I read some complains recently about how snapchat has so many tap gestures and is complicated to use to the average person. After a bit of though, I realize that this is not a problem but a market strategy.

You probably aware of the life cycle of a social network. People join it in the beginning when all their cool friends are there, then it eventually gets less cool when some of your “undesirable” friends start to join and add you as a friend/follow you.

Then parents discover the social network and start to add their children and relatives. Whatever kids were posting before, they will think twice before posting.

But it gets worse. Eventually their teachers and bosses will join the network, that’s when we can’t post anything that will not please 100% of your public, i.e. you can’t post any more.

And that’s when the cool kids will move to another social network and the cycle restarts.

By making their app more complicated, snapchat is trying to stop or delay the join of older people to their network. And by older people, I mean parents, teachers and bosses.

Genius, right?