Instagram's official response • Hacker News Board

Re: Instagram's official response

#231

Post by michaelt » Wed, Dec 19, 2012, 1:07 PM UTC

porker wrote: post #225

cbs wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I have a hard time imagining a more better apology from Instagram. I don't. This message from on high wasn't particularly bad for a startup, but there are plenty of internet "lifestyle businesses" that can communicate with their user base much much better. The guys who accidentally turn their hobby projects into a small, sustainable business for themselves talk to their userbase with a level of candidness that you'l…

> but there are plenty of internet "lifestyle businesses" that can communicate with their user base much much better. Like..? > The guys who accidentally turn their hobby projects into a small, sustainable business for themselves talk to their userbase with a level of candidness that you'll never see from startup guys I'd really like to know which, so I can learn from them.

>> but there are plenty of internet "lifestyle businesses" that can communicate with their user base much much better.

> Like..?

MetaFilter [1] does an excellent job of owner-moderator-user interaction. Here are some key features:

* Because of the size of the site, they don't have to rely on community moderation - and the moderators they do have do a very patient and professional job. You don't get capricious or childish deletions, you get the feeling moderators think carefully before deleting posts, and they're always willing to explain their decisions. There's nothing like wheel wars or moderators trying to kick out other moderators.

* There's a $5 signup fee so regular bans work - no need for things like hell bans/shadow bans.

* There's a section of the site called 'metatalk' [2] where things like policies, bugs, moderator actions etc can be discussed. Metatalk posts tend to get read by mods pretty quickly; the top post there has a reply from the site's main developer within 2 minutes.

* Between Metatalk and the mods chatting in the site's normal threads, people feel they know the moderators [3]. Matt, the site's owner, seems like a reasonable guy.

As such, people are much less worried that the site's owners are trying to fuck them over - because the site's owners have an established history of not doing that.

[1] http://metafilter.com/ [2] http://metatalk.metafilter.com/ [3] http://metatalk.metafilter.com/17338/Does-MeFi-have-a-privac...

Re: Instagram's official response

#232

Post by cbs » Wed, Dec 19, 2012, 1:26 PM UTC

davidw wrote: post #226

saraid216 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I understand they need to monetize (god, it's taken HOW LONG!?!? Jesus!), but that doesn't excuse them from intellectual dishonesty. I thought, "We run a business," was a blanket excuse for intellectual dishonesty in general.

> I thought, "We run a business," was a blanket excuse for intellectual dishonesty in general. So, uh, what are you doing on a site dedicated in no small part to startups? Are you calling all of us who run businesses intellectually dishonest?

There is nothing mutually exclusive about running a business and being honest. What exactly are you trying to say about HN and/or startups that would make him out of place here?

Re: Instagram's official response

#233

Post by mseebach » Wed, Dec 19, 2012, 1:27 PM UTC

smegel wrote: post #215

rauljara wrote: post #117

I find this thread really fascinating. I have a hard time imagining a more better apology from Instagram. They accept responsibility, there isn't a trace of hostility towards any of the people who 'misinterpreted' their terms, they are upfront about needing to make money, and they communicate (or attempt to) that they were never in favor of any of those kind of downright villainous things it seemed like they were in…

"To be clear: it is not our intention to sell your photos." Weasel words. What's so hard about saying "we wont sell your photos, promise, fingers crossed", unless they actually do want to keep that option open. I imagine a rock solid guarantee that users photos wont be used without their consent would go a very long way in appeasing people. "If your internal heuristics say..." No, when the company TOS say they will a…

> What's so hard about saying "we wont sell your photos, promise, fingers crossed", unless they actually do want to keep that option open.

This is what's hard about it: The second they sign any kind of commercial agreement for money, no matter what you and I consider "selling", hundreds of litigious a-holes (pardon my french, but I do believe that's the correct description) with their eyes firmly fixed to Facebooks market cap, will decide that today is a great day to get some courts to decide what exactly the words "we", "won't", "sell", "your" and "photos" means. And even if they win (not that there are any winners in such a case), the same thing will happen again the next time they do such an agreement.

Re: Instagram's official response

#234

Post by mseebach » Wed, Dec 19, 2012, 1:31 PM UTC

primitur wrote: post #155

rauljara wrote: post #117

I find this thread really fascinating. I have a hard time imagining a more better apology from Instagram. They accept responsibility, there isn't a trace of hostility towards any of the people who 'misinterpreted' their terms, they are upfront about needing to make money, and they communicate (or attempt to) that they were never in favor of any of those kind of downright villainous things it seemed like they were in…

>This whole event shows me (or at least, reminds me) that there are limits to what words can fix. I think it should show you that there are limits to what people will understand. This is an APOLOGY from Instagram. It cannot be construed as anything more than a PR Document. However: their TERMS OF SERVICE are a REAL CONTRACT. Whatever they say about the contract is one thing - once you agree to that contract in a lega…

They promise to change the terms of service.

