I’ve made some comments here previously about how Facebook has been ruining Instagram by making it into Facebook, and it looks like the founder agrees.
When Zuckerberg Asserted Control, Instagram’s Founders Chafed
11–20 of 117 posts
Re: When Zuckerberg Asserted Control, Instagram’s Founders Chafed
#12Re: When Zuckerberg Asserted Control, Instagram’s Founders Chafed
#13Zuckerberg: Take the money. Acton: I'm not taking it. Z: Just take it. A: No! Z: Look, I don't give a fuck, but the boys'll feel better. A: Fuck their feelings! Z: [Brian], we're a team. A: A team? You guys are fucking insane. I'll go back to the Valley, I'll [create messaging apps]. It can't be like this. Z: It is. I'm sorry, but it is. It's ugly, but it's necessary. A: I became a [developer] to put away dealers and…
Is this a joke?
Re: When Zuckerberg Asserted Control, Instagram’s Founders Chafed
#14Doesn't "Probably not, he said. At least, not as quickly." and "Perhaps. Eventually." mean essentially the same thing?
IMO its a different tone. The first says "no. well... maybe..." [I don't want to undercut the value of the property] whereas the other says "yes. well... maybe..." [I don't want to appear unappreciative of the resources of the company that owns mine].
To be annoyingly precise, the second says: "Maybe, well... yes."
Re: When Zuckerberg Asserted Control, Instagram’s Founders Chafed
#15Zuckerberg: Take the money. Acton: I'm not taking it. Z: Just take it. A: No! Z: Look, I don't give a fuck, but the boys'll feel better. A: Fuck their feelings! Z: [Brian], we're a team. A: A team? You guys are fucking insane. I'll go back to the Valley, I'll [create messaging apps]. It can't be like this. Z: It is. I'm sorry, but it is. It's ugly, but it's necessary. A: I became a [developer] to put away dealers and…
Is this a joke?
It's the transcripts they'll recite during the canonization of St. Acton, patron saint of "After I get Mine".
Re: When Zuckerberg Asserted Control, Instagram’s Founders Chafed
#16It's a lot easier to stand for your principles and say no to $850M if you already own billions...
This story focuses on the Instagram founders. By staying 6 years, they've probably already received all compensation related to the original acquisition, so they're only "saying no" to continued salaries/management-incentives – not "$850M".
Re: When Zuckerberg Asserted Control, Instagram’s Founders Chafed
#17Zuckerberg: Take the money. Acton: I'm not taking it. Z: Just take it. A: No! Z: Look, I don't give a fuck, but the boys'll feel better. A: Fuck their feelings! Z: [Brian], we're a team. A: A team? You guys are fucking insane. I'll go back to the Valley, I'll [create messaging apps]. It can't be like this. Z: It is. I'm sorry, but it is. It's ugly, but it's necessary. A: I became a [developer] to put away dealers and…
Is this a joke?
Yeah. It’s a slightly modified transcript of a conversation from the movie Training Day.
Re: When Zuckerberg Asserted Control, Instagram’s Founders Chafed
#18"Mark Zuckerberg was asked if Instagram could have hit one billion users if it had not been bought by Facebook.
Probably not, he said. At least, not as quickly. [...]
Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, had a slightly different answer to that question.
Perhaps. Eventually.
We will never know who was right."
What if, Instagram had merged with Snapchat instead?
Re: When Zuckerberg Asserted Control, Instagram’s Founders Chafed
#19"Mark Zuckerberg was asked if Instagram could have hit one billion users if it had not been bought by Facebook. Probably not, he said. At least, not as quickly. [...] Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, had a slightly different answer to that question. Perhaps. Eventually. We will never know who was right." What if, Instagram had merged with Snapchat instead?
Facebook would have leveraged its user base and clout to smother them in the crib.
This is why they ought to be one of the first targets for anti-trust regulation. Any company that can leverage its market size to kill competition, irrespective of the quality of their product, needs to be taken down a peg.
Google and Amazon should be close behind. And Apple needs to be put on notice.
It's not even that those 3 companies are bad actors in themselves (thought they are and aren't in various respects). It's that their investors need to know that lock-in and megalomania as business strategies aren't acceptable.
Re: When Zuckerberg Asserted Control, Instagram’s Founders Chafed
#20I'm not sure that Facebook using Instagram as a way to funnel people back to Facebook is a great strategy. Companies need to be willing to cannibalize themselves or someone will do it for them.
I don't know if Zuck had the foresight at the time, but Instagram has obviously been an amazing hedge against apps like Snapchat. People like Instagram and Snapchat partly because they are less formal than Facebook, most users don't even know that Facebook owns Instagram, my girlfriend is always shocked (and a bit annoyed) when I tell her.
I think it'd be smart to simply enhance Instagram's ad platform and be willing to cede Facebook MAU over to Instagram, at the end of the day the dollars all go to the same account.
If people start to become dissatisfied w/ Instagram because of "Facebook-ification" that may open up a market for a new competitor.