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People email Snapchat because they desperately don’t want to lose their Snapstreaks

People email Snapchat because they desperately don’t want to lose their Snapstreaks

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The company revives the streak

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Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Kaitlyn Tiffany and I have spent a lot of time talking about Instagram product features on our Why’d You Push That Button? podcast. (Check out that back catalog.) So for this week’s episode, we want to talk about Snapchat, the app that pioneered the Stories format. Instagram copied the ephemeral Stories three years ago, so what other features keep people on Snapchat?

For this episode, we poll multiple Snapchat users about the features that tie them to the app. For some, it’s Snapstreaks, a feature that tracks and visualizes how long they’ve Snapped someone continuously. These users are so loyal to Snapchat that they’ll email the company if they miss a day of Snaps and ask for their Snapstreaks back. The company responds and seems to oblige. Snap wouldn’t comment for this story about how this process works or who approves these requests.

Another guest loves Snapchat because of the trophies she earns from playing in the app. Another guest likes to send nudes through it, and Kaitlyn’s sisters say it’s a good app for sharing toilet humor. Really!

Before we chat with our guests, though, we invite The Verge’s Silicon Valley editor Casey Newton on the show to chronicle Snap’s rise and how the company’s doing now, post Instagram Stories.

Listen to the episode above, and you can subscribe to the show anywhere you typically get your podcasts. To make it easy for you, we’ve also got our usual places linked: Apple PodcastsPocket CastsSpotifyGoogle Podcasts, and our RSS feed.

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