I've never used Snap so forgive any ignorance on my part.
I use it a couple of times a day and have done for years. Primarily to keep up with close and loose friends from high school ect. Pictures from friends everyday life that are not necessarily meant to provoke a response still keep you in the loop and not drift apart.
It's quite a difference, but isn't surprising to see and may also explain the rise in users, given the unlikelihood of millions of bots ruining and inflating the usage numbers.
But once again as I predicted, it is far from dying, [0] or even going to allow itself to getting acquired. [1]. In fact, they are the ones continuing to acquire more companies.
ehhhhhh.... there are LOTTSSS of bots on snapchat. especially if you ever add a pretty person's snap from their dating profile.
My observation is that that IG is more popular with urban, liberal, artistic (people create and/or sell art), style-oriented, older audience. It feels more professional and public, and it's common to follow accounts like celebs, artists, businesses, or generally people you haven't met in person. Artistic and lifestyle people will use IG chat to communicate and connect. For example a yoga studio or music venue may post events there. It feels like it's taking the role of a more image-oriented facebook. The stories are very popular too.
Snapchat is (in my observation) more popular with midwestern/rural/suburban people, and the network is more friends of friends or maybe people you met at parties. It's much more casual and it's more likely you have met the people you connect with. Trendy urban people I have met have shunned it for a while and think it's childish, but some are coming back. Either way it's the primary way I communicate with certain contacts besides imessage/sms (mainly through the chat). I'll post something to a story and someone will comment on it or vice versa.
Anecdotally snapchat was very popular in high school and early college and then waned, but became more popular again recently for some reason (I'm getting more and more views on my stories than before even though I'm not adding friends that frequently). Also when I talk to foreigners, they see it as a childish thing that was a fad in the 2010s, but people in the US (especially suburban types) are very active on it and have been for a while.
I'm bullish on snapchat and it's my largest "fun"/risk investment in a single company because of the stickiness it has with people my age and younger, specifically in a more midwestern rural/suburban demographic. Also the snapmap feature is phenomenal and will be the next thing other tech companies start imitating.
Outside of the US I mostly use WhatsApp, I suspect if that (or Signal) was more widely used in the US Snapchat would be less popular.
Texting is not nearly as engaging. So much of communication is visual and tone. Emojis can only go so far
How old are you?
No one I know uses it, but that makes sense to me. I'm internet-old now.
Weirdly enough I have an interview with Snap in a few weeks as well. Despite the drop that tech stocks have seen everywhere the last year or so I think it's still a strong company to try and join.