An Instagram user’s path to success was obvious, based on benchmarking against others. All you had to do was create the right kind of content: visually stimulating, with a reflective but optimistic caption, inspiring some level of admiration. En masse, those activities spilled over into real life and real business decisions. The version of Instagram that the founders had set out to create, one that would foster art and creativity and provide visual windows into the lives of others, was slowly being warped by the metrics Instagram prioritized, turning the app into a game that one could win.
Key to Instagram success