Re: Instagram's official response

#235

Post by smackfu » Wed, Dec 19, 2012, 1:34 PM UTC

w1ntermute wrote: post #144

smackfu wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, an appeal to authority.

Protip: next time, read beyond the first sentence in a quote. You never know, you just might find something useful. > This stuff is all boilerplate terms of service — every service from Apple, Google, Microsoft, Twitter, etc all have it.

Eh, it's still saying "trust me, I know about this, it's normal, everyone does it." Saying things rather than showing them.

Re: Instagram's official response

#236

Post by davidw » Wed, Dec 19, 2012, 1:48 PM UTC

cbs wrote: post #232

davidw wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I thought, "We run a business," was a blanket excuse for intellectual dishonesty in general. So, uh, what are you doing on a site dedicated in no small part to startups? Are you calling all of us who run businesses intellectually dishonest?

There is nothing mutually exclusive about running a business and being honest. What exactly are you trying to say about HN and/or startups that would make him out of place here?

> There is nothing mutually exclusive about running a business and being honest.

That's why his comment about "running a business" being a "blanket excuse for intellectual dishonesty in general." seemed offensive to me, as it paints a lot of people with a very broad brush. It seems like the kind of one-liner point scoring one finds on, ahem, other unnamed sites.

Re: Instagram's official response

#237

Post by Draiken » Wed, Dec 19, 2012, 1:57 PM UTC

rauljara wrote: post #117

I find this thread really fascinating. I have a hard time imagining a more better apology from Instagram. They accept responsibility, there isn't a trace of hostility towards any of the people who 'misinterpreted' their terms, they are upfront about needing to make money, and they communicate (or attempt to) that they were never in favor of any of those kind of downright villainous things it seemed like they were in…

The problem is, when reading that "apology" I get the feeling they just admitted they failed to fool their users with the first attempt.

As many stated, the document was not unclear or misinterpreted, it was very explicit.

Now they say they don't want to sell your pictures and will change their ToS to make it clearer. Since it was already clear, the conclusion I made, is that they'll just try hiding those "unclear" statements better.

Hope not, but I don't think they'll give up that "right" so easily.

Re: Instagram's official response

#238

Post by babesh » Wed, Dec 19, 2012, 2:14 PM UTC

The more interesting question is what is Instagram planning to do that caused this change in terms of service. I would bet that they are going to group photos together that show off a product or to attach advertising around your photos based on location or what the photo shows. I think that they are doing this soon.

Re: Instagram's official response

#239

Post by rizumu » Wed, Dec 19, 2012, 3:06 PM UTC

porker wrote: post #225

cbs wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I have a hard time imagining a more better apology from Instagram. I don't. This message from on high wasn't particularly bad for a startup, but there are plenty of internet "lifestyle businesses" that can communicate with their user base much much better. The guys who accidentally turn their hobby projects into a small, sustainable business for themselves talk to their userbase with a level of candidness that you'l…

> but there are plenty of internet "lifestyle businesses" that can communicate with their user base much much better. Like..? > The guys who accidentally turn their hobby projects into a small, sustainable business for themselves talk to their userbase with a level of candidness that you'll never see from startup guys I'd really like to know which, so I can learn from them.

> I'd really like to know which, so I can learn from them.

Pinboard is a great example http://pinboard.in/

Re: Instagram's official response

#240

Post by ianstallings » Wed, Dec 19, 2012, 3:23 PM UTC

forensic wrote: post #188

ianstallings wrote: post #83

What blows my mind about this whole mess is how quickly this community has gone off on some witch hunt. Just read the comments. This is apparently what you have to look forward to if your startup is successful and you eventually try to monetize. Good luck everyone.

Boo hoo, the multi-millionaires are getting insulted when they try to fuck their users! Won't someone please think of the feelings of the millionaires! I'm pretty sure they can wipe away their tears with $100 bills and their feelings won't suffer permanent damage. Since their feelings are so much more important than all of the people they are trying to fuck over.

Are you an adult? These are your peers not billionaire bankers leeching off the backs of the poor. You know, programmers, marketers, entrepreneurs. They made it. And you want to tear them down because they've been successful? Now that they have money they are automagically evil? What planet am I on?