Like what happened when Facebook monetized?
http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2015/01/27/facebook-a...
"Facebook’s ‘active’ users aren’t so active anymore, says survey data"
http://venturebeat.com/2015/02/27/facebooks-active-users-are...
Twitter has professionals and many people over the age of 18, so the user base is much different. Facebook is the same. My Mom and Dad are both on Facebook. If you notice, Facebook started becoming profitable when the moved outside of Universities.
Snapchat is mostly students and teenagers. I'm 38 and neither I nor any of my friends have ever used Snapchat (Most wouldn't even know what it is and I only know because I'm interested in Startups).
My point is that if you have no chance of moving outside of the student/teenager demographic with an app like this, it will be very difficult to monetize.
This has all of the chance in the world to move out of its current demographic, it'll just take time.
Demographics:
Facebook: Everybody (my parents are on Facebook) Instagram: Same as above Twitter: Professionals, businesses, everybody Linkedin: Professionals of all ages. They also make money through recruiters and anyone else interested potential employees
Here is a breakdown: http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/01/09/demographics-of-key-so...
Teenagers and Students mostly use snapchat. Unless they can break out of this demographic (which all of the above were able to do), they will have a very difficult time making money.
Chat is historically very difficult to monetize. I'm not sure if you are old enough to remember ICQ messenger. It was the #1 app download on Cnet and I think they hit 1 billion downloads. Since they never had a business plan in the beginning, they scrambled to come up with a way to make money like charging for a pro account and some advertising.
It eventually limped along until AOL purchased it in 2001: http://news.cnet.com/AOL-acquires-instant-message-firm/2100-...
That is a way for Snapchat to make money: getting purchased by a bigger company that will use it as part of their eco-system.
How is it having the same problem? I think it still has a decent shot at monetizing. And, I don't think it's going anywhere soon... it's like Facebook in its class, it's too entrenched, people are not going to move on to the next thing so easily. I don't even know any serious contender to Reddit.
Everyone is staying on Reddit, but they aren't interested in seeing ads or paying money for most things. The only reason it's lasted as long as it has is because it's owned by a much larger company that can cover the losses until it can actually turn a profit.
Here is some info:
in 2013:
http://www.businessinsider.com/reddit-ceo-admits-were-still-...
again in 2014:
http://recode.net/2014/03/03/still-in-the-red-reddit-to-dona...
You would think that a company getting millions of visitors per month would be able to turn a profit or at least break even. They've been scrambling over the past couple of years to turn a profit and still can't figure out a working business model.
"t's like Facebook in its class, it's too entrenched, people are not going to move on to the next thing so easily"
I remember people telling me the same thing about Myspace.
As you can imagine, it's actually quite tough getting a community off the ground, but we managed to get just under 10,000 members in around 2 years, and it's just speeding up as demand goes up and as word spreads of an alternative to go to.
The problem reddit is having is that they grew up (over 10 years) as a free-speech platform, and just recently changed their policy that promotes "safe places", essentially censoring any free-speech that they consider "harassment". This is literally a licence to be able to mute (shadow ban) anyone that steps up against them. People are getting really fed up. It's actually quite interesting to see how all of this unfolds.
Basically it could be replaced really, really quickly. A mass of users is no particular guarantee when you don't bring anything fundamentally unique to the table, and all reddit really does at core is build forums around the content of others.
I don't think it would be bad if it took off but the fraction of reddit users who actually care about reddit meta-drama(pao stuff, gamergate stuff, the new harassment policy, the "SJW cartel"/SRS running reddit, 'extreme free speech' and hate subs, etc) doesn't seem significant enough to really mess with the inertia of reddit's huge casual appeal. They'd have to do something that fundamentally wrecked the ux for a large proportion of users a la Digg imo.
At the same time reddit goes down ALL the time and I'm not a sysadmin, but we don't see that with other similarly large sites as much, I guess it's cause they're comparatively poor? I can't imagine the architecture at this point is somehow unscalable, it seems like a pretty simple system besides the scale(famous last words I guess).
edit: right now the word "reddit" appears on the frontpage of voat.co 10 times
It says a lot when Voat's most vocal supporters on reddit are the populations of /r/coontown, /r/conspiracy, and /r/antipozi (all very, very NSFL). The first is an anti-black sub, the second is an antisemitic sub (yes, antisemitic: everyone should read /r/isrconspiracyracist and /r/topmindsofreddit), and the third is a Neo-Nazi sub.
He's not "secretive". He doesn't have one. His plan (or lack of) was to get as many people using the app as possible and then scramble to try to monetize it.
The issue, like every other person with a company like this, is that if there is even a hint of commercialization, the users will jump to the next "cool" thing.
Reddit is having the same problem. The original founders were lucky in that it was bought out and they got their payout.