thx for your answer, even if I don't understand it - or don't think it's correct. ;)
(just for curiosity: why do you think Twitter doesn't make profit? do you think their ads are for free? Same thing for FB or Snapchat. They can create huge profit selling ads, or selling marketing services. That's why they are valuable and their shares find buyers.)
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Paolo, thanks for taking the time to respond! I forget myself sometimes... I have spent many years plugged into financial analysis.
So short answer: these companies are all "public corporations" (e.g. they have shareholders) and are required by law to publish their financial statements for public inspection. It is also important to remember that "receipts" just means all the money that comes in, where "profit" means what you have left over after paying for your office, employees and so on.
In the case of twitter, for example, the company had a net loss of 458 million USD in 2016, 521 million USD in 2015, 577 million USD in 2014, 645 million USD in 2013 (that's as far as I looked back).
Facebook is actually making money, and has been for four years now. But the bulk of their income is not from advertising, but from "add on services" like apps, games, financial services (like Facebook "send money") and such things.
In the case of SnapChat, they are a little more of a mystery, as they have only been a public company since March of 2017. However, it is known that the company started in 2011 and it wasn't until 2015 anyone even began to answer the question "How are we going to make money?" All they were doing was creating services and paying for things via venture capital funding. They now have an advertising model in place, as a result of which they are "only" losing an estimated 650 million USD a year.
The whole "social media sites is making millions of their users" statement is a bit of clever "lying with statistics." YES... they are "making billions," but you-- as an individual-- are NOT funding Facebook for $1000 (or even $100s) per year... in fact, your Facebook activity added maybe $5.00 to Facebook's bottom line for ALL of 2016!
Don't mistake, I am NOT a lover of big companies and social media using its members for profit... but I prefer facts to Internet myths.
You might wonder why these things are not reported accurately... well, psychology, I think. It's much easier to make a lot of people angry and start to make changes when you say "Social media takes MILLIONS from its users every year!" than saying "Facebook made $5 off me last year because I use their service."
Sorry for the very long answer, in the end!
thank you very much for your answer! I have been a stakeholder for many years (not anymore) but even then I just knew the markets I was involved in.
I didn't know that Twitter and Snapchat were into the red, but it seems to me that it doesn't change the argument about "value": those companies are valuable since their investors and the markets think they will make a profit in the future, and that profit will come just from selling ads and services. So, in the end, the value of these companies is founded on a commercial business, exactly like the value of a newspaper or a television broadcast.
If I am not wrong (but I may be wrong, since I don't know the cryptomarket enough), the cryptocurrencies are valuable for the same reason: the markets and the investors think that they will make a profit in the future, and that profit - as far as I understand - will come from their blockchain technology and the possibility to use it for faster and more safe transactions. Where will the money come from, in that future? I think from the savings and from the competitiveness that faster and cheaper transaction will give. But, as I said, I don't know those markets enough.
As regards on Steem, it has a social community that basically is the engine of the blockchain (as far as I understand!). But, at the moment, the reason for Steem are tradeable for BTC (not directly for fiat!) is just that the market thinks there will be a profitable use of Steem blockchain in the future.
There must be real money, at a point! ;)
(Btw, I have never thought that social media made money from their users, exactly like television broadcasts don't make money from their viewers ;) )