The resign of the popular Snapchat app has not thrilled many of its millions of users around the world. In fact, the reaction to the redesign has been overwhelmingly negative. The bad publicity surrounding the redesign of Snapchat seems to be getting worse every day. In fact, more than 1.2 million people have signed a petition on Change.org that asks the company to reconsider their decision to change the app. The person who created the petition clearly wants the old version of the app to return. However, Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel is very happy with the new version of the app. He stands behind it and firmly believes that people will like it if they just give it a chance. He believes that people will change their attitude towards the app in a few months.
However, the number of people signing the Change.org petition has grown so much and it has received so much media attention that Snapchat was forced to reply to it. Basically, they said they appreciate the opinions of people who use the app. However, they ask that people remain patient and give some of the new features they will be rolling out a chance. The Snapchat reply also said that there will be various new features that will be unveiled on Android and iOS. The company is clearly not even remotely considering changing back to their old version.
Snapchat has clearly been taken aback by the sheer volume of negative reviews that the new version has received. Nobody at the company thought that user outrage would be this dramatic. However, they seem to be in a position where they are too deeply invested in the redesign of the app to reverse course now. Therefore, users will need to simply accept the changes that have been made or stop using the service.
It seems unlikely that a massive boycott of Snapchat is on the horizon. The company is clearly willing to bend over backwards to please their users and give them a better experience. So why did they decide to redesign a very popular app in the first place? They want the app to appear to an even bigger segment of the population than it already does. It remains to be seen if they will be successful in their goal. However, the negative publicity has most likely caused people to stay away from the app instead of trying it.
Dil Bole Oberoi
