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Great, now all the bitching can change to be about their plans to advertise. The sense of entitlement that people have is getting ridiculous. Why do you deserve

Great, now all the bitching can change to be about their plans to advertise. The sense of entitlement that people have is getting ridiculous. Why do you deserve an absolutely free service?

mirkules 14y ago
We (consumers) deserve to have an honest description of how our data is and will be used. We also deserve to receive the service we signed up for and not have the ToS switched on us midway through the lifecycle of the product. The fact that that is happening is dishonest, and is called a "bait and switch" in most other industries.
- clarky07 14y ago
  >We also deserve to receive the service we signed up No you don't. They can shut the whole thing down and don't owe you a damn thing. If you don't like the new ToS, when they switch to them and an accept/decline option comes up in the app you can feel free to decline and delete the app.
larskinn 14y ago
No. I'll hold my judgement until I see the new TOS, but what they propose in this blog post is much more reasonable. If the new TOS reflect that, I see little reason to bitch about it.
nhangen 14y ago
I don't think users feel that way. What they want is to be acknowledged and respected for helping build the server to what it is today. No users = no service. Don't sell us out just because you chose to take money and sell for a cool bil.
- kurtvarner 14y ago
  Really? Only 5 days ago this was on the front page of HN: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4917689 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4917689. And what about the complaints of Twitter and Facebook ads? You can't say that people don't whine about companies monetizing via advertising.
- clarky07 14y ago
  The users didn't help build anything. Instagram built a cool service, and the users used it. They didn't build anything. Now obviously network effects help something like this grow, but don't kid yourself. They aren't running a charity. They are running a business. At some point you have to start making money or the service just goes away. Then all that those amazing users "built" will be gone in a second when they flick the power switch.
  - mirkules 14y ago
    They aren't running a charity, you're right about that. But I think they misrepresented their business by giving it away for free, knowing full-well that it won't be sustainable in the long run under that model. Their response? "Oh ok, no problem, we'll just switch the terms of use while nobody is looking."
    - clarky07 14y ago
      You could characterize it that way, or you could assume that all of your users aren't complete fools and realize at some point they will have to make money to pay for the costs of running the service. They also know full-well that it isn't sustainable to run this service for free forever.
      - mirkules 14y ago
        So what you're essentially saying is, it's ok to lie to your users as long as you assume they know you are lying.
        clarky07 14y ago
        There is no lie. They offer the service for free. Nobody said they would never ever add ads. That's just being silly. What possible reason could people have for being angry with someone adding ads to this thing they are giving away for free.
        14y ago
toufka 14y ago
No one is asking for a free service. But businesses are giving it. I don't see why businesses deserve to monetize my private information. I'd gladly pay for a feature-rich gmail or facebook where my privacy was guaranteed. But no business is standing up to take my money.
soup10 14y ago
The big psychological difference is that they are taking something that was free and then starting to charge/advertise versus having it be that way from the start. Kinda like how people would get annoyed if they have to pay to use the bathroom, or for napkins at a restaurant. Or checking you bags on an airplane. It's about setting expectations. The other thing is that a lot of people use Instagram to share photos they only want their close friends seeing, so people are more sensitive about privacy changes.
_delirium 14y ago
I don't generally mind free services adding whatever advertising or other things they want, but imo it gets into considerably different territory when there's anything like a transfer of ownership or substantive licensing of ownership-like rights. Those kinds of transfers should be very explicit, where users consciously and knowingly agree, "yes, I agree to license this content for [x,y] use". Of course, Instagram claims they didn't do that here (though EFF's lawyers seem to disagree). For example, I use Flickr as a free service, and I don't think they owe me anything. They could add advertising if they want, they could remove the free tier and shut down my account if I don't pay, they could shut down the service entirely, etc. That's all well within their rights, since they run the service. But imo it's a qualitative difference from those kinds of changes if they were to add new ToS terms claiming ownership or ownership-like rights over my photographs. That's very different because it can actually damage my career outside their service if I fail to notice the relevant ToS change and they grab some rights I didn't intend to license to them.

