[beager]

More to the point, this "killer feature" is easily cloned by a competitor and shows that the product creates no competitive barriers. Coupled with the fact that the cloner has a much better idea of their users and can target ads much more successfully, this creates a long road for $SNAP.

[DrScump]

  More to the point, this "killer feature" is easily cloned by a competitor

... which is why I was skeptical of Groupon's value from the outset.

[beager]

And much has been written of that, and that's exactly the same way I feel about Uber.

(And every time I mention that about Uber on HN, people point out that they can get Uber in any city in the world, so why would anyone who never travels use anything else?)

[stale2002]

Too be fair, a big thing with all these social apps is network effect.

Snap had first mover advantage, which is nothing to scoff at.

[thaumasiotes]

> More to the point, this "killer feature" is easily cloned by a competitor

This doesn't really agree with

> The problem is that this killer feature is easily subverted

Let's let one company implement the feature before we decide it will be easy for competitors to implement it too.

[gomox]

WhatsApp, Instagram and FB all have it now. TBH I only see widespread use of it on Instagram, but everyone around me seems to have stopped giving a crap about Snapchat since.

[thaumasiotes]

You missed my point. Do WhatsApp, Instagram, or Facebook Messenger have working ephemeral messages? Or do they have marketing that claims they have ephemeral messages?

The feature is fundamentally impossible in exactly the same way as DRM, because it is DRM. You're sending someone a bunch of data and saying "now, you promise not to look at this, right? Except once."

[neksus]

As someone who works on Instagram Direct, I can assure you we have ephemeral messaging.

[thaumasiotes]

How do you stop people from recording their messages?

Snapchat takes two approaches (that I know of): First, they don't stop it, but the messager is supposed to be notified when it happens. They know this doesn't work and can't work, though; avoiding screenshot detection isn't even considered a reportable bug. (see https://hackerone.com/snapchat )

Second, they have a legal barrier, in that using a third-party client to communicate over Snapchat violates their terms of service.

Notably, neither of those makes the messages any more ephemeral. This makes sense, because stopping people from recording messages that you send them is not an achievable goal. Barring some sort of supernatural influence, it's no more achievable for Instagram than it is for Snapchat.