Snapchat is shutting down its Snapcash peer-to-peer payment service, which allowed users to send money to one another.
With other services like Venmo, PayPal, Zelle, and Apple Pay Cash offering the same functionality, there was no room for another service on the market.
There may a bit more to the story than that, however. When Snapcash first launched in late 2014, we titled our article “Snapchat now lets you send friends cash to pay for those naughty selfies,” figuring that this is how the service would wind up being used. Well, surprise surprise, a quick Twitter search for Snapcash shows the number of users who were offering adult services via the feature.
While Snapchat hasn’t come out and said as much, abandoning the service certainly saves Snapchat a dose of bad PR for what looks like a very un-family friendly service.
“Yes, we’re discontinuing the Snapcash feature as of August 30, 2018,” a Snap spokesperson told TechCrunch. “Snapcash was our first product created in partnership with another company – Square. We’re thankful for all the Snapchatters who used Snapcash for the last four years and for Square’s partnership!”
A tough time in Snapchat history
Snapchat hasn’t had the best time as of late. While its push into augmented reality Lenses seems to have struck a chord with users, the company has also had other problems. In addition to a failure to bring in the kind of revenue expected, a big redesign of the app prompted a huge backlash.
At one point, Snapchat’s value even fell by $1.3 billion after reality TV star Kylie Jenner Tweeted about her disapproval of the redesigned app, saying “Sooo does anyone else not open Snapchat anymore?”
With that kind of thing going on elsewhere, it’s hard to fault the company for ditching a service like Snapcash which is failing to ignite much interest, as well as posing as a potential liability.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBwjxBmMszQ
