
Instagram Is Estimated to Be Worth More Than $100B - champagnepapi
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-25/value-of-facebook-s-instagram-estimated-to-top-100-billion
======
admn2
I've long had a theory (maybe it's not that revolutionary) that part of
Instagram's success is it allowed people a free pass to be vain and show
off-y. On Facebook, it was a bit stigmatized to post a picture of an expensive
purchase, amazing house interior, fancy vacation, or workout picture of your
physique. However, it's the entire point of Instagram. Couple that in with all
the brands and other accounts of inspiration for whatever you're into and you
have a lot of reasons to open the app constantly.

Edit: Also worth pointing out that you could argue Facebook's infrastructure
was hugely important to their growth. Instagram was literally almost anonymous
profiles. However, once FB got everyone to connect their FB accounts (which
they may have been able to do with only a phone number as I did notice this
became a requirement), they gave advertisers and brands a lot off resources
and tools (and reasons) to devote money and energy to the platform.

~~~
Alex3917
[http://charlescosta.net/2014/04/how-the-seven-deadly-sins-
dr...](http://charlescosta.net/2014/04/how-the-seven-deadly-sins-drive-
innovaiton/)

tl;dr — Every successful social startup should bend, but not completely
violate, one or more social taboos, e.g. one of the 7 deadly sins.

Edit: When designing www.fwdeveryone.com, we purposely incorporated Pav's
theory by building the platform around the taboo of getting involved in other
people's relationships, in this case by letting people read (and reply to)
other people's email conversations.

~~~
jedberg
> Spotify allows consumers to binge on music for a flat fee, however it is
> crucial to note that the musicians in this case significantly lose out on
> revenue.

As a side note, it amuses me to see this repeated so often, given that it's
not true. If you do the math, Spotify pays about the same as a radio play. You
just have to remember that each radio play goes out to a few hundred thousand
to a few million people each time.

The reason artists don't like Spotify is not because they pay poorly, it's
because they pay fairly. When you get a radio play, it's assumed that all the
people the station reaches listened to the song. Spotify knows exactly how
many people listened to a song, and pay accordingly. Unpopular artists don't
like this because they get accurate counts.

~~~
dperfect
> Spotify knows exactly how many people listened to a song, and pay
> accordingly.

From what I understand, they actually pay based on how many _times_ a song is
played, which is not the same as how many people listened to it. If I only
listen to an unpopular artist, but I don't listen as often as other people
listen to popular artists (lower play count, even though it's still my
favorite artist), nearly all of my subscription fee goes to the popular
artists.

In the old days of purchasing music, it didn't matter how many times a person
played the disc/track - it cost the same. You might argue that each play
represents the marginal utility to the listener (and should thus be the basis
for compensation), but I'm not sure that's entirely true.

~~~
jedberg
> From what I understand, they actually pay based on how many times a song is
> played,

Yes, I should have been more precise. Just like with a radio play, the second
play in theory goes to the same mass of people, but is counted again. So I
should have said "they know exactly how many people and how many times it was
played, and pay accordingly". I believe they discount multiple plays from the
same person, to prevent abuse.

> In the old days of purchasing music, it didn't matter how many times a
> person played the disc/track - it cost the same. You might argue that each
> play represents the marginal utility to the listener (and should thus be the
> basis for compensation), but I'm not sure that's entirely true.

You might argue that, but you might also argue that when you bought a CD, you
bought 10-15 tracks, even if you only wanted one or two. So again, for a
consumer, Spotify is more fair, because you only pay for what you consume, and
artists liked the old model where you paid for 15 tracks even if you only
wanted two.

~~~
dperfect
> You might argue that, but you might also argue that when you bought a CD,
> you bought 10-15 tracks, even if you only wanted one or two.

My same argument applies to a single track purchased via iTunes - it doesn't
matter how many times you play it; it costs the same. The bundling of tracks
on an album is something all artists did/do, so it doesn't affect the fairness
question in my opinion (at least, not fairness between artists).

------
csomar
I remember the outrage when Zuckerberg bought Insta for $1bn. The Internet was
filled with bubble-theorist.

Say what you want about Zuckerberg but the guy was well ahead of his time and
could see how things would evolve and what tick with people brains.

