4 reasons Snapchat is terrible for messaging

Snapchat is the 10th most popular social network in the world, with 91% brand awareness and 75% market penetration among consumers aged 13-34. This number increases to 90% when the range is lowered to consumers aged 13-24. These numbers are impressive, to say the least, and any number of companies would give up just about anything to have them.

But, do you notice anything problematic with those demographic numbers? Snapchat’s users are incredibly young. They are so young that they aren’t overly lucrative, at least compared to middle-aged consumers in their peak earning years. This is Snapchat’s problem. Despite incredible brand recognition and market penetration, the instant messaging service turned wannabe social media platform continues to lose money. Even when the yellow ghost attempts to monetize its users, they’re either too young to have their data collected and sold or have no interest in paying for what is a commodity service with endless competitors.

Bluntly, I hate Snapchat. I never liked it as a teenager when it first began to gain popularity among my peers, and as I continue my career as a tech writer with a passion for all things cybersecurity, my criticisms of the platform only grew. If I have one goal for this piece, it’s to convince someone to delete Snapchat like I did. Social media companies are widely considered pretty terrible in 2024. There’s no shortage of whistle-blowers and reports stressing how toxic and dangerous social media is for not just the development of young people’s minds, but society-at-large with the rise of disinformation. Still, as long as we continue to permit social media companies to operate, they (presumably) need to make money. Eventually, Silicon Valley venture capitalists will (again, presumably) cut them off. Nevertheless, Snapchat is not a service you or your friends should be using. Here’s why.

1 Fake perception of privacy on Snapchat

Lack of E2E encryption bothers me most

A close friend of mine continues to argue that he likes Snapchat because of its disappearing photos. The problem with this perception of privacy is that it’s nothing but a facade. Unlike iMessage, WhatsApp, and Signal, Snapchat isn’t end-to-end (E2E) encrypted, which means that every single message sent and received on the platform can be stored on the company’s servers and viewed by its employees or handed over to law enforcement.

The lack of E2E encryption is my biggest frustration with Snapchat — and this is without having mentioned that young people continue to get bullied, harassed, and prayed upon because the messages “disappear,” making it difficult for them to save anything.

2 Forced AI chatbot

Why can’t you delete this?

If you use Snapchat but refuse to subscribe to Snapchat+, you may wonder how you can get rid of the ChatGPT-powered AI chatbot at the top of your messaging list. Well, you can’t. It’s a feature, not a bug. I’m not sure if it’s to drum up investor support by cramming AI where no one asked or to collect more user data to sell, but Snapchat makes it possible to remove it only if you pay.

Except for ads, I’ve always found it user-hostile to make people remove a feature rather than the inverse. The ironic part about Snapchat adding this is it increases the distaste for users like me who already dislike the app. For those who do use Snapchat, primarily teenagers, they ignore it and laugh at how inconvenient it is. Five stars, Snapchat.

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3 Spotlight and Stories are terrible

They’re completely misleading

In case you haven’t already gauged my sarcastic tone from half this article, I don’t believe Snapchat is a social media platform — it’s an instant messaging service. I can only assume that investors pay a premium for up-and-coming social media platforms in the hopes of getting in on the next Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok, but in reality, it’s far closer to the limited money-making potential that Discord, Telegram, and other consumer-focused instant messengers find themselves in.

Outside of messaging, Spotlight and stories are as close to social media features as I see Snapchat having. Stories are algorithmically curated vertically videos created by Snapchat users, presented based on a user’s interests, likes, shares, and other metrics. The problem with Spotlight is that it’s flooded with misleading and fake content, continuing to perpetuate a cycle of addiction through mindless scrolling, yet with content that is even more mind-numbing than TikTok and Instagram Reels.

4 Pornography nightmare

Snapchat is doing whatever it can to drive traffic

Here’s my final point — Snapchat is becoming an adult-content riddled nightmare — and not in the user-to-user sense. Yes, many users have and continue to use Snapchat for sending sexual content, including numerous situations leading to sextortion, exploitation, and suicide. There’s also a concerning leniency towards becoming an adult platform, with sexually suggestive Spotlights and Stories being easily accessible and “Premium Snapchat” accounts encouraging adult content creators to use the platform as an OnlyFans competitor.

To be clear, I have no issue with adult content creators making a living or their line of work. What I have a problem with is how a “social media platform” primarily used by minors is, at the same time, rolling out features that use 18+ content.

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