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Any fast-growing social media product was a threat to Facebook’s network effect and the time users spent there. It was Facebook’s job to not let anyone else catch up; Zuckerberg had instilled this value in his employees by ending all staff meetings with an unambiguous rallying cry: “Domination!”
Today, Facebook is still the most dominant social network in the world, with more than 2.8 billion users across several social and messaging apps, and the primary driver of its revenue growth is Instagram. Analysts would later say that approving the acquisition was the greatest regulatory failure of the decade.
Instagram was not supposed to be about obvious self-promotion, Systrom said. It was about creativity, design, and experiences. And honesty.
Soon after, Instagram employees were invited to a meeting with Facebook’s all-star growth team. Their message was clear: Instagram wouldn’t get any help adding users unless they could determine, through data, that the product wasn’t competitive with Facebook.
Mostly, they had completely underestimated how much their users would mistrust—and even hate—Facebook. The angry tweets made it clear the Instagram community was looking for signs that the acquisition had ruined the app forever.
at one point even asking members of a focus group to draw a picture of what Instagram would look like if it were a human. (They mostly drew male faces with sideswept bangs and dark eyes; the illustrations looked eerily like Joshua Riedel, the first employee, who was still there.)
Mostly, she hated Facebook’s metrics-based employee review process. How could she show she was driving growth if she was just in charge of inspiring people?
He would drink coffee made from Blue Bottle beans only at their peak point—four days after roasting.
Facebook had copied Snapchat’s functionality but they had failed to copy the app’s cool factor.
The ordeal confirmed Spiegel’s suspicions that Facebook was for the olds,
What Porch understood, which everyone else eventually would, was that Instagram’s power lay not in what was posted there, but in how those posts made people feel.
But virality had pitfalls. It addicted Facebook’s users to low-quality content. The Instagram employees wondered, was a click even an accurate signal of what a user wanted? Or were they being manipulated by the content itself?
The ratio was now something like one employee for every 1.5 million users. And Cyrus and Jenner were highlighting real problems, like anonymous bullying and teens striving for perfection, that were systemic, propagated by Instagram’s own product decisions, like the ability to post anonymously or compete on follower counts.
Barnieh watched new cafes all around the world adopt aesthetics that were popular on Instagram. They would hang bare Edison bulbs, buy succulent planters, make their spaces brighter, fill the walls with greenery or mirrors, and advertise items that were more eye-catching, like colorful fruit juices or avocado toast. In their quest to look modern, he thought they all ended up looking the same, the way airports and corporate offices all look the same.
“They worry that without interesting Instagram profiles, they won’t get internships, or get noticed by their professors,”
Professors don't even grade papers! Since when are they looking at the IG accounts of students and being like yes that one looks like a promising scholar??
Facebook plasters its walls with motivational posters, printed on-site, with phrases like “Done Is Better than Perfect” and “Move Fast and Break Things,” which represent the antithesis of celebrating craft.
But Systrom’s high bar was exactly what was keeping his team from shipping new features. It was also creating pressure for Instagram’s own users, who were intimidated about posting because they thought Instagram warranted perfection.
But most of the riders are not pros, just (mainly) men who take their hobby quite seriously.
“Instagram is not for half-eaten sandwiches,” he would tell employees, setting up a contrast to Snapchat’s rawness. On a scale of quality images, rated 1 to 10, Instagram was for those ranked 7 and above, Systrom would say. If they changed that, they might ruin it.
The teens, named Julia, Jane, and Ella, explained that in their high school, if they didn’t comment on one of their friends’ selfies within ten minutes, those friends would question the entire nature of their budding relationship.
Instagram was getting closer to unseating Twitter as the number one destination for pop culture on the internet. But Twitter still had something Instagram didn’t: the pope.
Even after all those efforts, the company still feared an outcome that seemed likely at the time—that once Clinton was elected, everyone would blame Facebook for tilting the scales in her favor.
It was all of these things Instagram avoided—hyperlinks, news, virality, edge stories—that cheapened Facebook’s relationship with its users.
Has Mark forgotten he owns Instagram?
Social media isn’t just a reflection of human nature. It’s a force that defines human nature, through incentives baked into the way products are designed.
Instagram’s solution, for anyone who asks, is to post better content—an answer that ignores how the app’s system has been gamed.
Facebook’s culture for responding to crisis was fully reactive: the company addressed problems only once they resulted in major blowups that politicians and the media were paying attention to.
But removing an offending hashtag or two didn’t remove drug sales from Instagram. The general problem remained. So Rosen told Systrom his request for his own integrity staff made a lot of sense. Then Zuckerberg denied it. He said Instagram had to figure out its problems with its own resources.
The April of Facebook’s doom, as Zuckerberg was followed by camera crews on his way to provide congressional testimony, Systrom passed a test to become a wine sommelier.
