Once upon a time, Snapchat was in line to take over the social network throne from Facebook. It had unique features, fast growth, and celebrity superusers. But as the hype faded over the last year, one thing has become clear: Snapchat doesn’t have a good revenue model.
As Snapchat’s standing dipped, Instagram took off. In September, Instagram reported that more than 800 million people use it every month—four times the size of Snapchat’s user base. And per TechCrunch, the number of advertisers on the platform has doubled to 2 million since March. Instagram has become the the ideal social network, something built in a lab by the savviest venture capitalists and engineers. It copies Snapchat’s best features, avoids Twitter’s divisive minefield, and has the support of Facebook’s business empire.