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I'd say they can -- especially with the Gen Z group. Snapchat is used to produce videos, images, and texts for either: all your friends (stories), a select subset of your friends (private stories), a subset of that subset (subsequent private stories), specific friend groups, etc.

With TikTok, you're publishing to the world; with Snapchat you're publishing to your world.

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well said -- There's a fundamental difference in TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, etc and Snapchat. Snapchat is heavily focused on private (one person, small private group) content in contrast with the other networks which mostly focus on public content.

> Snapchat is heavily focused on private (one person, small private group)

Private secondary Instagram accounts (finstas) for smaller circles and Instagram's "share only to 'close friends'" features are taking a lot of that Snapchat market over.

I still don't see Instagram used as a replacement for text messaging like Snapchat is for many people (again, just my experience in the college-age demographic). Snapchat themselves don't seem to want to be a messaging app though, probably because the path to ad revenue and real profitability is in an algorithmic feed.

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