Facebook (FB) continues to copy other social media apps with its new announcements. If almost every single new feature is a copy of another app, then it makes you wonder how long it can stay on top of the social landscape. There is a trap you may fall into when thinking about these new changes. For example, you may ask “is livestreaming on Instagram a good idea?” The answer to that question is yes, but it’s the wrong question to ask. The real question should be “why did it take Facebook a year to come up with a copy of Periscope?” Instagram live has hearts and disappearing comments just like Periscope. Tech Crunch mentioned that the livestreams disappear afterwards instead of staying on the app. This isn’t a new feature; it’s a flaw. On any app that keeps your livestreams for replay viewing, you can immediately delete the video, mimicking this ‘feature.’

Apple (AAPL) has been accused of copying other companies with its iPhone software and hardware innovations, but Apple always put its own spin on new concepts to make them more user friendly. There is a high threshold to maintain customers because every few years customers can leave to Andriod when they get a new device. Apple’s profit growth is proof the company provided a differentiated product. Facebook is in a different situation. The new features it ships don’t have to be better than the competition because it has a vast social graph. A sub-par social app which has all your friends on it is better than a great social app which doesn’t have anyone you know on it.

Facebook’s bread and butter is that it has a large user base. The question is how long it will be able to rely on it while being behind the competition. The best-case scenario would be Facebook innovating on its own. However, as I mentioned in a previous article, when corporations get large, they sometimes lose their ability to come up with new concepts.

The latest features Facebook is copying is it added lenses on its Messenger app which is a mimic of Snapchat. The problem with this is Snapchat’s ability to come up with new lenses is what sets it apart. By the time Facebook can copy Snapchat, the lenses will get old. Part of what makes this feature exciting is its newness. Messenger copying it is it too forced. Is there really a need for another app to send selfies with? Probably not. If you happen to be on Messenger, you’ll share more photos, but it won’t make you use the app more.

As I already mentioned, Facebook added livestreaming to Instagram which was a direct copy of Periscope which is Twitter’s (TWTR) live app. Twitter released Periscope last year to capitalize on the instant nature of the app. From what I’ve seen, the app has been overrun with pornography which is ruining the experience. In my opinion, instead of not allowing nudity, the app should have an adult section. My logic behind this is Periscope can’t catch every stream fast enough to delete it without users seeing it. There is another livestreaming app called Busker which blocks IP addresses which violate the terms of the app. This prevents a banned user from creating a new account. This is another option for Periscope. This problem is interesting because Twitter itself does allow pornography. Instagram is very strict with not allowing nudity, so it will be tough to keep those standards up on livestreams. The benefit Instagram has is people won’t want to risk their account that they built up getting deleted. Periscope users don’t care about their account getting deleted because it’s a new app.

Livestreaming on Instagram is an important feature to have, but I don’t think it will drive increased usage. Whenever Facebook copies a new feature, it doesn’t grow the total time people spend on the app. We got a glimpse of this when Instagram stories didn’t add to time spent on the app. Facebook likes to claim a victory by saying it has reached a new milestone in total monthly active users, but this is a meaningless statistic. If Instagram became less popular over time, the first statistic that would decline is the number of posts and the time spent on the app. I’m not saying Instagram is in decline, but it copying features isn’t the best way to build long term growth.

The final new feature Facebook copied from Snanpchat is disappearing messages. Instagram added this new feature along with livestreaming. I don’t even consider this to be an advantage. From my usage on Snapchat, I find it annoying that the texts disappear because I forget what the person said. Facebook has no idea what brings users to Snapchat because it’s lost the ability to innovate. When in doubt, copy every single feature. Investors in Facebook who may not use Snapchat believe every time Facebook copies Snapchat, it will destroy the app, yet the app maintains its popularity. Unless Snapchat falls off the top of the top of the charts on the App Store, I will maintain that this thesis is wrong.

In the first half of next year, Snapchat will be doing its IPO which will bring it more capital and more news coverage. Snapchat is popular among young people; its IPO may bring a new demographic of users.

In terms of the livestreaming trends, no app has been able to maintain popularity. Lately HouseParty has become a popular livestreaming app. It’s an app which lets the user have a video chat with up to 8 people simultaneously. The app was made by the creators of Meerkat which was a livestreaming app that was shut down. The creators claimed that they shut down the app because they couldn’t compete with Periscope and Facebook live. However, I think this is not the truth. The truth is Periscope is losing users because most users on the app aren’t interesting. Live hangouts have more usage than livestreams, so HouseParty is taking advantage of this new trend. I’m sure Instagram will copy this feature in a few years, since it is always playing catch-up. Blab was another livestreaming app which was shut down. It will become a new player in this hangout sphere in the near future as well.

Live hangouts are an area where Snapchat has yet to attempt to get into. In this case Snapchat is in the situation Facebook is in now because it has to catchup to the latest trend. It will be interesting to see how Snapchat adapts the feature to fit within the app. I consider Snapchat’s latest effort to create physical glasses which record video which uploads to the app to be a flop. The glasses are a version of Google Glass without most of the functions. Therefore, Snapchat is not immune to mistakes. However, I think the way Snapchat is coordinated, it is built to do well in the live hangout sphere. I can tell it is going in this direction because it just released group chats and a few months ago, it released live video calling. Live hangouts are a combination of these two features.

Conclusion

It’s easy to tell Facebook is losing its innovative touch when it has to copy features of other popular apps in order to stay relevant. This is not a winning strategy because a new feature pops up by the time Facebook copies the old feature. It took over a year and a half for Instagram to copy Periscope which is enough time to see that the app isn’t popular because it doesn’t have a hangout feature.

The alternate viewpoint is that Facebook will always be relevant because it has the moat of having a lot of users. Facebook is incredibly powerful and can afford not being on the leading edge of new technology. It can easily bolt on or buy the company that makes the latest new feature. Snapchat is the first new competitor to Facebook so we’ll see how this plays out in the next two years. I say Snapchat is the first new competitor because Twitter has always been in the mix.