[banusaur]

A) They have the capacity to deliver state-of-the-art technology and can easily dominate with a surge of money for mass-production of electronics. On a whim they could deliver unparalleled face recognition for instance: https://hackernoon.com/is-snap-inc-building-a-wearable-face-...

B) They're worth so much because on any given day, the app reaches 41 percent of all 18-to-34-year-olds in the United States. They have amazing potential as a platform for advertising, recruiting, sales, and so much more. They're probably not making money yet because they're not done honey-potting everybody like Facebook circa-2008.

You may be right about a bloated WhatsApp $19B price, because the Snapchat data is much more valuable and going for $4B.

[duaneb]

Is there any indication they can monetize their audience? Twitter claimed to. How is snapchat different?

[banusaur]

They have the ability to monetize unexplored territory like face recognition and AR in real, meaningful ways. They've built an amazing technical team and are in position to execute on ideas that could have an incredible impact on the way humans interact in real life. They are among a few tech companies whose tech could cause a cultural paradigm shift akin to what we saw with the introduction of the smartphone. This should be an exciting couple of years.

[duaneb]

While I agree they are working on cool things, this is entirely separate from an ability to monetize it. This is the part I doubt; I don't see anything that indicates they would succeed where twitter failed.

[nv-vn]

AR filters are huge on the app. Being able to use them as advertisements has already proven successful.

[duaneb]

Hmm, I'll believe that when they turn a profit.