Also, you may not like Snapchat, but to say it deserves to die when it both a) employs real people and b) clearly serves a market need is such a terrible thing to wish for.
It would be great for Snapchat and Twitter to be turned into nonprofits like Wikipedia.
Rather than trying to call something stupid before you know what it is, it would probably help you to look into Snapchat some more. Other than the fact that it's only on your cell phone, how is any of this different from Facebook/Twitter/Instagram?
Anyways, the reason I believe Snapchat stands out here as a profitable service is exactly what you said. Snapchat is really fast-paced -- while a lot of time goes into most people's Instagram posts, it's not worth the effort for a photo someone will see for 10 seconds max. Like Twitter, this enables rapid use. It's not unheard of for people to send/receive hundreds of snaps a day. Plus, Snapchat is perfect for advertisers. All you do is roll out some filter and probably half the people using the app on that day will try it out. Combine the two and you'll seen realize that not only are users voluntarily sharing advertisements, but they're also doing it often 10+ times a day (and viewing those same advertisements hundreds of times). Yes, more people might see a single ad on Facebook/Instagram/Twitter, but it won't be ingrained into their mind to nearly the same degree as it could be with Snapchat. That's the kind of value that could put them ahead of Tesla or SpaceX.
I've never used Snapchat and only barely know what it is (an even shorter lived instant messaging thingy where messages disappear and gamification techniques are used to keep you enganged?)
Was under the impression Snapchat was given a $3-5 billion valuation.
I find it hard to accept that Snapchat is worth the same as Tesla and SpaceX combined.
In other words, is [a 400-employee company whose core product works only on cell phones to show annoying ads to teenagers as they send each other photos, and whose annual income is barely $100m] worth the same as [a 15,000-employee company that produces autonomous electric vehicles, with a net income of a few billion/year] and [a 5,000-employee aerospace company that builds self-landing rockets, with income of a few billion/year] combined? I don't bloody think so, especially given what an asshole Evan Spiegel has been in public lately.
If anything, this is a sign that we're in a soon-to-pop bubble. If Snapchat ever goes public, it deserves to die the same slow death on the stock market as Twitter did earlier this year, or a violent pets.com style death.