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Comment by kartikkumar | Hacker News Reader

What's with this wave of "everything I say or do has to be secret"? I thought SnapChat itself was somewhat an interesting case study of how we've somehow jumped onto this strange bandwagon. Not really sure I get the point of apps like this, but that just might be my lack of vision.

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In retrospect, I think this is the result of Facebook transitioning from a "private" social network to a public network, when they decided to accept anyone over the age of 13. When Facebook was college-only, I think one of the major appeals was the ability to widely share information, with the one restriction being that it was kept to your peer group. I think there is a whole host of things that young people are willing to share openly with their peers that they also don't want to share with their parents or other authority figures. Further, in many cases, that desire for privacy is not misguided; protecting controversial beliefs from people that have power over you is actually kind of wise.

A) SnapChat was valued at $3B, making them rich (in theory).

B) SnapChat's reason for success is its value proposition of secrecy, via ephmerality.

C) Startup founders want to be rich.

D) Therefore, startup founders will make an app based on secrecy.

Whether lemma B is actually true is what VCs are gambling upon.

Or,

A) SnapChat was valued at $3B, making them rich (in theory).

B) SnapChat's reason for that valuation is that investors believed in the value proposition of secrecy, via ephmerality.

C) Startup founders want to be rich.

D) Therefore, startup founders will make an app based on what investors currently believe in

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