In August 2016, Snapchat seemed destined for decline. Facebook that month cloned Stories — Snapchat’s most beloved feature — and rolled it out on Instagram, en route to placing it on Messenger, Whatsapp and Facebook itself.
At the time, Snapchat was a plucky upstart, gathering steam ahead of an IPO. But when the world’s biggest social network copied its best feature and shipped it to billions, the growth story seemed over.