> 5. ...sponsored recommendations,...
i.e. ads and ads. One of the most depressing aspects of the current tech bubble is how most "entrepreneurs" are not making new things, but finding new ways for others to advertise existing things. If they win the lottery and become billionaires, they start building rockets.
What a bizarrely reductionist lens through which to view Snapchat and I guess consumer apps in general — Snapchat is not it's business model (or lack thereof).
Snapchat clearly made a "new thing". It's just looking to an existing business model to monetize that new thing.
I don't see what Snapchat has done that's new. Disappearing messages? When I was a teenager we used to call them "gossip" or even just phone calls.
If the tech industry spent the amount of energy used to glorify petty crap on something more useful we would have been defeated poverty and all diseases a few weeks ago.