
Snap’s Drop in Active Users Could Signal a Social Media Peak - gk1
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/07/technology/snapchat-users.html
======
Alex3917
We might be at a local maximum, but we're nowhere near the peak. What we're
seeing is an end of the race to the bottom.

What's happened is that most of the major social networks only hire and
promote people who make decisions primarily based on analytics. As a result
these sites no longer have any real communities or organic content, and have
been completely hollowed out by math-friendly refrigerator magnet junkfood.
Even though everyone can recognize that most users no longer find these
experiences to be compelling, they're all stuck in a one-way spiral.

Web 3 is just getting started though, and with new technologies are going to
come novel and compelling forms of social interaction.

~~~
benwerd
> What's happened is that most of the major social networks only hire and
> promote people who make decisions primarily based on analytics. As a result
> these sites no longer have any real communities or organic content, and have
> been completely hollowed out by math-friendly refrigerator magnet junkfood.

_Exactly_ this. Rather than understanding their users as real humans, having
unique insights about them, and building something that meets their real
needs, everything has been about maximizing hollow engagement metrics. And
guess what? That's good for short term revenue but not long term trust. If
you're running a startup and the main way you learn about your users is
through statistical tracking and A/B testing, you're missing an important
opportunity to get to know them properly. They will lead the way and although
you can't simply ask them what they want, if you understand them deeply you'll
know what to do.

I'm excited about the next wave of platforms, which are tapping into enormous
unmet needs. It's early days, and I can't stand the "web 3" label, but there's
definitely going to be a sea change.

~~~
blitmap
I don't want to sound like an ass because I wholeheartedly agree with you. The
experience is hollow.

But you can't invest in things you can't quantify. You can't make money off of
good vibes and authenticity without metrics. Snapchat and the like have thrown
enormous money at understanding humans and have the best people in their
fields to get this right.

I think what worked 10 years ago no longer flies now. How we socialize on the
web has changed, and we're turned off by the traditional mechanics to keep us
viewing. There are many alternatives to the service Facebook offers, but I'd
like to people aren't 'showing off' as much anymore and are having more 1-to-1
or small friend-group experiences. The larger community is almost always
toxic.

Look at cord-cutting: For the longest time we just ignored commercials, until
we didn't.

~~~
superflyguy
"But you can't invest in things you can't quantify."

From:[https://genius.com/Frank-zappa-drooling-midrange-
accountants...](https://genius.com/Frank-zappa-drooling-midrange-accountants-
on-easter-hay-lyrics)

Once upon a time, a record company had A&R people in it who would take a
chance, make a decision, use their gut reaction, sign a group, and see what
they could do with it. Okay? That was, whoa, a long time ago. It's not that
way anymore. All decisions about who get signed and what happens to the record
are made by these drooling little midrange accountants. And everything is
based on the numbers games in there. And the taste of the accountants is what
is ruling the mass media."

Continues at link.

This attitude is like trying to predict the weather tomorrow by just guessing
it'll be the same as today. You're right most of the time...

~~~
auxbuss
`A&R` by Bill Flanagan[0] is a fun read about the now deceased world of A&R.
Of special interest to anyone interested in the music business who wasn't
around pre-internet.

[0]
[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1163779.A_R](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1163779.A_R)

------
leon_sbt
I really wish social media would "peak" to towards meeting people in real life
semi-spontaneously.

No profiles, no media uploads, no digital showboating. The best relationships
I have with other people fall in this category. Real life,common interests,no
digital uploads.

Just add attributes of your geolocation and hobbies [biking,
yoga,tensorflow,etc] or let it crawl your digital profile(s) to autobuild your
attributes identity. The system will group people with similar
personalities/attributes. Every once in a while, "the system" it sends you a
text "Free at 9am? Mountain biking at X park for an hour with beer after with
3 new people? Text yes to opt-in"

Get revenue by having businesses bid on being the beer spot. Refine the
algorithm by having an anonymous rating system after the fact.

