Twitter is stagnating in Indonesia and aside from anecdotal evidence, recent surveys, most notably the one from JakPat in January, have provided some strong evidence towards that argument. However I find it hard to believe that Snapchat is just going to come in and replace it because they’re very different in nature.

Snapchat is growing really fast here, but the nature of Snapchat is very restrictive. I’ve got roughly 25–30 stories in my feed every day out of nearly 90 accounts I follow and many of them string together over a dozen videos each day, myself included. Not to mention the messages section that gets used reasonably often as well.

Going through all of the snaps is a much more involving and time consuming activity than going through my feed of 900 followings and countless lists on Twitter, most of whom only post text.

Video and photo consumption is a more engaging and a richer experience but when you’re looking at a shit ton of photos and videos to go through, each of which lasts up to 10 seconds, it’s gonna get tiring really fast. Not to mention the content on Discover. And given our mobile data connection and quota restrictions, I’m less willing to open Snapchat and play the snaps over cellular lines than on wifi, and I’m on an 8GB data plan.

Snapchat is fun and it can be informative, but the reward you get from Snapchat isn’t equal to the time and effort you’re spending going through the snaps. Is it going to be popular? Of course, Indonesia is big enough to take give it several million users. But is it gonna be as popular as Twitter in its heights? I have a hard time seeing it.

As for Path, my feed has never been more alive.