~~~
394549
> Say what you want about Zuckerberg but the guy was well ahead of his time
> and could see how things would evolve and what tick with people brains.

Did he really predict that, or did he just see an upcoming potential
competitive threat and buy it?

I feel bad for the founders of Instagram. They could have been the next
Zuckerberg(s) (as Instagram seems to be taking over as Facebook seems to be
starting to fade), but instead they're subordinates in Zuckerberg's empire.

~~~
EpicEng
You "feel sorry" for two people in their mid-twenties who made anywhere from
$100M to $400M selling their 15 month old company (while making the other 11
employees rich along the way.)

Ok. Beyond that, why do you assume the valuation would be exactly the same had
they not sold to FB?

~~~
murukesh_s
yea, nothing to feel sorry about. What could anyone do with a few millions (or
billions more) if they are already rich by half a million.. unless you are
trying to climb the Forbes leaderboard.

~~~
EpicEng
>if they are already rich by half a million.. unless you are trying to climb
the Forbes leaderboard.

That would be half a _billion_ and, generally, I don't "feel bad" for people
who don't attain their dream of climbing the Forbes leader board (assuming
that is even a goal for these two.)

------
vowelless
I am quite privacy conscious. I have deleted my FB account. On principle, I
dislike targeted ads, user tracking, etc.

BUT, I hate to admit this, the ads I get in Instagram are the most relevant I
have ever gotten. I actually look forward to them, to discover new products.
They are perfectly tailored to me.

Dammit.

~~~
jmartrican
I'll be honest, I like ads that are relevant to the things I am interested in.
I am no FB fan boy, but their ads are pretty good... I actually click on them.

What's wrong with that?

~~~
protonimitate
Nothing. It's a win-win. Consumers get personalized, tailored ads. Businesses
reach audiences that actually want their products.

What annoys me are ads for products I've already purchased (amazon is terrible
about this), or the same ad plastered 20 times across multiple sites.

Instagram handles ads pretty well IMO. They are non-intrusive, easy to digest,
and highly relevant.

Facebook OTOH, has become one giant scrolling, auto-playing, clickbait/video
ad. There is essentially 90% junk to 10% information (posts/photos/etc). IG
has the same ratio but in reverse.

People love to bemoan the horrors of internet advertising, but tbh I find it
way less intrusive than other forms of ad placements (TV, radio, billboards).

Except autoplay vids w/ audio. Those should be banned flat out.

~~~
icebraining
_I find it way less intrusive than other forms of ad placements (TV, radio,
billboards)._

Talk about damming with faint praise. Ads are the top reason why I no longer
listen to radio, and the TV is only bearable because I have a DVR.

That said, those are just annoying. Online ads are much more dangerous.

~~~
dymk
Why are they much more dangerous?

~~~
icebraining
Because they rely on the accumulation of personal data, which can later be
leaked and/or sold, and abused.

------
vthallam
No wonder. Anecdotal of course, but I see my friends spending more time on
instagram and people on the train or bus browsing instagram. I don't remember
seeing FB on someone's mobile in the last 6 months.

It will only grow bigger and at some point when it becomes too big, you see
less friends posts and more advts and people move on to something else. But
for next 2 years, Instagram's going to be Yuuuge.(Huge)

~~~
dtft
If you travel to other countries (for me, Thailand most recently) you'll see
almost everyone on Facebook. Most small companies over there don't even have a
website, just a FB page.

~~~
pier25
Yes, same thing in Mexico. Many companies only have a FB page.

