I think part of the value is that it is Instagram that's doing it. It's reassuring to know that some method is actually being used at scale by a service with mi

I think part of the value is that it is Instagram that's doing it. It's reassuring to know that some method is actually being used at scale by a service with millions of users, rather than having to rely upon the experience of someone who merely knows the theoretical side of things. Instagram's database sharding post was reasonably detailed and good at explaining things. Yes, the same info is probably on stackoverflow, but I'll waste a lot of time there trying to understand untested opinions.