[weisser]

So all 4 people mentioned (your daughter and the 3 in the parent) all use Facebook by way of Instagram.

This is why acquisitions happen and why buying Instagram when FB did may go down as one of the best buys. Missing Snapchat may be one of the biggest misses.

[smelendez]

My guess is that Snapchat will fade, like MySpace, LiveJournal or AIM.

It's great for teens and early adults, with tight knit social circles and the undivided attention to look at fast-disappearing posts, but that's not much of the population. Lots of people don't even understand how it works, while Facebook and Instagram are pretty intuitive.

My bet is the current audience will age out of Snapchat, gradually seeing it as something for kids, and the next group of kids will use something else entirely.

Of course, I could be wrong--I wouldn't have predicted Snapchat would get as big as it has, so more power to them if they can keep it going.

[billmalarky]

I've stopped naysaying snapchat the third time they made me feel stupid.

The first time was when I first heard of it, "that'll never take off what a dumb fad app."

The second time was when they turned down the $40MM offer from facebook.

The third time was when they turned down the $3B offer from facebook.

They're now valued at $16B. I don't bash snapchat anymore.

Turns out snapchat isn't just for messaging anymore, a lot of people watch the channels on it as if it was any other form of TV, and advertisers absolutely love it.

I'm sure it will be disrupted at some point, but I've stopped trying to "call it."

[weisser]

It may fade. Instagram may fade as well.

BUT even if they did, this is why investing in acquisitions makes sense. Theoretically everyone could stop using Facebook itself but it wouldn't matter as long as FB owned the platforms where everyone had migrated.

[toyg]

Progressive stratification does not imply companies will disappear. We might well end in a situation where people "graduate" from one social network to the next as they get older. So preteens will start on Snapchat, move to Instagram when going to high school, then Twitter and/or dating networks in college, LinkedIn as they hit the job market, and eventually Facebook when settling down.

Most of our cultural output (books, films etc) works like that already.

[mastazi]

Yeah when I read this article that was recently posted on HN [1] I though: what will be Snapchat's retention rate once these teens become adults? It seems to me that Instagram is better positioned in that respect.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11075336