Snapchat's parent company, Snap Inc., is discussing a potential update to make public stories and content last longer than 24 hours, and even make some content permanent. This move is predicted to help give the platform more influence on social media and beyond, and increase its competition with its rivals Facebook and Instagram. While this move isn't intended to make users leave one or the other platform in favor of Snapchat, its dwindling user-base needs a reason to stay around.
However, this could spell major backlash for the company and the app.
The original allure of the app was its disappearing feature and the anonymity that came with public posts. Snapchat is so far the only social media app yet to undermine the trust of its users by sharing their private information. With this update, Snapchat is considering to reveal user information along with the longer-lasting snaps. The update would only apply to public posts shared through the 'Our Story' feature, so privately shared snaps wouldn't be impacted.
This is a scramble to generate revenue and attract new users without alienating current users.
After a failed redesign to achieve the same goals, Snapchat faced extensive scrutiny and backlash since the change was unfavorable. The company is faced with the same question now about user acceptance of the change. Although the company is heavily weighing the legal implications of the move to expose user data, users will likely respond negatively.
Snapchat is under pressure and is responding to its investors and news partners' requests. This move would create a new revenue source for the money-losing app facing extreme pressure from investors about how it will reach profitability in 2019. By appealing to its new partnerships with news discovery platforms made last year, public snaps would become profitable. Partnering with news discovery platforms allowed sites to embed video snaps of breaking news items, but the major backlash was the disappearance after 90 days. Publishers are now expected to write about stories found on Snapchat if there is no danger of them disappearing.
