Bad news, Snapchat enthusiasts.
The social app is shutting down its lens store this Friday (8th January), despite the fact that it was selling tens of thousands of filters per day.
The social media app shared a short announcement regarding the closure on the “Learning the Basics” page for lenses. It said:
This Friday (8th January 2016) we will be closing the Lens Store. You can purchase Lenses that you’d like to use again and again before Friday at 12:01 a.m. PT.
But on the bright side, users can still puke rainbows or make demon faces on the app, even after the store vanished.
The company also told TechCrunch that any purchased lenses will stick around even after the closure, adding that it will offer a rotating selection of 10 free lenses (up from 7).
Snapchat first introduced its lens store in September 2015 as a way to spice up users’ selfies.
Wth the camera in selfie mode, users can choose from a variety of free wacky lenses that changed daily. The lenses could turn users’ faces into a living nightmare or have rainbow puke spew from their mouths.
Some older lenses would disappear from the feature and users could purchase them for 99 cents per piece through the lens store.
Snapchat told TechCrunch that the company is shutting down the store to focus on advertising and shift resources to “other fun projects”. Its ad business includes sponsored lenses for movies and TV series.
So, do you have any favourites that you’d like to keep? Go snap them up now before it’s too late!
Sources: TechCrunch, The Verge, Engadget, Bustle, Snapchat.