------
BadassFractal
I've regained a lot of mental peace once I quit Instagram. When you have
hundreds of friends and follow other random people on the platform, you get
the impression that every single person is always on a beach in Bali, eating
at Michelin star restaurants, riding lambos and partying with attractive
successful people in the most exclusive venues out there. All the while you're
a corporate drone sitting in a cubicle all day, or you're stuck in traffic, or
are dealing with a shitty boss, or you're trying to figure out how to pay
rent.

In reality, those people don't have that lifestyle. They're simply marketers
and FOMO generators, but our brains aren't super good at seeing past that.

It's analogous to how regular people don't realize just how much Photoshop and
photographic skill goes into making someone look as good as they do in
magazines and on their IG feed. We look at them and immediately conclude that
we're some kind of a sub-human degenerate species compared to them, whereas in
reality it's all bullshit.

It feels SO much better to swim in one's lane, not looking around to see how
everybody else is doing, especially when it's not real.

I'm not a religious person, but there's something really powerful in the
admonition not to not covet your neighbor's spouse, house, animals (car?) etc.
Except it's much worse with IG, where you're exposed daily to hundreds if not
thousands of "neighbors" who are all showing off their pretend-success.

The genius of IG is that it makes people willingly subscribe to hours of
marketing every day.

------
gojomo
Fun to review how many HN commenters pooh-poohed the acquisition and price
back in 2012:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3817840](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3817840)

~~~
throwaway427
I don't really care for hilighting peoples past skepticism but this guy
literally asked for it:

\---

[...]

This is not going to be one of the best tech acquisitions of the next decade.
YouTube helped to propel Google into content. It also helped to commoditise
web video in a massive way: reminiscent of the way which Google commoditised
search (YouTube is probably just short of being a byword for online video at
this point).

Instagram is a photo service in a sea of other photo services. Photography has
been around on the web in meaningful ways for a long time. Flickr lost out to
Facebook in the community stakes, and Instagram is doing great in whatever-
the-fuck market it's in (the share-to-my-twitter-followers market?), but this
is not Google acquiring YouTube.

Bookmark this comment. See you in 2022.

\---

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3818055](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3818055)

~~~
chemochemo
To be fair, it isn't 2022 yet.

~~~
skinnymuch
Instagram is supposed to be at around 1.75B users and triple or quadruple
their current revenue by then. Of course anything can happen, but chances are
the user growth and revenue growth are going to happen. At least Instagram is
only potentially worth $100B right now with only $500M a month in revenue.

------
diminish
To be contrarian - Facebook is transferring its own user base to Instagram at
a quarterly rate which is convenient to shadow Snapchat. The people I see
there aren't much different than the ones on FB every month. FB is notifying
me that, every single friend on FB is now on Instagram.

My likes on Instagram aren't shown to my followers - (I hope ) and that's the
main difference which affects my behavior. Likes on instagram are cheap, like
a casual double tap. On FB or LinkedIn they're expensive.

~~~
nacs
> My likes on Instagram aren't shown to my followers

Your likes actually are shared with your followers.

It's somewhat useful for discovering new accounts but I wish it could be
toggled off.

------
sharkweek
I'm a 30something curmudgeon, but I have become addicted to their "explore"
page or whatever it is. Their algorithms have masterfully created an infinite
scroll of addictive content that generally applies to my tastes.

I caught myself a few months ago scrolling through that page for almost 30
minutes before realizing what I had been doing. I now have to be very
intentional about not going down that constantly-refreshing feature for more
than a few minutes.

Anytime I ask my wife what she's doing on her phone, it's almost always
Instagram. No more Snapchat, no more Pinterest, and no more "official"
Facebook.

~~~
cbolton
Could you further explain a bit the appeal? I have never used Instagram and I
imagine it as scrolling through dozens of pictures of cool stuff people do...
Is that it?

Do you have "feeds" with pictures that correspond to a specific interest of
yours? (Is Instagram actually the best place to find interesting pictures on a
range of topics?)

Do you post a lot yourself or is it virtually all "consumption"?

Would you say the identity of the posters plays a significant role (friends,
celebrities... ?) or is it really more about the content?

Sorry for the barrage of questions, feel free to ignore any or all of them!

