[chamanbuga]

Snap will continue having an existential crisis as long as their platform is dependent on companies like Apple and Google. They are a camera company, and they need to use their expertise to beat Apple at the camera game, which is no easy task.

[creaghpatr]

Underrated comment in my opinion. Snap's long term potential lies in differentiating themselves with their hardware and UX like Apple did with the iPod /iPhone in the 2000s. An extremely hard task, but a more visible direction than a trench war with TikTok and Meta over generic social communications.

[selimthegrim]

How’s differentiating on cameras working out for Sony smartphones?

[vineyardmike]

Considering they sell that investment to the other big companies that put their cameras in their phones… probably good. Do you know otherwise about their financials?

[selimthegrim]

I meant market and mind share wise.

[vineyardmike]

46% market share. Largest chunk of the market.

https://www.diyphotography.net/sony-dominated-the-smartphone...

[sudosysgen]

Sony camera hardware has massive marketshare on phones. Sony hasn't particularly invested much in the phone camera hardware space, instead they basically ported the software of their full cameras on it, targeting the professional and prosumer market with features beyond easy good looking pictures for more demanding applications, and seem to be fairly successful for the fairly small niche they're going for.

[jjulius]

>They are a camera company...

Huh? Forgive my ignorance, and perhaps this speaks more broadly to a failure on Snap's own part to accurately convey that image, but the last thing that ever comes to my mind would be calling Snap a camera company. What makes them a camera company as opposed to a social media company?

[vineyardmike]

It’s their own self-definition. They call themselves a camera company.

That’s the justification for the investment in hardware, in AR filters, etc. They do “camera stuff”. To be fair, their camera stuff is good… their attempts to increase ad inventory (in app professional content etc) are not so good.