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How Many Snapchat Clones Does It Take For Facebook To Lose Its Self-Respect? (theguardian.com)
Alex Hern, writing for The Guardian: Over the past year, Facebook has shown an almost monomaniacal dedication to taking on Snapchat by importing its defining features wholesale into the company's own apps. Facebook Live has "masks" now (think Snapchat's Lenses). Instagram has geostickers (like Snapchat's location-aware stickers.) WhatsApp has "Status" (think Snapchat Stories). Instagram has "Stories" (think ... Snapchat stories). The latest fruit of Facebook's labours is Messenger Day -- "a way for you to share these photos and videos -- as they happen -- by adding to your Messenger Day, where many of your friends can view and reply to them". It's Snapchat Stories. Again. [...] Facebook has seen potential threats on the horizon before, but its chequebook has always been enough to ward off real danger: that's why it bought Instagram, that's why it bought WhatsApp, and that's why it tried to buy Snapchat. But it couldn't get the company's fiercely independent co-founder, Evan Spiegel, to sell. And now it's in uncharted waters, with a competitor stealing advertising revenue, desirable millennial users, and industry credibility, and with no obvious way to reverse that trend. Facebook's time at the top probably isn't up. But its self-respect deficit is going to take years to pay off.
Do you think the average teenager or soccer mom who uses these features actually cares who invented what first? They are not reading these stories, they are not concerned with abstract hand-wringing. They just care if the platform they use does that cute little trick where they can overlay a cat nose on their face in realtime. Facebook knows this. They are appropriately more concerned with their bottom line than with the opinion of tech journalists. I just don't see the point. Competitors in every industry copy each other and try to one-up each other. that's the whole point. If you feel you are losing ground to X competitor because they rolled out Y new feature, you're going to also roll out Y new feature and hopefully add Z innovation on top of it, and X competitor may copy Z new innovation back in return. Why single out the feature arms race of social media?
I agree with your assessment of Snapchat. We're too old to understand it. Best I can do this conversation with my niece (13 y/o).
me: why do you use Snapchat?
niece: everyone is on it. Why aren't you using it?
me: can't you do the same thing with Facebook Messenger or any of the other chatting programs? I mean some of these "cool" features have been since ICQ and AIM.
niece: I-see what? You're a dinosaur like my mom, you still have a Facebook account.
me: you don't have a Facebook account? But you have an Instagram account that's own by Facebook
niece: yeah, but I only use the Instagram to read the stupid things people do like this "guacamole lady". I never post anything on Instagram.
me: so you use Snapchat because it's not Facebook?
niece: kinda, but mostly because the stupid things I say and do probably won't come back to haunt me when I use Snapchat. Messages disappear. And aren't you the one telling me to scrub my online present and watch for my privacy.
me: (teary eye..she actually listened)
niece: I have a school fundraiser
me: damn it, here's a $20 get some chocolate for yourself
TL:DR version: people use Snapchat because messages disappear, network effect and it's not Facebook.