Despite long being focused on avoiding the common, sometimes problematic mass audience-style metrics which are popular on other social platforms, Snapchat says that it will now allow users to display their subscriber counts on their public profiles -- in response to requests from the creator community.
The listing is optional, with a toggle that will enable users to display their subscriber count or not on their profile listing.

As Snapchat describes it (via Tubefilter):

"We've been listening to the feedback from our creator community, and a lot of them wanted this option to be able to show that their community on Snapchat is growing. So, starting today, we're giving creators the option to make subscriber counts visible on their public profiles. We realize not every creator wants public metrics visible to their fans; therefore, creators can choose to toggle this metric on or off as needed in their settings."

As noted, that's a pretty sea change for Snapchat, which had pitched as an antidote, of sorts, to Facebook and Twitter-style social platforms, which emphasized broad reach and audience, as opposed to more intimate connection.

Indeed, Snapchat has repeatedly spruiked the line that the app is ‘about real friends’ as opposed to appealing to strangers online, which follower/subscriber counts directly relate to. Snapchat messages disappear, because they’re not designed to be a lasting, public statement, replicating the intimacy and connection of real-life conversation.

But increasingly, Snapchat has tempered its opposition to more common social media norms to maximize engagement and interaction within the app.

Snapchat added enhanced search capability way back in 2017, making it easier to locate more people to follow through the app, while according to Tubefilter the app also rolled out creator profiles late last year, giving another avenue for high-profile creators to build their followings on the platform. 

Snapchat also launched a new function bar earlier this year, further aligning the company with more common social platform UI.
And in light of these gradual movements, it is only logical that Snapchat would also give users a means of making their public user counts available to their viewers, although somehow this still does come across as a step back, in some ways.

In fact, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has said if he had his time over, he would de-emphasize follower counts even as he described the metric "meaningless" in broader context.

As The Verge puts it:
"By focusing the attention on an account's number of followers, Dorsey believes that this encourages people to put out more polarizing content that can go viral and gain more followers, creating a more divisive and toxic discourse on the platform.

That's because, essentially, the numbers will indirectly promote a bit of competition on the grounds of 'who's bigger' first before one begins doing all in one's power to chase those numbers. Which could actually improve engagement, perhaps even an explanation for Snapchat introducing them but, as Dorsey highlights, negatives tend to overbalance the good ones.

This had the taste of a " Snap has known this and their strategy is an even more mature approach which derives the lessons learned from the first generation social network." Maybe that does not matter while it is running in the hunt for maximum engagement.

Maybe it'll be a better experience, and good addition, but it's hard to see how it can provide significant benefit, outside of increasing competition for people to 'win' at building an audience.  Either way, you can now display your Snap subscriber count, if you so choose.