Why Snapchat Sucks - Change These Things Or Watch Your Market Vanish

Where Snapchat Misses The Mark - Are They Losing Touch?

It’s 2018, and Snapchat has hit its peak. But they aren’t safe sitting on top of this mountain of success. If they don’t address these handful of annoyances and user concerns, the market dominance they now enjoy will start to fade to oblivion.

Could Snapchat become the next Vine, or maybe even experience a slow demise until they get to the MySpace graveyard? It’s entirely possible, especially if the leadership doesn’t pull their heads out of their rear ends and start taking action on what I see as huge icebergs that will sink the ship.

What surprises me is that it doesn’t seem that any of the major tech channels are covering these issues. So it’s time for the Gadget Guru himself to take the bull by the horns and lead the way. Let’s get into the meat of why Snapchat SUCKS in 2018!

Uploads Suck

I didn’t notice this problem until late 2017. Uploading to Snapchat was never a problem when I first registered my account and became a rabid snapper. But apparently it’s a big problem now. If I upload multiple snaps, you can almost guarantee that half or all of the snaps won’t make it to the timeline on the first try.

This problem might be due to the sheer number of Snapchat users are actively using the app in 2018. It might also be due to network congestion across the cellular infrastructure. Whatever it is, it sure would be nice to hear the head honchos at Snapchat publicly address the issue, and at least confirm what the roots of the problem might be.

This is super frustrating, because Snap stories that are missing individual snaps render the story useless. There’s nothing worse than noticing several hours after the fact that half of your story snaps didn’t upload. When posting in story mode, and making an important point, you don’t get your message across very well when half your snaps in the beginning or middle of the string don’t upload.

What makes this problem even worse is when you are moving from a Wi-Fi area to a cellular 4G LTE area. You can almost guarantee that the snap uploads will fail. And it’s the same in reverse. As soon as you hit a Wi-Fi signal coming out of 4G LTE coverage areas, the snap uploads will bomb.

As small as the videos are with Snapchat, you wouldn’t think there would be as big of an upload problem as what we are seeing recently. I’ve had better luck uploading 2 or 3 minute long videos to YouTube and Instagram, so it can’t be the network alone.

There has to be a better way of doing this, even if it means reducing the video quality of snaps. A lower quality snap is better than a high quality snap that won’t upload!

Get this fixed now, Snapchat, before my head explodes!

Favorite Lenses Don’t Last

I see absolutely no reason why Snapchat has to pull the best lenses and not bring them back for months on end. This is a major problem for the serious Snapchat story producers that use the lenses for character roles.

Right when the popularity of some of the characters I create out of the lenses get mega-popular, Snapchat takes them away! Sometimes I have to wait months for them to return, and when they do, they might only last for a day.

Several years ago, Snapchat allowed users to purchase their favorite lenses for $0.99 each. I don’t know why they felt this was a bad thing. There has been ZERO talk of buying your favorite lenses ever since. And that really sucks!

If Instagram/Facebook Stories had the filters that Snapchat has dropped, I would make a permanent switch. Someone is going to figure this out one of these days, and when they do, Snapchat will left in the dust.

Give us what we want, Snapchat, because user experience is what makes your future secure! If that means allowing us users to purchase our favorite lenses, or even keeping ALL of the lenses open for perpetuity, GET IT DONE!

Android Glitches Are Rampant

If there’s one thing about Snapchat that makes my head want to explode, it’s the Android glitches. I use a Samsung Galaxy Note 8, and my Snapchat experience is definitely inferior to the iOS build. It’s a night-and-day difference.

One of the glitches that I don’t see ANYONE reporting about is the changing of the font size when adding large text. For some reason, the large text gets blown up about 25% bigger than what was selected, after the snap gets uploaded. This really sucks when your words run off the edges of the screen.

Since there is no such thing as editing on Snapchat, the only choice you have when this glitch occurs is to delete the story or deal with the lack of readability. That stinks, Snapchat, and I’m convinced that it can’t be THAT hard for your developers to fix the problem.

In Conclusion…

I sincerely hope that Snapchat doesn’t go down the pathway of Apple, where arrogance prevents them from listening to and serving the user base. I love Snapchat, and it’s my favorite app. But they’ve got to stay on top of these things and start communicating in order to remain on the cutting edge of social media.

If these issues gain traction and the head honchos at the Snap Headquarters don’t address it fast, the Facebook/Instagram juggernaut is going to eat them alive. I don’t want to see that happen, because I’m always rooting for the little guy.

In the meantime, do YOU have some super Snapchat snafu that ensnares you when you snap? I want to hear about it! And I’d love to hear your feedback on what you think about the Snapchat snafus that make the experience suck for me too.

Carlton Flowers
The Supreme SnapPro