Snapchat CEO Says Facebook Copied Its Features, But Not Its Values (axios.com)

Snapchat's CEO, Evan Spiegel, told an industry crowd that he doesn't obsess over Facebook's habit of adapting his social network's ideas. From a report: "I think it bothers my wife more than it bothers me," Spiegel said at the Code Conference Tuesday evening. "Fundamentally, it is important to understand that Snapchat is not just a bunch of features." [...] Referencing Snapchat's most famous feature -- posts vanish after 24 hours -- Spiegel quipped, "Maybe Facebook should copy Snapchat's data retention policies."

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Copying

[DrYak]

That would only make sense if something ever visibly changed on Facebook.

Facebook (the company) has visibly copied several features from the Snapchat (app) into their own collection of apps :
  - Instastories (ephemeral "top posts" by users) is basically on of the main features lifted from Snapchat.
  - Status posts in WhatsApp is yet another attempt at the same features in yet another Facebook-owned app.
  - Instagram also cloned nearly identically lots of post-processing that Snapchat. Instead of sticking to the "color filiter to copy the crappy quality of old photo gears used by hipsters" that initially started Instagram, there are now emoji stickers, effects, etc.

Basically Mark Zuckerberg knows that nothing is eternal. He has seen how MySpace eventually went out of fashion and how the generation after that went to Facebook. He knows that Facebook won't be eternal neither, and that eventually people will move to something else, too : Most of its userbase has now become moms and dads, and their kids aren't hanging in the some online places.

Mark has thus been fervently buying all the things showing chances of being "the next big thing". As WhatsApp and Intagram started to become popular among milenials, they where acquired by Facebook.
It turned to be a wise strategy : they are now major social networks.

But then came Snapchat - the thing that is currently popular with kids.
Except that this time round, despite all his offers and attempts, the Zuck couldn't buy them.

So, cloning the most popular feature from Snapchat into the apps that Facebook owns has been the alternative strategy to retain user base as much as possible.
Snapchat became popular with kids for two reasons : the perceived ephemeral messages (there is no "history", once it's gone, it's supposed to be definitely gone. And not everyone is a /. geek enough to know that nothing is really ever gone online) and the crazy amount of real-time video manipulation filters, stickers, etc.
Facebook cloned as much of it as possible.