~~~
soared
Not op, but:

> Do you have "feeds" with pictures that correspond to a specific interest of
> yours? (Is Instagram actually the best place to find interesting pictures on
> a range of topics?)

Yes, the explore page has tabs for topics.

> Do you post a lot yourself or is it virtually all "consumption"?

Both. Consumption of all my different interests from small and major content
producers. Then I post my photos to my ~150 friends.

> Would you say the identity of the posters plays a significant role (friends,
> celebrities... ?) or is it really more about the content?

Content for me, but I do seek out some specific accounts because I know what
to expect.

------
nmeofthestate
I simply do not understand the attraction of Instagram. My brother posts
photos on it, and the quality of the pictures is rubbish. They're small, with
compression artifacts. The app itself doesn't even let you pinch to zoom
without snapping back when you let go (fair enough given how low resolution
the pictures are).

Obviously I'm looking at this wrong - it's clearly not an app for posting
photos, because it sucks at that.

~~~
alextheghost
Clearly you missed the whole point of the app, which is not about posting
pictures with perfect quality.

~~~
txcwpalpha
To expand, the fact that the pictures are _im_ perfect quality pretty much is
the whole point. The inability to really zoom in, all of the filters that
adjust the hue/sharpness, etc are all things that help you hide away
imperfections in your photo and draw attention to the broader gist of "look at
what I'm eating/where I'm traveling/what I'm doing/how pretty I am!"

The point of Instagram isn't to be able to see the wrinkles in that model's
face. The point of Instagram is that you _can 't_ see the wrinkles in that
model's face.

~~~
breischl
Ah, that explains why they won't allow you to post photos from their website.

I do some serious-amateur and (when I'm lucky) semi-pro quality photography
using a "real camera". I was going to post some of them on Instagram, but
discovered that I can't do it except maybe via the phone app. But there's no
way I'm shuttling photos from my desktop to my phone so that I can upload them
to Instagram.

~~~
sorenjan
There is an Instagram app available on the Windows store for some reason.
You'd think it would make sense to build a better web client instead, but
there you go.

Apparently you can post from the browser if you change your user agent and
pretend to be using a mobile browser, so it's specifically desktop browsers
that they don't want you to use.

------
ggregoire
I have some adult friends spending 1 or 2 hours a day on Instagram. I can’t
even imagine how much time millenials spend on it.

~~~
lowq
Millennial here, deleted my account a few days ago.

Unlike most platforms, Instagram cuts strait to the most depressing part:
pictures. I've had enough with social media, and I envy those who never
created a Facebook.

~~~
artursapek
> I envy those who never created a Facebook.

what? is it some virus you can't cure from your mind now? just stop using it.
I stopped about 6 years ago and have never missed it.

~~~
lowq
_sigh_ One of these days.

~~~
egjerlow
A starting point (at least it was for me) might be to unfollow (not unfriend)
everyone. That way, your feed is empty and you'll get bored opening facebook
after a while. You'll still get event invites and direct messages, so you're
missing very little of substance.

------
mpg33
Hell of an acquisition by Zuckerberg

~~~
hknd
I can remember how everybody was laughing about the acquisition: "Waaat?
Billions for a chat app? hahaha" It's amazing how things are turning out.

~~~
mkirklions
Well, I think FB has probably lost 100B in value, and as someone who stopped
using FB this year because I dont enjoy it anymore-

I moved to instagram and twitter.

Mind you, 100B for an app that is filled with bots and corporate accounts
makes me think whoever did the valuation has never actually used IG.

~~~
saagarjha
Facebook owns Instagram, so they haven't really lost you, have they?

