We need to get away from the idea of intrinsic worth. There are somethings that are worth a lot that you wouldn't pay money for, such as honesty. Converse appli

We need to get away from the idea of intrinsic worth. There are somethings that are worth a lot that you wouldn't pay money for, such as honesty. Converse applies too. Furthermore, even money itself has no intrinsic worth. The old Indian adage of "when all the trees are gone, ... try to eat money" reminds us of the mania of collecting things that have little value on its own. What does this mean in the context of Snapchat? Firstly, snapchat trades in the attention of a particular demographic. The market has shown that it is willing to pay for the attention of this group - witness how much advertisers spend on tv. However, the younger set are watching less TV than their predecessors. Ergo, the advertising spend will have to follow where the youth are. When young people were in cars, billboards were real estate. Bill boards themselves have no intrinsic value, but it didn't stop people from making money (Ted Turner's dad ran a billboard business). The real question is whether Snapchat will endure past a couple of seasons in its present format. There was a time when Twitter was cool, but now it has repositioned itself as a real time news feed. I think Snapchat has creates real value. Kids get the validation they crave for in a social network, but not have to worry about a permanent record of their activities being archived somewhere. Even if this is not worth money to kids, it generated value to a concerned parent.