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Comment by vosper | Hacker News Reader

I don't believe the Instagram billion was about acquiring 13 software engineers. It was about controlling an application that was a huge (and growing) competitor for attention on mobile, was it's own social network, and was better (or at least, more flexible and fun) than Facebook at one of Facebook's core functionalities: sharing photos.

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It was about preventing any social application that might conceivably threaten facebook. Personally I think it was a bit of an over reaction on Facebook’s side, but they do seem very paranoid about this.

I have to say I am a true old fuddy-duddy when it comes to Instagram as I can’t think of a single use for it that appeals to me.

That's exactly the intention of instagram. It took my parents a very long time to get on instagram and they only eventually did so to try to police my teenage sister (who promptly made a new account, added her friends to it, and dribbled a few worksafe photos a month onto the account our parents knew about).

Now everyone is on snapchat, which fortunately, nobody's parents will EVER be aware of.

Parents will become aware of Snapchat, at least when the current cohort of Snapchatters starts having kids ;-)

Lol. When do you think millenials will have kids? When they have houses? Stable jobs?

Nope, you Gen-Xers have fscked yourselvs as far as that goes. Nobody in my generation in the West will ever be able to have children. Hope you like immigrants.

> I have to say I am a true old fuddy-duddy when it comes to Instagram as I can’t think of a single use for it that appeals to me.

On Facebook, people present a polished version of their lives as if it's reflective of everything in their lives.

On Instagram, the purpose is to show polished (and "filtered") versions of what you're doing. I like that Instagram is a bit more honest about what it really is.

Aside from that, its a neat way to consume art or nature/sport/hobby photography without the fluff of facebook

This seemed the best use for Instagram, but my phone is not the best device for looking at art.

Yes this seems to be the purpose, but as a 40 something married man I don’t have too much interest in presenting a polished photographic image of myself to the world :)

I wasn't a user for a long time, but now that I am, I have to say that Instagram is really pleasant to use. It's just photographs, which gives it a pleasant simplicity other social networks lack. It's nice to occasionally check to see what pictures friends and others have taken.

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