~~~
mkirklions
That was my point with that sentence. They still have me.

------
ChuckMcM
FWIW this is the HN response when Facebook acquired Instagram:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3817840](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3817840)

Fun to see how well Amanda Peyton's comment held up.

------
dao-
Social pressure to be on instagram seems to be growing. For years I could get
by with facebook, and my phone number / whatsapp for close enough friends. I'm
now on instagram after a bunch of people I met independently in Berlin,
Amsterdam and San Francisco in the last few weeks expected me to have an
account there. I told the youtube UX person who I met in SF that I noticed
this trend and don't fully understand it, and her response was that instagram
is just how you write messages these days, as if this was totally obvious and
not a side feature of instagram.

~~~
drb91
> instagram is just how you write messages these days, as if this was totally
> obvious and not a side feature of instagram.

At times, I just give up on my ability to participate in society because of
shit like this.

~~~
gaurgo
If you have a message to get across, that's where the eyeballs are

~~~
drb91
What if I just want to hang out with my friends? It’s easiest when everyone
actually uses the same thing—people literally complain if I text them. The
result is I lose touch with people because it’s exhausting keeping track of
all the places my friends are.

------
dmvinson
I wonder about Instagram's success if they had decided to reject the Facebook
acquisition. While there's no way to know who got the better end of the deal,
it would be better for the tech ecosystem to have more large players and their
success feels inevitable in hindsight.

~~~
code_duck
Facebook probably would have copied them somehow, though I don't know if it
would have been successful. FB's duplicate of Snapchat has been a huge success
and is a major part of IG today. I don't know if FB would have been able to
successfully replace Snapchat without using the Instagram app as a
springboard.

~~~
dmvinson
Instagram Stories seem like a logical extension of Instagram itself. Adding a
pure photosharing section to Facebook or something like that in order to copy
Instagram seems much more redundant and difficult.

To be fair though, the minds of Facebook have much more incentive to find a
good way to do so than I do

------
beauzero
I enjoy IG because I have narrower friends and family there. ...and Orvis.
Love flyfishing and honestly I couldn't consume the content there or see
amazing fishing or be "up" on their stuff by watching tv or browsing. It's
condensed. I tried following some skiing stuff but just get spammed by people
trying to hawk stupid ski sayings on tshirts. Mostly recycled junk. I now
almost have more followers by people hawking ski t-shirts than friends. It's
just stupid.

~~~
NegativeK
I get a t-shirt spam account following me roughly every day or two, except for
climbing crap.

Report them for spam. Instagram nukes a lot of them, and either way you end up
blocking them.

------
docker_up
Instagram is a perfect business case on how to integrate an acquisition and
make it better than it could have been on its own. It should be studied in
business schools as to how to not fuck up an acquisition. So many companies
buy things that die, and I thought this would happen to Instagram but it has
only become more popular, it's quite an impressive feat.

------
emodendroket
For reference this is about one-third of the value of Bank of America, the
largest bank in the country. I wonder.

~~~
rs86
100b is insane. That should price a basically risk free security giving 1b
profits/yr

------
shubhamjain
Facebook (the company) is in for the long haul and this is a perfect example
of it. It's insane how Zuckerberg has managed to establish the company so well
in a segment (social media) that is so susceptible to fads. Facebook.com's
usage could very well plateau, but the company has Instagram, WhatsApp, and
some bets that are yet to play out (Oculus VR). Zuckerberg isn't lucky here,
he just has incredible insight about what matters in the social media business
and what he has to do get there.

------
woranl
The acquisition of Instagram was more about keeping Facebook as a company to
stay relevant. Well played.

------
tempodox
If someone were to buy Instagram for $100B, how long would it take them to
make their money back and then turn a profit on top of that?

~~~
TheBeardKing
The money is invested, not gone. Any growth is profit once you sell the
company.