Great, now all the bitching can change to be about their plans to advertise. The sense of entitlement that people have is getting ridiculous. Why do you deserve an absolutely free service?

mirkules 14y ago

We (consumers) deserve to have an honest description of how our data is and will be used. We also deserve to receive the service we signed up for and not have the ToS switched on us midway through the lifecycle of the product. The fact that that is happening is dishonest, and is called a "bait and switch" in most other industries.

clarky07 14y ago
>We also deserve to receive the service we signed up No you don't. They can shut the whole thing down and don't owe you a damn thing. If you don't like the new ToS, when they switch to them and an accept/decline option comes up in the app you can feel free to decline and delete the app.

larskinn 14y ago

No. I'll hold my judgement until I see the new TOS, but what they propose in this blog post is much more reasonable. If the new TOS reflect that, I see little reason to bitch about it.

nhangen 14y ago

I don't think users feel that way. What they want is to be acknowledged and respected for helping build the server to what it is today. No users = no service. Don't sell us out just because you chose to take money and sell for a cool bil.

kurtvarner 14y ago
Really? Only 5 days ago this was on the front page of HN: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4917689 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4917689. And what about the complaints of Twitter and Facebook ads? You can't say that people don't whine about companies monetizing via advertising.
clarky07 14y ago
The users didn't help build anything. Instagram built a cool service, and the users used it. They didn't build anything. Now obviously network effects help something like this grow, but don't kid yourself. They aren't running a charity. They are running a business. At some point you have to start making money or the service just goes away. Then all that those amazing users "built" will be gone in a second when they flick the power switch.
- mirkules 14y ago
  They aren't running a charity, you're right about that. But I think they misrepresented their business by giving it away for free, knowing full-well that it won't be sustainable in the long run under that model. Their response? "Oh ok, no problem, we'll just switch the terms of use while nobody is looking."
  - clarky07 14y ago
    You could characterize it that way, or you could assume that all of your users aren't complete fools and realize at some point they will have to make money to pay for the costs of running the service. They also know full-well that it isn't sustainable to run this service for free forever.
    - mirkules 14y ago
      So what you're essentially saying is, it's ok to lie to your users as long as you assume they know you are lying.
      - clarky07 14y ago
        There is no lie. They offer the service for free. Nobody said they would never ever add ads. That's just being silly. What possible reason could people have for being angry with someone adding ads to this thing they are giving away for free.
        14y ago

toufka 14y ago

No one is asking for a free service. But businesses are giving it. I don't see why businesses deserve to monetize my private information. I'd gladly pay for a feature-rich gmail or facebook where my privacy was guaranteed. But no business is standing up to take my money.

soup10 14y ago

The big psychological difference is that they are taking something that was free and then starting to charge/advertise versus having it be that way from the start. Kinda like how people would get annoyed if they have to pay to use the bathroom, or for napkins at a restaurant. Or checking you bags on an airplane. It's about setting expectations. The other thing is that a lot of people use Instagram to share photos they only want their close friends seeing, so people are more sensitive about privacy changes.

_delirium 14y ago

I don't generally mind free services adding whatever advertising or other things they want, but imo it gets into considerably different territory when there's anything like a transfer of ownership or substantive licensing of ownership-like rights. Those kinds of transfers should be very explicit, where users consciously and knowingly agree, "yes, I agree to license this content for [x,y] use". Of course, Instagram claims they didn't do that here (though EFF's lawyers seem to disagree). For example, I use Flickr as a free service, and I don't think they owe me anything. They could add advertising if they want, they could remove the free tier and shut down my account if I don't pay, they could shut down the service entirely, etc. That's all well within their rights, since they run the service. But imo it's a qualitative difference from those kinds of changes if they were to add new ToS terms claiming ownership or ownership-like rights over my photographs. That's very different because it can actually damage my career outside their service if I fail to notice the relevant ToS change and they grab some rights I didn't intend to license to them.