I'm still unimpressed by all three of those things (technically speaking). Perhaps they've got some cool stuff going on underneath somewhere, but as technologies, as whole, they just seem sort of lackluster to me for much the reasoning that you've mocked above. Perhaps I'm simply an outlier.
Assuming that a startup's early state is little indication of what it eventually turns into, why would somebody invest in any one over another? I cannot imagine a whole lot of people saying "well, this Snapchat thing looks really stupid now, but hey, who knows, it may be big one day!"
>Perhaps they've got some cool stuff going on underneath somewhere
They definitely do.
>they just seem sort of lackluster to me for much the reasoning that you've mocked above.
Not everyone is capable of being Elon Musk and creating SpaceX and Tesla. These types of products are low-hanging fruit for people with 0 initial capital.
>Assuming that a startup's early state is little indication of what it eventually turns into, why would somebody invest in any one over another?
I don't know if the offer was reasonable or not, so I am not going there. But the "value" of such start-ups are often their user-base, not the product or the technology itself. Can someone else implement a similar idea? Absolutely. Would they be able to get all these users? Probably not.
I use to not get why people value them so high but if you look at the age group of pre-teens - early twenties, most of the younger users almost use it exclusively while the older ones use it along with Facebook/Instagram.
What I dont understand is how they make money beside getting people to invest in them.
This is what makes me despair about ever possibly being some sort of inventor/entrepreneur. While I was under the impression that cool new things are what people are after, what they're really interested in, apparently it's just... things like this.
You just never know what will catch on. I don't see what the big deal is with Angry birds, Candy Crush or that awful-looking mindcraft game... but here I sit, very wrong about my predictions and not having tens of thousands flowing into my bank account every month.
I think what the public wants is something that's easy to pick up, addictive and naturally fits into their daily routine.
Maybe I don't quite get Snapchat, but color me unimpressed.