I’ve used a lot of internet services over the years and quite a few didn’t survive. In most cases, there were competing services available to fill the gap. In the case of online content, those failed websites just disappeared.
When I think about online services that likely won’t stand the test of time, two come to mind: Snapchat and Yahoo.
If Snapchat disappeared tomorrow, I don’t think anyone would really care. The multimedia messaging app for smartphones is getting its butt kicked by Facebook’s Instagram. Snapchat user growth has stalled and parent company Snap has made a bunch of missteps.
Instagram just surpassed Snapchat as the most-used social media app among U.S. teens, according to Piper Jaffray’s latest semiannual Taking Stock With Teens Survey.
In its third-quarter report last week, Snap said it had 186 million daily active users, down 1% compared with the prior quarter. So, it looks like the service has peaked.
As for Yahoo, it was fading for years when Verizon Communications bought Yahoo’s core internet businesses in June 2017. I’ve noticed a marked decline in the quality of Yahoo’s services including Yahoo Mail and Yahoo Finance over the past few years. The Verizon purchase didn't stop the decline.
Verizon rolled the Yahoo assets into a new company with the former AOL and called it Oath.
Last week, Verizon said Oath revenue fell 7% year over year to $1.8 billion in the third quarter. It also acknowledged that it is unlikely to meet the longer-term targets it set for Oath.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Verizon ends up selling off Oath piecemeal. After all, in April, it sold Yahoo’s Flickr photo-hosting service to SmugMug.
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