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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Sarah Frier
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February 25, 2022 - August 1, 2023
Inside and outside Facebook, the story of Instagram is ultimately about the intersection of capitalism and ego—about how far people will go to protect what they built and to appear successful.
More than 200 million of Instagram’s users have more than 50,000 followers, the level at which they can make a living wage by posting on behalf of brands, according to the influencer analysis company Dovetale. Less than a hundredth of a percent of Instagram’s users have more than a million followers. At Instagram’s massive scale, that 0.00603 percent equates to more than 6 million Insta-celebrities, a majority of them rising to fame through the app itself. For a sense of scale, consider that millions of people and brands have more Instagram followers than the New York Times has subscribers.
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Instagram’s early popularity was less about the technology and more about the psychology—about how it made people feel. The filters made reality look like art. And then, in cataloging that art, people would start to think about their lives differently, and themselves differently, and their place in society differently.
If Facebook was about friendships, and Twitter was about opinions, Instagram was about experiences—and anyone could be interested in anyone else’s visual experiences, anywhere in the world.
Threats to and opportunities for Facebook’s product were evaluated with the same depth of analysis as everything else. Facebook had access to data that tracked how often people were using different apps on their smartphones. The data acted as an early warning system for a potential competitor’s rise. If there was any chance Facebook could build its own version of the app that might ultimately reach more people, they would try, immediately. If it didn’t work, that’s where acquisitions like Instagram came in handy.
“Done Is Better than Perfect.”
