I address this in the article: Snapchat doesn't want to be acquired because it thinks its creating its own new market where it has 100% market share.
I agree with you that Snapchat is intrinsically worthless, hence the title of the article.
Even if it was eventually acquired, how could the service be augmented to funnel users into a parent company (Google, Facebook) when the very nature of the application is to create media, then delete it. This builds no links or references to outside sources, no galleries of images, no way to generate ad revenue.
Every small, well-funded tech company ever has claimed that they weren't interested in acquisition. I certainly don't think that will keep the M&A folks at the big tech companies from chatting up Snapchat's investors.
For the second part, Google makes billions figuring out how to get ads in front of its users. I'm sure they'd be able to do something for Snapchat.
One other thing to consider: Google is sitting on something like $56B (and growing) in cash and short term investments. They could set $4B on fire and it really wouldn't alter their balance sheet significantly. Given its big push into "social" over the past couple of years, I could make the case that it's worth spending some of its cash to try and acquire a bunch of (admittedly fickle) users.
e.g. Sure we promised not to save your snaps, but we never promised not to remember who you shared your snaps to, what was in your snaps (think Google Goggles), how often you snap, etc.
I agree with you that Snapchat is intrinsically worthless, hence the title of the article.
Even if it was eventually acquired, how could the service be augmented to funnel users into a parent company (Google, Facebook) when the very nature of the application is to create media, then delete it. This builds no links or references to outside sources, no galleries of images, no way to generate ad revenue.