I like Meetup but it must be taxing to always manage the
organization/logistics of a meeting.

Yes. I just realized I blended the show Betas,an episode of Black Mirror, and
the 2016 movie Nerve together.

Edit: Grammar

~~~
CamperBob2
This does seem like a powerful idea. The problem of networking friends,
family, and co-workers has more or less been solved, but the problem of
putting together complete strangers with shared interests and coincident
physical locality really hasn't even been attacked except in very constrained
use cases (i.e., dating services).

It's possible that the next big wave of social networks will be less
"Facebook" and more "Spacebook."

~~~
welly
I'm not sure how you can say this when Meetup has been around for years. It
does exactly what you describe.

~~~
CamperBob2
By the same token, what does Facebook do that MySpace didn't?

~~~
welly
My comment was in response to:

"the problem of putting together complete strangers with shared interests and
coincident physical locality really hasn't even been attacked except in very
constrained use cases (i.e., dating services)."

When clearly Meetup have both attacked and been very successful in "putting
together complete strangers with shared interests and coincident physical
locality". That's exactly what they do, would you not agree?

~~~
CamperBob2
I'm honestly not that familiar with Meetup. I thought it was basically just a
calendar for keeping track of local events. Do people maintain profiles or
personal pages on it?

------
dkrich
How did this article make the New York Times? It’s awful.

I listened to the entire Snap conference call and Spiegel directly attributed
the drop in active users to the app redesign, a fact that wasn’t mentioned
until 2/3 of the way through the article.

Moreover, they gave no guidance for DAU projections, and merely said that
historically fewer users are active in the third quarter than the second. This
does not equate to a longer trend, it simply implies that fewer people are
active in the late summer months than the late spring/early summer which seems
to make sense.

It seems like the NYT more and more either wants to report negatively on the
social media industry or has more success from these sensationalist headlines.
What happened to thoughtful fact-based reporting?

~~~
mrweasel
>Spiegel directly attributed the drop in active users to the app redesign

I wouldn't be surprised. Navigation is all over the place in Snapshot. Try
sending a snap, and now I'm suddenly view stories from people I don't know,
with no clear way of getting out. I can see some users jut giving up on using
the app.

~~~
hrrsn
Just anecdotally, most of my friends stopped using Snapchat after the horrific
redesign and moved to Instagram stories. Can't say I blame them

------
paxy
Seems like just a Snap peak to me. Article doesn't mention Instagram, its most
direct competitor, or tons of other non-Facebook/Twitter social networks that
are gaining popularity (Reddit, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Twitch, even WhatsApp,
and many country-specific ones).

~~~
willio58
As a long time Snapchat user i know my friends at this point like Instagram
more. Snapchat’s recent interface changes make little sense and sometimes
serve to actively confuse the user experience. Classic case of fixing
something that wasn’t broken.

~~~
nsx147
They made the change so they could build out their ad platform and make money.
Which they beat estimates on revenue

------
ngngngng
To me Snapchat is just instagram with a shit user interface that I don't have
the time to learn.

~~~
drb91
Well, if you're using anything with ads, expect the experience to suck.

~~~
godzillabrennus
Snap's UI is horrendous and it has nothing to do with ads. Kids can invest
innumerable hours to find and utilize all the hidden ways to interact but your
average adult is just going to do the basics and will put it down.

That's fine. Kids are often the market these social media companies target as
they launch anyway.

