I'm not sure if anyone is au fait with British Royalty, but taking things that don't belong to them is what they do and have done throughout history.
Prince Harry and Meghan took my Instagram name
101–110 of 135 posts
Re: Prince Harry and Meghan took my Instagram name
#102This isn't uncommon. Twitter is another prime example. Their "rules" state that you cannot (since 2009) make a three letter handle in your username, and yet @AOC was able to acquire hers. I don't have any problem with this but it does bring up the fact that there seems to be certain people able to skirt the rules because of "who they are". What about famous people getting verified on Twitter when the verification pro…
When the incentives align they will surely bend the rules. It's in Instagram's and Twitter's interest to have the royal family and high profile politicians, respectively, active, happy, and easy to find.
Re: Prince Harry and Meghan took my Instagram name
#103You own nothing. You are nothing. In the 90s, Mr. Nissan was able to fight and keep nissan.com. That feels like a thousand years ago. Now everything is governed by private "policies" that amount to "we can do anything we want". I don't like the new world at all.
Old world sucked too and had shittier wifi.
Re: Prince Harry and Meghan took my Instagram name
#104Well, it feels weird to defend Instagram, but here we go. The important lines from the article are these ones: > Instagram confirmed to Newsbeat that Kevin's handle had been changed in line with its policy. > It allows it to make changes to an account if it's been inactive for a certain amount of time. I tried going to the guy's new Instagram [1], but couldn't see any posts there at all. I visited his Twitter [2] ins…
> encourage a more lively and current community Ahh yes, nothing more lively and current than watching senior citizens coo over monarchs. In all seriousness, this is just another step towards instagram being another bland reflection of the media fun house in which we all live: famous people get air time to pimp products and movements.
> nothing more lively and current than watching senior citizens coo over monarchs.
You underestimate the reach here. When it comes to Prince Harry and Meghan, it's like saying only senior citizens care about the Kardashians.
Re: Prince Harry and Meghan took my Instagram name
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
In this particular case, I'm guessing -- based on the URLs -- that in order to have the Instagram username "sussexroyal", it's also necessary to be located at www.instagram.com/sussexroyal . This is a design mistake. The URL identifier does not need to be the public-facing identifier, and it shouldn't be. You can have the Duke of Sussex as sussexroyal at www.instagram.com/y6llflk9 and the guy in Sussex who roots for…
> There is no need to have the public-facing identifier be the unique identifier Yeah, there is: it's a major UX improvement, because the URLs at issue are entry-point URLs, which need friendly names for the same reason domains for public-facing services (which are key components of entry-point URLs) do. It's true that in the general case objects don't necessarily need a URL component that matches their friendly name…
It seems like a major UX improvement, but is somebody looking for Prince Harry's Instagram account going to know http://www.instragram.com/sussexroyal, or are they going to enter the app and search "Prince Harry", click the first link, and then "Favorite" that account for future reference?
I know I personally very rarely type a direct URL. Either it's already bookmarked, or I google it.
Re: Prince Harry and Meghan took my Instagram name
#106A while back, an Instagram employee stole the handle from my buddy’s wife. The only reason he got it back was because he had enough clout in the design community that he was able to get some press about it: https://medium.com/@behoff/they-say-nothing-will-change-5c54...
Github yanked away my 4 character username to hand it over to some hipster startup.
My account was 10 years old, no published repos, but consistent other activity. I don't have the desire nor the connections stir up a twitrage, but I'll certainly make their behavior known on HN.
These companies point to "inactivity", yet there is never any attempt to contact beforehand. The policy is merely a thin justification to do whatever the heck they want to suit corporate or personal employee whims.
That's SaaS (Surveillance as a Sharecropper) for ya.
Re: Prince Harry and Meghan took my Instagram name
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
But instagram.com/sussexroyal is a much more memorable URL than instagram.com/y2q9g6uo, and being able to find someone from remembering their handle is much better than remembering the handle and then wondering which of the multiple people called sussexroyal you're after when the search results come through Needless to say, the most prominent and memorable identifier being non-unique has all sorts of uses for trolls…
> instagram.com/sussexroyal is a much more memorable URL than instagram.com/y2q9g6uo Since there are a limited number of memorable names available, anyone late to the party gets stuck with non-memorable names. Why not even the playing field?
Most social networks would see rewarding early adopters as a benefit rather than a drawback. Besides which, TheThreeWordName or JohnBSmith1982 is still a lot more memorable than a random alphanumeric string.
As another person said further down, it's why we have domain names rather than IP addresses. Sure, the way in which they're distributed might be suboptimal, but not nearly as suboptimal as making everyone have to remember the IP address or rely entirely upon a search function that returns ever-changing results.
Re: Prince Harry and Meghan took my Instagram name
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
> There is no need to have the public-facing identifier be the unique identifier Yeah, there is: it's a major UX improvement, because the URLs at issue are entry-point URLs, which need friendly names for the same reason domains for public-facing services (which are key components of entry-point URLs) do. It's true that in the general case objects don't necessarily need a URL component that matches their friendly name…
It seems like a major UX improvement, but is somebody looking for Prince Harry's Instagram account going to know http://www.instragram.com/sussexroyal , or are they going to enter the app and search "Prince Harry", click the first link, and then "Favorite" that account for future reference? I know I personally very rarely type a direct URL. Either it's already bookmarked, or I google it.
> It seems like a major UX improvement, but is somebody looking for Prince Harry's Instagram account going to know http://www.instragram.com/sussexroyal
Instagram accounts (and similar social media IDs) are often communicated in print, and parsing and accurately transcribing things that work like natural language is a lot easier than something like an arbitrary base36-encoded identifier.
They are also sometimes communicated via orally or via radio, where being able to hear and remember is even more affected by the using natural language.
Re: Prince Harry and Meghan took my Instagram name
#109This goes to show that "your" handle on someone else's platform is never really yours. The only thing that can not be taken away from you is a domain name. Start hosting your voice via your own domain.
The unfortunate owner of Nissan.com would like a word.
Re: Prince Harry and Meghan took my Instagram name
#110I called this "legal" theft, but the law doesn't apply to "royals".
The sad thing is that people like little harry and meghan aren't people anyone should be looking up to or even paying attention to.
But the propagandists and the elites sure love the power they wield over the weak minded individuals.
It's 2019 and there are actual idiots fawning over "royalty". It's absurd. Especially considering their marriage is a creation of a PR firm.