[thanatropism]

So. Everyone seems to be doing this. Even FB Messenger has a huge button I keep fatfingering that pulls up a camera. Once already I got dirty looks because it looked like I was about to photograph a pretty girl in a short skirt.

It's well beyond redundant to say that the whole thing is network effects and demographics, but -- I basically love this idea and really want it to catch on. But I'm in my mid-thirties; all my friends are 27+, some in their 50s.

I know I'm supposed not to be in the prize age bracket marketers are looking for. Still, I'm single-ish with single/serial monogamous adult friends who have disposable income.

[yeukhon]

The fatfinger anecdote happened a lot so I feel you. As far as the network effect, I think all ages can benefit. I know many older users are getting hyped using these "younger" technology. I once met a nursing practitioner who is probably in his late 40s, early 50s. He plays Pokemon Go and he's almost done with the Gen II after ~3 weeks into the new release, while I, in my mid 20s is struggling to complete my Gen 1 pokedex.

There's something about the older generation that some people dismiss as the minority, but the facts are (1) like you said, older folks have higher spending potential, and (2) the effect of kids using technology will influence how kids' elders use technology. So being family friendly is quite a product attraction. I don't use Snapchat because my friends all use FB and Instagram, so I prefer sticking to the platform where my social circle is. I did try Snapshot a few years back.

[cpcat]

Do you know what would make this idea more approachable for you and your friends? Maybe more serious/relatable filters and stickers, easier to use, or not too self focused? I'd be interested to know.

[thanatropism]

Eh, I want my friends to be there. The damn network effect.

I would soften the radical emphasis on the camera. In the times of MSN Messenger and while Gmail chat was an actual thing, we used to really use status lines to communicate mood and such. What sucks about Facebook and Twitter is that you can't use it for that kind of throwaway social-being-together-online. Instead, it's always about engineering an identity.

I'd love to have something like a 12 hours-lived feed where I didn't have to worry that me-in-the-very-near-future doesn't feel well represented by that.

[thanatropism]

Addendum: I googled "Mitsein" and this is brilliant. What I want is a self-erasing Twitter-like that knows this:

"The term "Being-with" refers to an ontological characteristic of the human being, that it is always already[8] with others of its kind. This assertion is to be understood not as a factual statement about an individual, that he or she is at the moment in spatial proximity to one or more other individuals. Rather it is a statement about the being of every human, that in the structures of its being-in-the-world one finds an implicit reference to other humans. We all live with others, and in fact we could not live without them. Humans have been called (by others, not by Heidegger) "ultrasocial"[9] and "obligatorily gregarious."[10] Without others of our kind we could not survive. Heidegger, from his phenomenological perspective, calls this feature of human life "Being-with" (Mitsein), and says it is essential to being human.[11] We are inauthentic when we fail to recognize how much and in what ways how we think of ourselves and how we habitually behave is influenced by our social surroundings. We are authentic when we pay attention to that influence and decide for ourselves whether to go along with it or not. Living entirely without such influence, however, is not an option."