~~~
ngngngng
Snaps ui is one step above a text based terminal, I just have to learn all the
swipes and taps and menu layouts through trial and error.

~~~
godzillabrennus
At least software that ran in a text based terminal would customarily come
with a manual.

Snap is a lot like that magic bag in Harry Potter that was bigger on the
inside. You never knew what was in there till you stuck your hands in and
hoped for the best.

------
dosy
Does HN qualify as "social media"?

We are not anywhere near "Peak Social Media". Otherwise investor valuations
would not be what they are.

Even discounting they can predict the future, Zuck hasn't even got started on
his VR/AR "ready player 1" social network dream yet, decentralized social
media hasn't had its try for the title yet, and the non-social big 5 are still
waiting for FB weakness for their chance to strike with something new.

Not to mention whatever comes out of the BRICS countries that may be some
innovation over SV social media tech.

This baby still has a lot of miles left in it, I think.

Fundamentally, people's desire for distraction / convenient "human connection"
has not yet been sated. (Will it ever?)

~~~
jryan49
Investor validations of tech before the bubble wasn't super accurate. I mean
facebook lost 20% of it's value in a day, how does that not scream speculative
bubble?

~~~
slantaclaus
Facebook’s PE is like 25. Best to stay focused on valuation metrics.
Historically it’s a steal, in fact I expect it slide back to 30 in the near
term

------
joeblau
My main question is: Where are people going? It seems like there is a slight
dip in usage across all social media, but I'm trying to figure out where those
hours/days/weeks are being spent. Are people turning to more real-life
activities, just broadcasting and communicating less, turning to other up and
coming platforms, or relying more on private messaging?

~~~
i_am_nomad
Outside?

~~~
Finnucane
Arts & crafts. They’re all ‘makers’ now.

~~~
pcerdam
I think that's very good, to be honest.

~~~
Finnucane
For myself, I just got a saxophone.

------
Raphmedia
We dropped Snap because it moved from being that nice platform to share
tidbits of your life with your friends to a platform made to push ads in your
face.

The "Snapchat" we have today is an entire different app experience to the one
we all adopted into our lives. If you build a new app and then skin it to make
it pass like something else, users are going to notice and move on.

It doesn't help that they keep moving features around. First your friends'
stories were on the left swipe screen. Then they moved them among the ads to
the right. Then then moved them back left... and now they are back on the
right screen with the ads. To be honest, I haven't watched any of my friends'
story in age because why bother learning where they are every few months?

------
whalesalad
Users are jumping ship to Instagram. Once they duplicated the functionality it
was the nail in the coffin for snap. If I had a ton of cash lying around I’d
short the stock to zero. Insta was Facebooks greatest acquisition.

~~~
scarejunba
Three thousand dollars will get you options until 2020 that you can cash in
for $50k worth. You don't need a ton of cash if you think they're going to
zero.

~~~
whytaka
How exactly do I do this?

~~~
fwn
Remember that even Myspace is still around. Betting zero is a radical act.

~~~
westpfelia
Myspace was never itself a publically traded company. They had the backings of
News Corp to not die.

------
colordrops
What does this title even mean? We aren't at peak social media until we are
embedded in a mechano-biological matrix hive mind. I'm not joking.

~~~
gnode
"Peak social media" (like "peak oil") doesn't mean maximum theoretically
attainable consumption, but the point in time at which consumption is highest,
and can thereafter be expected to only ever be less.

------
rblion
I'm one of them. I deactivated my Facebook in January too.

I use Twitter for 5-10 minutes a day to keep up with a few topics of interest.

Instagram for 5-10 minutes a day to get some cool nature and travel photos, a
few people I genuinely care about.

HN and Reddit keep in the loop for all the things I am interested in and allow
me to discuss them anonymously with other people who are as into them as I am.

I just see my family and friends in person.

------
nickwalter
Or just that Instagram stories is killing them

------
ramshanker
I am pretty sure 250 million+ people in my country India are still not on SO
CALLED social network, they are not even on internet yet. So , we are far away
from Peak Social.

------
mayankkaizen
As compared to the situation 3 years back, now none of my friend (me included)
is even slightly active on any social media (except for whatsapp). Even people
are getting less active on whatsapp. I am a member of like 12 whatsapp group,
and almost 10 of those are silent most of the time.