------
cozzyd
I recently started using Instagram (at first, to boost the number of followers
for someone's organization's account). But it's actually kind of fun, every
once in a while I see something interesting and instagram is a place I can
post that without really bothering other people (since that's the point!)

------
mxfh
There was a hot take yesterday, that _Instagram_ is slowly morphing into the
_WeChat_ of the west. And no other app is even close.

[https://twitter.com/dhof/status/1010902202691538944](https://twitter.com/dhof/status/1010902202691538944)

------
Invictus0
At the time of the acquisition, people criticized the cost per user of the
acquisition. $1B for 40M users was a cost of $25 per user. That analysis
failed to take into account Instagram's growth, and the cost per user today is
roughly $1.

------
debt
$100BB strikes me as true on the face of it, but there's something in my gut
that tells me that is much too large a valuation.

Is a television network worth $100BB? That's what Instagram/Youtube/Netflix
etc. are becoming a network of original shows. Of course, Instagram/Facebook
are still early so they still look like Youtube in their early days, but
they'll all converge to the same point of just outright creating their own
original content.

------
rs86
Gotta be careful with estimates, a random analyst says it's worth 100b and a
research firm says it's going to reach so many users in a few years, but zero
attention is paid to what assumptions underlie those estimates; publicly
available investment research information is useless

------
tardo99
The thing I wonder is whether some of this value is coming at the expense of
people reading books. My guess is there's a significant overlap in the
demographics. Which is too bad, because I view books as a positive for society
while Instagram really seems to be a big net negative.

------
overcast
Not surprising, considering Instagram is the #1 marketing tool for brands and
businesses right now.

------
ddtaylor
I think I'm officially old now since I truly don't "get" Instagram or care to.

~~~
delecti
Instagram is one of the simplest social networks. It's twitter with a focus on
picture posts. It's blogging but every post is centered around a picture.

It's one thing to not want one yourself, but to be willfully ignorant about
something so simple and publicly visible seems like an odd thing to feel the
need to advertise.

~~~
nmeofthestate
Bizarrely I find that Twitter is better for posting pictures (they're not so
low resolution and compressed, and the UI is less hostile to viewing them).

~~~
delecti
I disagree, but only because reply tweets are the same "class" of content as
the initial image tweet itself. It makes it less a comment on the image and
more a post directed towards the image's poster. I also think Twitter's UI is
still somewhat hostile to viewing them because of how thumbnails aren't just
shrunk but also trimmed. I can see where you're coming from though.

------
mtgx
Now more than ever is the time to force Facebook to spin-off Instagram.

Wouldn't the world be a much better place if Facebook had to _compete_ with
Instagram? (And Snapchat, and Twitter, and WhatsApp...)

------
chrshawkes
Facebook acquiring Instagram (good move)

Google acquiring YouTube (good move)

Microsoft acquiring Github (good move)

Yahoo acquiring Tumblr for over a billion (bad move)

Did anybody really think that was a good idea? I personally didn't. Not now,
not ever.

~~~
gaius
Sun acquisition of MySQL for a billion was pretty bad too

------
gigatexal
The founders sold to FB for 3 billion. Makes you wonder what WhatsApp is worth
to Facebook. If 3B then is worth 100B now to FB is WhatsApp worth 633B now?
((100/3) * 19)

~~~
wepple
I know that’s just back of the envelope math, but I’d suspect monetizing
whatsapp has been far trickier (do they make money at all?) so it wouldn’t be
multiplied at anything like Insta.

The e2e crypto must really kill opportunities to sell data or push ads.

Edit: spelling

------
creaghpatr
Wonder if they will ever spin it off as a public company? Seems like Facebook
is on the way out and shareholders are going to want to double down on the
future.

~~~
matte_black
What’s the point of that? Facebook as a company can have multiple products
that aren’t Facebook. Buy FB.

------
kotrunga
Does this mean 1 active monthly user equals $100 in your companies value?

