4 ms·

Why Instagram is So Popular

32 points by jjets718 15y ago

billpatrianakos 15y ago
I like what they said about the amount of media thrown at us sucking our souls and numbing our senses. It's so true! I think that's why there's such a big push toward minimalism on the web today. People can no longer handle having so much information thrown at them at once with things flashing everywhere, gratuitous onMouseover events, and especially the huge amount of choice we have to deal with. I think it boils down to choice. Instagram takes much choice out of the equation. Just like they said, there isn't a huge grid of photos to choose from and that's a good thing. On kind of a side note, I'm so baffled by the funding of sites like this. Please don't take this as a criticism, I'm just genuinely curious about why instagram or any small online startup needs funding? First off, aren't a lot of these companies something that people can just run on a shoestring budget from their home? From what I see, a lot of startups require a competent coder, servers to handle the load, and a budget just large enough to handle that. Also, how are these companies making money? How is instagram worth 7 million? I don't see ads or any membership model so how wil they pay back that money? From where I sit (living off web design while building my own web app on the side in Chicago with no employees or funding or even an office) it seems these companies could run without the millions and actually be n a better position once they get big as they won't be beholden to VCs and have heavy debt. I know it's off topic but damn does it bug me. I honestly don't understand. Edit: the only thing I can think of that requires a lot of money would be the momentum (marketing) and hype that money can buy. Otherwise couldn't it just start as a weekend project for $20 a month with a VPS and elegant code?
- leak 15y ago
  To me, Instagram and a gazillion other companies on the web exist solely to be acquired. I mean, what can Instagram really charge for? It has basically become a chat app but with pictures to start the conversation instead of "hey!".
  - billpatrianakos 15y ago
    Thank you! I thought I was the only one. I feel like saying this sort of thing on HN is blasphemy and stuff people don't want to hear even if it is only out of sincererity and curiosity. Acquisition makes sense but there are far too many startups out there tht seem to have this model. That's going to hurt a lot of people in the long run. Those who aren't acquired will have gotten rich but the VCs will get burned and then there will be far less investors willing to spend some money when a startup that actually has a valuable product with a profitable model comes around. It's like a big race to get in on the startup trend before the bubble bursts.
- guan 15y ago
  The coder who runs this as a weekend project for $20 a month and a VPS may be able to create a similar product, but a version of Instagram with few other users, that is otherwise equivalent or better, is much less compelling. There is a strong social aspect to Instagram. If it were just a place to post photos that you can tweet a link to, it would have gone the way of twitpic, yfrog, lockerz, and a dozen other services that are still used, but get a lot less attention. In this way it’s different from a successful bootstrapped service like, say, Pinboard, which can become more popular through word of mouth but was still very useful when they had just one user. Gmail is another example of a service that’s still useful with just one user. So to be (as) useful, Instagram must have a lot of users, and must somehow attract them. A big marketing budget can help, although I don’t think Instagram has ever spent large sums on marketing. Simply being free, and good, helps a lot too though, and having enough servers to handle millions of non-paying users and developers talented enough to make it scale that well costs money. You are right that eventually they will need to make money for all this to make sense. It seems to me that they could eventually introduce ads or offer charge for more features. But assuming that ads or premium features could eventually make business sense for Instagram, I don’t think it’s completely nuts to have a phase of rapid VC-funded growth.
  - billpatrianakos 15y ago
    I see your point, guan, and in Instagram's case the funding may be justified. But there will inevitably be far more of these sites failing than massively succeeding which means far more investors getting burned. Then the Startuplamd loses its luster, the bubble bursts, and we're all screwed even if we're worth funding. I wonder how different things would be if more people rejected funding and ran shoestring budgets longer. I'd say the pressure to have to be good and pay the bills will result in few projects but much far more successful ones in the long run.
jacobolus 15y ago
> Even if you compare Instagram photos to professional Adobe Lightroom plug-ins, Photoshop Actions, and all the tricks and desktop software that photographers use, Instagram photos have a decent quality. The Instagram images are certainly not comparable, in terms of quality or resolution, duh, but the images are at least interesting. These two sentences are exactly contradictory. 1) “If you compare... Instagram photos have decent quality.” 2) “Instagram images are certainly not comparable in terms of quality”. In any event, the second version is right. Instagram photos are cute gimmicks, and applying predetermined filters to snapshots can be fun, but the results are not remotely comparable in terms of “quality” to work by competent photo printers (whether in a darkroom or in Photoshop).
- blhack 15y ago
  One of these is comparing object qualities like resolution and effective dynamic range, the other is comparing subjective qualities like "how cool does this photo look".
  - jacobolus 15y ago
    That’s not what the article says, but you might well be right; the author’s conception of photographic quality (sometimes “technical quality”) and articulation thereof are entirely incoherent. He shouldn’t attach 3 or 4 entirely unrelated meanings to one word, or should at least attempt to distinguish them somehow. Anyhow, that one ambiguity is emblematic of a broader sloppiness at all levels in the writing of the post, which abounds with droopy clichés and empty puff. I wish the author and his editor had made a firmer commitment to prose quality.
- Turing_Machine 15y ago
  > "These two sentences are exactly contradictory. 1) “If you compare... Instagram photos have decent quality.” 2) “Instagram images are certainly not comparable in terms of quality”. Quality is a continuum. Decent < great < excellent < superb. There's plenty of room for them to be "decent" but still be of lower quality than you'd get with professional-grade hardware and software.

