2• 8 years ago

They are using IG and snapchat for different things. These two apps are not seen as mutually exclusive.

martintribo• 8 years ago

This has been my experience as well. The several younger people I know (high school age) also use it. I was told they use instagram for general posts, and snapchat for communicating.

pietroglyph• 8 years ago

This also fits my experience (if you're looking for another data point.) Snapchat just needs to recognize this and capitalize on it correctly.

paulie_a• 8 years ago

The amateur porn sharing platform tried to expand it's scope too much.

newfocogi• 8 years ago

I just asked several friends, all millennials, if they thought snapchat use was declining among their friend groups (semi disparate), and all said no and were surprised I asked. Obviously a biased sample, but just another data point.

argonaut• 8 years ago

As a millenial myself, I've seen Snapchat usage stay roughly the same, but I've seen an explosion in Instagram usage. So IMO it's really just that Snapchat is stagnating relative to Instagram, and stagnation is death for a social network.

whymauri• 8 years ago

I'm convinced the death of Snapchat will be its failure to expand to new international markets like South America. Insta, FaceBook, WhatsApp, etc (all FB owned) have exploded and maintained themselves overseas. Meanwhile, a year ago reports came up that Evan Spiegel of Snapchat said that his app is not for poor countries like India.

That hubris is dangerous. I can't wait for the company to go under.

thought_alarm• 8 years ago

Back in the 2000s I was probably the only one in my friend group who had any sort of presence on the internet. There was no way I could convince any of my friends to start a blog or join LiveJournal. Even sites like Flickr was a stretch.

Instead there were some old ICQ accounts that no one used anymore, and occasionally someone would send out a group email with some photos attached.

And then it's 2007, Facebook appears out of nowhere, and suddenly all of my friends are sharing like mad on the internet, as is everyone else.

My first impression was that this is great. Finally my friends are on the internet. Facebook is like Internet for Dummies. Six months later I would deactivate my Facebook account.

I do miss LiveJournal though, or at least the idea of it.

agumonkey• 8 years ago

I miss nascent movements like pre facebook era. Maybe it's a psychological profile. I'm a contrarian and/or an early adopter. When things become too massive and somehow impersonal (even though it's a social network) the magic vanishes to my eyes.

oldcynic• 8 years ago

So do I. Made a few very close friends via LJ. All non technical oddly enough.

Up til that point, people would type. If they were having a bad time they'd type A LOT. You couldn't help getting to know them better than you did.

Then Facebook etc arrived, and now it's "Life's shit. Inbox me", if that, or a photo of lunch/cat/coffee.

I think we took a wrong turn somewhere along the way.

bovermyer• 8 years ago

If you have a WordPress.com account, you can start a private blog and invite friends to it. It's very similar to how LJ used to work.

KasianFranks• 8 years ago

Another example of the transient nature of social technology companies (aol, friendster, myspace, facebook, twitter [fill in the blank]) compared to algorithmically founded technology companies (Google).

pram• 8 years ago

I still can’t believe you can’t look at Snapchat in a browser/desktop, makes it useless for me. Instagram is far more accessible.

newscracker• 8 years ago

If the allusion here is that Instagram is a lot better, anecdotal experience of one person suggests that Instagram is no different. More people seem to be creating Instagram accounts to promote stuff or to create a brand.

People tend to follow many others just in the hope of a Follow Back or getting more engagement on their posts. It's like Twitter all over again. The number of likes that posts get seems to be extremely low compared to the number of followers (except those who are celebrities of some sort or were already famous for something). The likes also tend to be done with an expectation of getting more likes. What's worse than the number of likes? That'd be the number of comments. Most people's posts, except those of a personal nature intended for (real) friends, tend to get no comments at all. It looks like a ghost town. Or rather, a zombie town, with the inhabitants chanting "follows", "likes", and so on.

There's way too much content, way too small screens to consume them on (photos and videos), and way too less time for it all.

Snapchat's decline and the secret joy of internet ghost towns

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