Snap vs. IG Stories

There has been a huge amount of coverage lately on the negative impact that the launch of Instagram Stories has had on Snapchat. Some sources claim that Snapchat's growth has slowed over 80% since the launch of this new product. This shouldn't be surprising given how prevalent Instagram already is in so many of our lives. Opening one less app is just the easier, almost obvious thing to do. But this raises a larger question about the viability of any new competitors in a world dominated by Facebook, Amazon, and Google. It's hard, after all, to imagine a service with a bigger social network than Facebook, or a site that is easier to shop than Amazon, or a better email service/search engine than Google -- not to mention the funds to either acquire or copy any legitimate competitor. The verdict is still out, but it seems likely that many potentially online startups in the coming years will go the way of jet.com and be bought out by the "big dogs".