14 DAY TRIAL // Facebook is not afraid of a little competition, and that's because it makes sure it doesn't have any. The company has been very keen on buying or copying anything that seemed even remotely threatening.
When Instagram started to gain popularity, Facebook first tried to copy it with a dedicated photo app of itself. It didn't work, so the company plopped $1 billion (€742 million) to buy it. When Snapchat became popular, Facebook built a clone and, surprise, surprise, no one used that either.
So the social media giant went the other route and tried to buy the private photo sharing service. And, this time around, it was willing to go much higher than it did with Instagram and offered $3 billion (€2.22 billion) for Snapchat.
The most interesting part though is that Snapchat refused and decided to stay independent. When Facebook paid $1 billion for Instagram, most people though it was crazy. But it was willing to pay three times as much for Snapchat, as the Wall Street Journal reports.
Apparently, the reason behind the rejection is that Snapchat believes it has plenty of growth left. Already, people spend a lot of time in the app, much more than they do on Instagram, and the figures are on the rise.
Refusing Facebook's money was certainly a big gamble, and it remains to be seen whether it pays off for the company.
Like Instagram, Snapchat doesn't make any money, but that hasn't stopped Facebook from being interested. Considering that Twitter just went public without ever being profitable, money doesn't seem to be much of an issue for these businesses anymore.
Photos shared on Snapchat self-destroy after a short while. Recently, the service introduced the option for photos to last a full day, rather than a few seconds, paving the way for businesses to get in and, eventually, for some type of revenue. But that is still far off.