I wonder if this is generally true. May be I (and my friends) am getting
older.

------
ryanwhitney
Snapchat lost three million users over a quarter.

Instagram added 200m+ monthly users over the past year.[1]

And the story is that social media is peaking?

[1] [https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/20/instagram-1-billion-
users/](https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/20/instagram-1-billion-users/)

------
wemdyjreichert
Finally. I hate (most) social media. Everybody ought to go back to email,
phone, and in-person. Much more human and much less "how many likes can I get
with this glammed-up photo".

------
futurix
All that happened is that Instagram won the competition. I'm not sure what are
the teens doing, but a lot of older, less invested, users moved on (or were on
Instagram in the first place and just stuck to it).

------
skate22
Snapchat used to work lag free on my device. Now it lags so much that it takes
over a minute to launch the app, take & send 1 pic.

Might not be the app's fault, but that's the reason i don't use it much

------
benjaminjackman
Everything's a pendulum, especially, (un)fortunately, pendulums.

I, personally, doubt social media is really peaking. Maybe it is. Seems like
more of the same, people switching providers. Going from that crufty thing the
old folks use to something n new. Isn't Instagram the new hotness, spreading
like crazy? How are they not even mentioned in the article?!? Seems pretty
sloppy, or worse disingenuous but maybe I'm missing something.

So, then isn't Snap due for a fall? How does one provider falling signify a
collapse of growing, still nascent, medium?

------
dk1138
God, I hope so.

------
dbg31415
Can't speak for everyone, but personally I just got tired of Snap's bad UX and
moved to a different platform.

Now a lot of my friends have moved to Discord, WhatsApp, and Slack. Really
been digging Discord lately, wish they had some way to make money I believed
would work so I knew they were going to be around for a while.

~~~
Qwertie
>wish they had some way to make money

No one wants to pay for things anymore so what we have is a cycle of good tech
that runs on investor money and makes none on it's own and then it gets sold
to microsoft or whoever and they attempt to turn it in to something that makes
money on it's own without charging for the service until everyone gets so sick
of the product they move to the next new thing.

------
rxever
Couldn’t it be that users are switching more and more to Instagram from
Snapchat? For sure my view is biased but all my friends that were using snap a
year ago are now primarily pushing content through Instagram and all are
ditching Snapchat ...

------
sizzle
Or it could signal that snap has a weak value proposition that was easily
emulated by Instagram and Facebook messenger devs (AR selfie face filters and
stickers etc.) Thoughts?

------
ulfw
I believe social media fatigue is setting in.

Twitter is becoming the political infighting network. If it wasn't for Donald
John Trump and the millions following or belittling him - what is there to do
for the masses on Twitter?

Facebook struggles with revelations about their deep privacy invasions and
complete lack of vision/product development for years and it seems Snap having
never figured out what they really are or should be is now losing users too.

Let's just say, having been a Myspacer back in the day - I know how quickly
the tide can turn once user growth starts to staqnate.

------
acd
One can use Google Trends to analyze Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp.

------
omarforgotpwd
Or just a bad redesign

------
mtw
Everyone's moved to WhatsApp and IG these days. If you know asians, WeChat is
also very strong. People are just moving on.

~~~
King-Aaron
I found it interesting when visiting south-east asia that many government
style posters - such as reporting vandalism or unclean bathrooms - all had a
WeChat number to contact as opposed to any sort of traditional telephone
number.

~~~
robjan
Which countries in SE Asia? Most of them don't have a particularly strong
WeChat penetration.

~~~
King-Aaron
Mainly through Malaysia that I noticed it

------
amarant
oh god yes I sure hope so

------
Tloewald
Or maybe not.

------
kwelstr
There is nothing of value to read here, so...

Let me say just this: click bait.

------
sam0x17
no, this isn't about snaps on linux

~~~
amarant
haha that was my first thought too, but then I read "social media" and started
to realize which "snap" they were talking about

