Quitting Instagram | Hacker News Reader

Quitting Instagram

washingtonpost.com

35 pointscohaagen26 comments

> Quitting Instagram: She’s one of the millions disillusioned with social media. But she also helped create it.

Interesting how the people making these social media platforms are growing disillusioned with them and leaving them.

After they've made their money, of course.

See also: Facebook creators talking about how addictive and dangerous it can be, or this just posted today -- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18450058

Reminds me of ex-presidents/ex-leaders who have regrets about decisions they made when we depended on them. Now when they're washed up and have zero clout, they're suddenly on our side again.

I see where you're coming from. At the same time, what is the alternative? Is an employee of a company that you don't like condemned for life, forced to serve out their sentence or leave quietly?

It's reasonable for someone to join with good intentions and then later realize that something isn't working. It's also reasonable for that person to speak up once they leave; perhaps they can convince others to not make the same mistake.

What "mistake" are you referring to? It's hard for me to see the mistake. She joined a startup, enjoyed wild success, likely was rewarded well monetarily, and left to go do new things.

I was speaking broadly; I make no claim of whether this person made a mistake.

Full title is: "Quitting Instagram: She’s one of the millions disillusioned with social media. But she also helped create it."

Disillusioned, with millions [of dollars]

Which only the co-founders got...

I think a lot of people can feel how these apps affect their wellbeing. But how do we clearly state what the issue is, is a more difficult question.

For me this brings a larger topic that has to do with software development... any maybe it underpins the issue behind all those addicitve apps.

The issue is that typically, it is software and hardware that dictates the apps, rather than a human looking at a human, problem, and creating an app to solve a human problem. Of course that's the story we tell ourselves but it isn't the truth.

Most of us who code have stumbled upon those decisions many times: suddenly you realize a pattern in your code, and how convenient it is, that you could also use it for something else. A vary basic example of this is, well since we have profiles, now we can "connect" them. Why don't we add a "suggestion" feature that shows a lot of "interesting" profiles? And let's also allow to "follow" someone, because the software pretty much says : it's easy to do so wtf not?

You see what I mean?

People will deny that and say that eg. YouTube "suggestions" are purely a commercial, ie. completely rational and premeditated decision. But again I'd argue it's not the full truth. The full truth, is it becomes a reality because sofware and hardware made it not just possible , but easy.

Essentially: we let software and hardware tell us what to do, based on "what can be done". Look over the web and you find gazillions of example of that. Gazillions of completely unnecessary apps that exist solely because "we can do it".

And now we have AI... and one can only imagine the gazillions more awful applications of AI that will happen, that already happen today... "just because we can do it".

http://archive.is/NUHWd

only Systrom and Krieger walked away with hundreds of millions of dollars; Facebook offered other early employees small signing bonuses and limited Facebook stock grants

Why you should never be an early employee at a startup, example one zillion

I would be surprised if they didn't get millions in equity though. Not a bad gig.

I would guess their options had a strike around a $10-$20 million valuation. So they would have got x50-x100 at the exit.

That is not what the words small and limited imply to me but in Silly Valley I guess who knows?

As opposed to what? A late employee at a startup? An employee at a non-startup?

Basically you don’t want to be employee 1-10. Either be a co-founder, or join at a point you can paid a good salary. Those guys work as hard as the founders and take as much financial risk as the founders, but walk away with nothing. There are exceptions but this is 99% of cases.

Never be on it, nor on Fb, LinkedIn etc. Only in G+ at the time when it's born and I used GMail.

IMO webdevs should be take story lesson rediscover non-web technologies, there are many things outside webservers and browsers. Far more advanced, free, pleasant to use, effective etc.

Where is she going to be working now? Or will she spend all of her free time trying to recover from this time at Instagram. It's easy to write stories and say things like this given all the news about social media now.

Did you read the article? She hasn't worked at Instagram since 2014.

By the way, how can someone read the article when Washington Post lets you read only a limited number of articles?

You can use outline.com

Here is this particular article: https://outline.com/eztukA

Instagram is the only social network I really like... but I'm worried they're starting to add too much to it.

I don't watch stories. They have some kind of TV? What was wrong with a single photo? Can I get my feed in chrono order please? An ad every 4 posts? How much can I pay you per year to make it stop?

I live an interesting life and it was fun to share and meet others in the same lifestyle niche, but I've just about given up on Instagram. Not worth it.

Excuse me I get an ad after every 2 stories, sometimes 1! I find the posts boring. Its he stories which capture me but yet, they make me feel bad every single time.

I wish Instagram would let users disable 'Likes' on their posts. I want to post cool things that I see or do. I don't want the pressure of competing for approval but the little heart sits there empty...

When I think of all the other challenges facing the world, it's hard for me to take adults lamenting something like social media seriously.

Our world is an amazing place offering an unlimited number of a hobbies / activities to engage in. People fall into and out of love with such activities all the time. People also take / leave jobs all the time.

Not a big deal.

When I retired my social media accounts a couple of years ago (facebook, instagram, twitter) I remember a distinct feeling of triumph that felt worthy of sharing. Like I finally opened my eyes to see them for what they really are... but in the end it was nothing more than that and I quickly occupied my attention elsewhere with other activities.

Now this is only my narrow perspective on it, but I can very easily picture a scenario where for a lot of people, some level of inflated self-importance (granted by the very platform they are quitting) only heightens the perception of magnitude with them actually leaving it. So I can see where treating self-imposed exile becomes an act of heroism of sorts.

But I wholly agree with you, and I have a hard time sympathizing. All that is required is a little effort in giving yourself some distance from it and your free.

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