[afreak]

I say this with hesitation but I believe that Snapchat, with all of its idiotic flaws is an indication of how the future of social networking platforms will be. It demonstrates that you can have a service where your friends are known but the content is seemingly temporary, allowing for some semblance of control.

I don't think that Snapchat is the future, but it does make me think that the ideas around it are what will make Facebook lost to younger generations.

Being anonymous is not important to most people. If it were, news website comments would be more palatable where real identities are required--far from the case.

[sneak]

> I say this with hesitation but I believe that Snapchat, with all of its idiotic flaws is an indication of how the future of social networking platforms will be.

Snapchat only really delivers on its promise because of the kind of user-hostile DRM Stallman and his ilk have been screaming warnings about for years.

Its children and derivatives cannot reasonably exist in a future in which end users have real control over their computers.

[pjc50]

It's interesting that this is a case where DRM transfers power from one user to another: from recipient to sender. The only other case I've come across where this kind of transfer is accepted as beneficial is anti-cheat systems in games.

[gknoy]

I worry about the "seemingly" part. Sometime, whether due to law enforcement pressure or poor design, ephemeral chat messages/pictures will no longer be temporary -- and as users we might never know until it's too late.

Interesting thoughts about anonymity not being important to most people, and the future of social networking, though. I'd never thought about it that way before, but it seems compelling.