Snapchat is a company that came to be on the premise that the images (snaps) that you send to your friends will disappear within seconds, never to be seen again. So it’s funny to see the company roll out its latest functionality that allows users to send real money to each other called Snapcash. You can now make your money disappear just as quickly as those photos, although this may create an entire new ecosystem within Shapchat. Just imagine a seedy underworld where people pay for the chance to get a 10 second Shapchat of someone in a, shall we say, risqué pose. One shudders to think how the younger generations will use this system.
Snapchats movement into peer-to-peer monetary transactions makes sense, with Facebook and other messaging services touting their own versions. Single use messaging apps will need to adapt to changing markets and it is becoming harder and harder for social apps to survive without growing and expanding their offerings. Sure, if you are looking to get bought out and cash out early then your social media project can do fine, but if you are looking to stay independent and grow then what Snapchat is doing is the way to go.
The fact that Snapchat already has a huge user-base makes it easier for the company to roll out new features like this without that large of a risk. If you are already snapping your friends and family on a daily basis who is to say you won’t use the very same app to send a few bucks to pay for things. What also makes the new Snapcash (I wonder how long that took to come up with) pretty neat is that, at least at this early stage, Snapchat isn’t charging any fees to use the service. So, if you are looking to send small sums of cash to people and don’t want to be hit with transaction fees, then Snapcash may just be something beneficial to use.
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