[iagooar]

That's what happens if all your business does is sending pictures around. What's the intrinsic value of it?

Of course people will uninstall the app as quickly as it's uncool or they are told to by their idols.

If Snapchat generated any kind of value / saved a lot of time, people couldn't afford to just get rid of it.

[bringtheaction]

Snapchat does not just send pictures around. First of all a big part of their value proposition is ephemeral communication in a time and age where everything lasts for ever. Yes there are ways to work around it (using an unofficial client that allows you to save snaps without telling the other person you did) but still.

Additionally, Snapchat has a bunch of effects that you can add on top of videos that people enjoy, for example the dog ears and nose and tongue.

And Snapchat has text chat and group chat.

And Snapchat has “stories” that you can post pictures and videos to and view other peoples “stories”. A story is a feed. You can either post to a story that your friends can see or a story that people in a group can see or to “our story” that everyone can see.

The intristic value is communication. They are far from the only one to let you communicate but they have a polished product and they are offering a different sort of communication than a lot of others do.