:D

------
TheRealPomax
Too bad that "worth" doesn't come from anything. Oh no wait. User data. I
can't wait for that to become an illegal trade.

~~~
optimuspaul
> I can't wait for that to become an illegal trade.

Why would that ever happen? How could that ever happen? That would destroy
everything (note: hyperbole) of value currently offered for free on the
internet.

~~~
Rjevski
Everything of value can be paid for.

The worth of an ad impression or click is measured in fractions of cents and
the adds up to peanuts per month.

Publishers can just charge those peanuts directly and I’ll be happy to pay up
(plus they’ll get more without the dozens of middlemen in the
advertising/cancer industry).

But seems like publishers are greedy and want _more_ than what the ads pay
them, so that’s why subscription-based content sites don’t work at scale. For
example, “Le Figaro” (a French newspaper) asks 9€/month for their
subscription, despite making less that 1€/month from serving ads to me, so
obviously I don’t subscribe and get by with blocking their (really shit, think
Outbrain/Taboola “related content”) ads.

On the other hand, I’ve recently started supporting creators on Patreon at the
tune of 1$/video. It’s something I can afford to do for every creator I watch,
and while being an insignificant amount by itself it would be a significant
bag of money should every viewer pay (and definitely more than they can even
dream of making from ads).

~~~
optimuspaul
But then you have to maintain dozens to thousands of micropayment
relationships. I'm not willing to do that.

------
uhhhhhhh
I guess I'm one of the outliers. The worst part of FB to me is the vain
pictures and constant "look at me attitude", which is pretty much 90% of the
instagram content I've seen. The comments are about on par with FB comments on
the "look at me" picture posts as well, so little to no improvement or added
value there.

I don't have an instagram account and have 0 interest in getting one or ever
posting anything to it.

------
merinowool
I tried to use Instagram couple of times and I just don't seem to get it. What
am I suppose to do there?

------
samfisher83
Zuck bought Instagram for 1Bil. That is like the yahoo guys investing in Baba.

------
unclebucknasty
Let's take it to zero. Who's with me?

------
jackiem
Interesting!

------
IOT_Apprentice
A useless product valued at $100B? Sigh.

------
bongonewhere
but why?

~~~
hknd
It has a loooot of users, and it's growing faster than any other social
network. FB growth is staggering, but instagram is exploding.

Instagram's innovation strategy is working out nicely > new features are
launched, and are loved by it's users.

On top of that they are now also focusing on SMBs (mostly in NBUs) with
Whatsapp Business. (That branch could add >100M users)

~~~
whitepoplar
It's exploding because apart from being a really good product, they made the
UX super, super simple. With just enough little nuggets of complexity to make
it feel whole.

~~~
whitepoplar
On another note, what do you call this phenomenon, when something is super
simple, but you can just _tell_ how much work went into it? iA Writer,
Instagram, Dropbox, iPhone, a great chair...they feel expensive, regardless of
price.

~~~
tgragnato
Minimalism / “less is more” ?

------
hahahaha23
contents on instagram are toxic.

------
myf01d
What a time to be alive. Many tech companies now that don't offer any actual
product or service and don't even make money are valued multiple times more
than the biggest car manufacturers.

~~~
simplecomplex
Instagram makes money. Companies pay them to purchase ads. Isn’t that obvious
?

“In 2018, [Instagram]'s estimated net mobile advertising revenues are
projected to reach 6.84 billion U.S. dollars, up from 1.86 billion U.S.
dollars in 2016.“

[https://www.statista.com/statistics/448157/instagram-
worldwi...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/448157/instagram-worldwide-
mobile-internet-advertising-revenue/)

------
financialsub
That's funny. I don't pay for it so I suppose I estimated it to be worthless.
Make me pay for it to get a more accurate estimate. Thanks!

------
bizbizhn
Indeed it does. Most people doesn't even browse the web anymore. World news,
social updates, gossip... Everything in one app.

