Instagram and Snapchat share exactly 1 feature ("Stories"), so I really don't see how this shows that Snapchat is failing due to Google/FB monopoly, and not due to the reason I listed above.
Instagram is more analogous to Twitter, and I assume advertisements occur both within the "Stories" and the newsfeed - this seems much more favorable to advertisers and is something advertisers are more used to.
When Facebook can graft Snap features onto every endpoint of their network, there's no oxygen left for Snap. They cannot get scale, and that's what you need in advertising.
The online advertising world has changed a lot since Facebook's IPO. 180m users and an awkward ad buying experience aren't as compelling as they used to be.
Plus, it sounds like not all of those 180m Snapchat users are interacting with the part of Snapchat where they would see ads, so the audience is smaller.
That said, I completely agree that a lack of users isn't preventing them from having a decent advertising business. It's just preventing them from doing it on the terms they want.
They got scale, particularly among the younger demographic where the product was wildly popular. They never cracked an advertising model that worked.
I buy that it's harder for startups to break into social today, but that's true of most industries as they consolidate, I don't know that it means they're a monopoly.
Slack is a social networking tool that has managed to grow and scale by focusing on different use cases and by using a different business model.
If Snap had figured out how to get to profitability, or even focused more on reaching out to older users they may have found themselves in a different situation.
I haven’t seen ads on Instagram stories, just intermingled in the feed. They are spookily relevant and noticeable.
Snapchat ads come at the end of 1 person’s story, or between random people if you have multiple peoples’ stories queued. I never do the latter because it’s a dark pattern to make you wait for the ad to finish before the next story, so I always watch 1 person, and swipe out if there’s an ad. In general, it seems like Snapchat ads are higher production quality and less relevant.
The Stories feature is _by far_ the most valuable to advertisers. It's reductionist to diminish that to "one feature they share". Particularly because Instagram straight up copied Stories from Snapchat.
And why do you think they are doing that? These customers are monitoring their ROI from these ads.. they know if they are effective.
Do you really think any of these customers are saying to themselves: "Gee Snapchat ads are so effective and are making us so much money... we better stop it immediately."
Instagram is more analogous to Twitter, and I assume advertisements occur both within the "Stories" and the newsfeed - this seems much more favorable to advertisers and is something advertisers are more used to.