I have two dozen friends on Snapchat, which I'm guessing is below average. Most of them are mutuals, the ones who aren't are internet famous. Most are friends I've made online in other communities, but a few are people I've known for longer in real life. Ages range from 16 to 26. All of them were added by hand, I never uploaded my contacts to the server for contact matching. Half of them are also in my phone address book with numbers.

I mostly:

- (text) chat

- receive selfies, cat pics, random day-in-the-life stuff

- send selfies, cat pics, random day-in-the-life stuff

- occasionally screenshot a snap, the other person immediately gets notified

- view people's stories (i.e. a public snap)

- sometimes directly reply to a specific story (they see the story in question)

The 'Discover/LIVE' section, for sponsored content, I basically never use, so I can't comment on it. Once, I clicked the LIVE for Formula 1 in Dubai, and it was a compilation of short videos and snaps from other users at the Grand Prix, which was cool.

I like that several UI/UX decisions are geared towards positive reinforcement:

- everything is private, friends-only, recipient-only, ephemeral by default

- each recipient has to be selected manually, so you if you get a snap you know they specifically selected you

- you can see who viewed your story

- you can't see who views other people's stories, so you won't compare yourself with popular people like on Instagram

- you get symbols next to your friends' names that show how frequently you interact (https://support.snapchat.com/a/friend-emojis)

I deal with the three "major" networks like so:

Facebook - Accomplishments/events I want shared out to a broad network. Highly "filtered" view of my life (and my friend's lives).

Twitter - Less content but less filter, more off the cuff thoughts or broadcasting something I find interesting to a broad network of followers.

Snapchat - High content, no filter. Snapchat photos can be "bad", things in them can be mildly inappropriate, and the broadcast distance is relatively small.

If you don't personally see the value of a low/no filter network with your friends, then it probably isn't for you.

This explanation makes the most sense to me. I've moved away from friends in the past few years, and we use a combination of methods to keep in touch, but however you do it, it seems like they just get farther away because some things just aren't worth an email or a Facebook message.

Snapchat (if they used it) would be a good way to stay casually in touch with them.

I was highly skeptical, but as of the past few months i use it more than FB and Instagram.

What I found was the limited and spontaneous nature of snapchat works well because it is much less formal and easy than a Facebook or Instagram post that I have to "compose".

I.e, i can take a silly picture of my dog and put a sticker on it and fire it out there, without having to worry about shot composition/hashtag use (Instagram), or content/grammar (FB)

I like how you encapsulated it here. This is actually exactly why I can't use Snapchat, but I understand the appeal for others. I mostly stopped using FB because I just don't have the patience or time for low-effort/low-quality posts, and Snapchat deliberately takes the post-level a step down and creates a sort of low-effort stream of consciousness between friends.

"a sort of low-effort stream of consciousness between friends."

That's exactly the draw for many people, and why it's so sticky. It's about as close to a genuine in-person conversation as you can get. I don't think of it as low quality, just low reach. I speak more colloquially around my friends than I do my employer, and I like Snapchat because it similarly allows me to communicate "at ease".

Sometimes I message friends with it.

Mainly, I use it to follow sexy Instagram "models". I also add vacation photos to my story to make my life look more exciting than it typically is.

It's kind of depressing.

My little sister uses it a lot and got me to get on so she could share her silly and over dramatic life a bit more. She's the only one I follow, but not for lack of trying. I know I have a few other friends on it but the ability to discover them seems to be lost on me.

I don't really get it, but she sends me goofy pictures or videos and I'll do the same. Could easily do it over imessage/txt and we do sometimes. I think she mostly digs the "my story" fanout aspect of things.

I personally feel that people are most open on snapchat since you only have friends that you regularly interact with.

On facebook you only upload posts/pictures that matter, on Instagram you only upload pictures where you look really good or a picture of food (I personally hate it, unless it's something unique) whereas on snapchat you'll send pictures to friends where it doesn't matter how you look.

It's fun to come up with snaps that are as outlandish as possible and get friends' reactions as they try to match you. You can stay engaged with people even if you don't have anything in particular to discuss. I am not sure Snapchat is worth $20B, but they have discovered a new medium and they've implemented it well.

It's like video Twitter. I use it for the same reason I do Twitter. People can follow me and see what I'm doing, what I have to say, or funny stuff I do. I can do the same with people I also follow. It's just like a Twitter that's better for video stuff to me.

It's more immediate than a text, less intrusive than a call. With a snapchat, you're more likely to open it and respond quickly than a text message, because just like the time limit on images, once the time has passed, the moment is gone. It keeps you hooked in.

Sometimes I worry about a dystopian future of tech where each startup is making small incremental improvements on various minor aspects of life ("It's slightly easier than sending a text!") only to be disrupted by a newcomer with another small improvement on it ("It's even more slightly easier to send than a text than the last startup!").

The big breakthroughs never happen. We just continue to iterate and A/B test ourselves into a convenient oblivion.

It's worth remembering that on a human scale, the Internet is still in its infancy. It took a looooooong period of industrialization before we had anything close to a mass railway system.

The Snapchats of today are just looking to do things differently enough to make some coin before the real next big thing arrived. It's like how much customization for AIM and other desktop messenger accounts existed before smartphones, but then after smartphones became ubiquitous, there is no "profile" or anything that takes up real estate. Just your name and your messages.

Going back to industrialization, just look at bikes. There were zillions of kinds of bikes in that era but nowadays we only really know 2: on-road and off-road. So even if things seem crazy now, it will only be crazy in retrospect as we live through a more technologically reasonable future.

Yes, but the marginal gains add up to equal the big breakthroughs!

Eventually we increase the ease of texting to the point where we're reading minds and the user never has to touch their phone.

I may be serious, I can't tell.

It is currently the best method to communicate emotional content. Think about how lacking every other platform is in that regard.

Facebook just recently released watered down emoji reactions. Snapchat has it made - they have infinite emojis. You just make a face and hit send.

I use snapchat for texting primarily because I can tell the message was read. Can't do that with text messages.

Also being able to send a quick video or picture, or do a live video call is nice too...

Most people complaining haven't even used snapchat or know of all its features.

As someone mentioned earlier, it's less intrusive than a call, and gets information across more efficiently.

I think what a lot of people use it for (myself included) is for sending something to a lot of friends at once while still seeming individual. They don't know you sent it to a lot of people and therefore more likely to get a reply

I've found it to be particularly useful for sending cat videos to friends.