32 points by jjets718 15y ago

I like what they said about the amount of media thrown at us sucking our souls and numbing our senses. It's so true! I think that's why there's such a big push toward minimalism on the web today. People can no longer handle having so much information thrown at them at once with things flashing everywhere, gratuitous onMouseover events, and especially the huge amount of choice we have to deal with. I think it boils down to choice. Instagram takes much choice out of the equation. Just like they said, there isn't a huge grid of photos to choose from and that's a good thing. On kind of a side note, I'm so baffled by the funding of sites like this. Please don't take this as a criticism, I'm just genuinely curious about why instagram or any small online startup needs funding? First off, aren't a lot of these companies something that people can just run on a shoestring budget from their home? From what I see, a lot of startups require a competent coder, servers to handle the load, and a budget just large enough to handle that. Also, how are these companies making money? How is instagram worth 7 million? I don't see ads or any membership model so how wil they pay back that money? From where I sit (living off web design while building my own web app on the side in Chicago with no employees or funding or even an office) it seems these companies could run without the millions and actually be n a better position once they get big as they won't be beholden to VCs and have heavy debt. I know it's off topic but damn does it bug me. I honestly don't understand. Edit: the only thing I can think of that requires a lot of money would be the momentum (marketing) and hype that money can buy. Otherwise couldn't it just start as a weekend project for $20 a month with a VPS and elegant code?

leak 15y ago
To me, Instagram and a gazillion other companies on the web exist solely to be acquired. I mean, what can Instagram really charge for? It has basically become a chat app but with pictures to start the conversation instead of "hey!".
- billpatrianakos 15y ago
  Thank you! I thought I was the only one. I feel like saying this sort of thing on HN is blasphemy and stuff people don't want to hear even if it is only out of sincererity and curiosity. Acquisition makes sense but there are far too many startups out there tht seem to have this model. That's going to hurt a lot of people in the long run. Those who aren't acquired will have gotten rich but the VCs will get burned and then there will be far less investors willing to spend some money when a startup that actually has a valuable product with a profitable model comes around. It's like a big race to get in on the startup trend before the bubble bursts.
guan 15y ago
The coder who runs this as a weekend project for $20 a month and a VPS may be able to create a similar product, but a version of Instagram with few other users, that is otherwise equivalent or better, is much less compelling. There is a strong social aspect to Instagram. If it were just a place to post photos that you can tweet a link to, it would have gone the way of twitpic, yfrog, lockerz, and a dozen other services that are still used, but get a lot less attention. In this way it’s different from a successful bootstrapped service like, say, Pinboard, which can become more popular through word of mouth but was still very useful when they had just one user. Gmail is another example of a service that’s still useful with just one user. So to be (as) useful, Instagram must have a lot of users, and must somehow attract them. A big marketing budget can help, although I don’t think Instagram has ever spent large sums on marketing. Simply being free, and good, helps a lot too though, and having enough servers to handle millions of non-paying users and developers talented enough to make it scale that well costs money. You are right that eventually they will need to make money for all this to make sense. It seems to me that they could eventually introduce ads or offer charge for more features. But assuming that ads or premium features could eventually make business sense for Instagram, I don’t think it’s completely nuts to have a phase of rapid VC-funded growth.
- billpatrianakos 15y ago
  I see your point, guan, and in Instagram's case the funding may be justified. But there will inevitably be far more of these sites failing than massively succeeding which means far more investors getting burned. Then the Startuplamd loses its luster, the bubble bursts, and we're all screwed even if we're worth funding. I wonder how different things would be if more people rejected funding and ran shoestring budgets longer. I'd say the pressure to have to be good and pay the bills will result in few projects but much far more successful ones in the long run.

jacobolus 15y ago

> Even if you compare Instagram photos to professional Adobe Lightroom plug-ins, Photoshop Actions, and all the tricks and desktop software that photographers use, Instagram photos have a decent quality. The Instagram images are certainly not comparable, in terms of quality or resolution, duh, but the images are at least interesting. These two sentences are exactly contradictory. 1) “If you compare... Instagram photos have decent quality.” 2) “Instagram images are certainly not comparable in terms of quality”. In any event, the second version is right. Instagram photos are cute gimmicks, and applying predetermined filters to snapshots can be fun, but the results are not remotely comparable in terms of “quality” to work by competent photo printers (whether in a darkroom or in Photoshop).

blhack 15y ago
One of these is comparing object qualities like resolution and effective dynamic range, the other is comparing subjective qualities like "how cool does this photo look".
- jacobolus 15y ago
  That’s not what the article says, but you might well be right; the author’s conception of photographic quality (sometimes “technical quality”) and articulation thereof are entirely incoherent. He shouldn’t attach 3 or 4 entirely unrelated meanings to one word, or should at least attempt to distinguish them somehow. Anyhow, that one ambiguity is emblematic of a broader sloppiness at all levels in the writing of the post, which abounds with droopy clichés and empty puff. I wish the author and his editor had made a firmer commitment to prose quality.
Turing_Machine 15y ago
> "These two sentences are exactly contradictory. 1) “If you compare... Instagram photos have decent quality.” 2) “Instagram images are certainly not comparable in terms of quality”. Quality is a continuum. Decent < great < excellent < superb. There's plenty of room for them to be "decent" but still be of lower quality than you'd get with professional-grade hardware and software.