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Why Instagram is So Popular

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32 pointsjjets71815 comments

> Even if you compare Instagram photos to professional Adobe Lightroom plug-ins, Photoshop Actions, and all the tricks and desktop software that photographers use, Instagram photos have a decent quality. The Instagram images are certainly not comparable, in terms of quality or resolution, duh, but the images are at least interesting.

These two sentences are exactly contradictory. 1) “If you compare... Instagram photos have decent quality.” 2) “Instagram images are certainly not comparable in terms of quality”.

In any event, the second version is right. Instagram photos are cute gimmicks, and applying predetermined filters to snapshots can be fun, but the results are not remotely comparable in terms of “quality” to work by competent photo printers (whether in a darkroom or in Photoshop).

One of these is comparing object qualities like resolution and effective dynamic range, the other is comparing subjective qualities like "how cool does this photo look".

That’s not what the article says, but you might well be right; the author’s conception of photographic quality (sometimes “technical quality”) and articulation thereof are entirely incoherent. He shouldn’t attach 3 or 4 entirely unrelated meanings to one word, or should at least attempt to distinguish them somehow.

Anyhow, that one ambiguity is emblematic of a broader sloppiness at all levels in the writing of the post, which abounds with droopy clichés and empty puff. I wish the author and his editor had made a firmer commitment to prose quality.

> "These two sentences are exactly contradictory. 1) “If you compare... Instagram photos have decent quality.” 2) “Instagram images are certainly not comparable in terms of quality”.

Quality is a continuum. Decent < great < excellent < superb. There's plenty of room for them to be "decent" but still be of lower quality than you'd get with professional-grade hardware and software.

He directly says (1) you can compare, (2) you can’t compare. Either you can or you can’t. If the author actually means to say “you can get pictures that are better than come from supermarket-aisle instant cameras but not as good as come from a DSLR + a Photoshop expert”, he should just say that.

Sorry mate, but that's not how the English language works. They're comparable as in "you can compare them" but not comparable as in "said comparison shows a clear winner and loser".

Oh, I see where you're coming from.

Words in English can have more than one meaning.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/comparable

adjective 1. capable of being compared; having features in common with something else to permit or suggest comparison: He considered the Roman and British empires to be comparable. 2. worthy of comparison: shops comparable to those on Fifth Avenue. 3. usable for comparison; similar: We have no comparable data on Russian farming.

It seems clear from context that he's using sense 1 in one sentence and sense 2 in the other. As the other poster said, that's just the way natural languages work. :-)

The context of viewing is everything. Instagram is good enough for the situations it is mostly viewed in - iPad iPhone without pinch to zoom. Also, the photos are not heavily scrutinized. They're one-glance, quick-bursts of diary like slithers from people's lives, slightly enhanced the way a good story is.

As someone who sees dozens of portfolios every day, I think you vastly overestimate the "quality" of most people who call themselves professional photographers–especially those who shoot weddings and portraits.

Also, the latest version of Instagram saves high-res versions of manipulated images to your camera roll. With the iPhone 4s having an 8mp camera, resolution is not the issue.

Yes, Instagram's filters are exaggerated and images are cropped square, but they aren't that far off from a lot of things I see people doing for money.

People buy a DSLR at Costco for $600 and a website for $250 (hopefully from me), and they are now a "professional" and shooting weddings on Craigslist for $800 or portraits for their Facebook friends. Without technical skills, high-contrast, over-saturation, blown-out, tinted looks become "in".

Similar to the bible verse, "Photoshop filters cover a multitude of sins"

So true. Just like everyone who buys "Websites for Dummies" and becomes a professional web designer. I see that a lot too.

By the way, how do you only charge $250 for a website? Is this like a hobby or do you have a bunch of templates you sell or do you just do small sites super fast and work in bulk? I'm in the website biz myself and my minimum is $1200. Just curious how others run their pricing models.

I like what they said about the amount of media thrown at us sucking our souls and numbing our senses. It's so true! I think that's why there's such a big push toward minimalism on the web today. People can no longer handle having so much information thrown at them at once with things flashing everywhere, gratuitous onMouseover events, and especially the huge amount of choice we have to deal with.

I think it boils down to choice. Instagram takes much choice out of the equation. Just like they said, there isn't a huge grid of photos to choose from and that's a good thing.

On kind of a side note, I'm so baffled by the funding of sites like this. Please don't take this as a criticism, I'm just genuinely curious about why instagram or any small online startup needs funding? First off, aren't a lot of these companies something that people can just run on a shoestring budget from their home? From what I see, a lot of startups require a competent coder, servers to handle the load, and a budget just large enough to handle that. Also, how are these companies making money? How is instagram worth 7 million? I don't see ads or any membership model so how wil they pay back that money? From where I sit (living off web design while building my own web app on the side in Chicago with no employees or funding or even an office) it seems these companies could run without the millions and actually be n a better position once they get big as they won't be beholden to VCs and have heavy debt. I know it's off topic but damn does it bug me. I honestly don't understand.

Edit: the only thing I can think of that requires a lot of money would be the momentum (marketing) and hype that money can buy. Otherwise couldn't it just start as a weekend project for $20 a month with a VPS and elegant code?

To me, Instagram and a gazillion other companies on the web exist solely to be acquired. I mean, what can Instagram really charge for? It has basically become a chat app but with pictures to start the conversation instead of "hey!".

Thank you! I thought I was the only one. I feel like saying this sort of thing on HN is blasphemy and stuff people don't want to hear even if it is only out of sincererity and curiosity.

Acquisition makes sense but there are far too many startups out there tht seem to have this model. That's going to hurt a lot of people in the long run. Those who aren't acquired will have gotten rich but the VCs will get burned and then there will be far less investors willing to spend some money when a startup that actually has a valuable product with a profitable model comes around. It's like a big race to get in on the startup trend before the bubble bursts.

The coder who runs this as a weekend project for $20 a month and a VPS may be able to create a similar product, but a version of Instagram with few other users, that is otherwise equivalent or better, is much less compelling.

There is a strong social aspect to Instagram. If it were just a place to post photos that you can tweet a link to, it would have gone the way of twitpic, yfrog, lockerz, and a dozen other services that are still used, but get a lot less attention. In this way it’s different from a successful bootstrapped service like, say, Pinboard, which can become more popular through word of mouth but was still very useful when they had just one user. Gmail is another example of a service that’s still useful with just one user.

So to be (as) useful, Instagram must have a lot of users, and must somehow attract them. A big marketing budget can help, although I don’t think Instagram has ever spent large sums on marketing. Simply being free, and good, helps a lot too though, and having enough servers to handle millions of non-paying users and developers talented enough to make it scale that well costs money.

You are right that eventually they will need to make money for all this to make sense. It seems to me that they could eventually introduce ads or offer charge for more features. But assuming that ads or premium features could eventually make business sense for Instagram, I don’t think it’s completely nuts to have a phase of rapid VC-funded growth.

I see your point, guan, and in Instagram's case the funding may be justified. But there will inevitably be far more of these sites failing than massively succeeding which means far more investors getting burned. Then the Startuplamd loses its luster, the bubble bursts, and we're all screwed even if we're worth funding.

I wonder how different things would be if more people rejected funding and ran shoestring budgets longer. I'd say the pressure to have to be good and pay the bills will result in few projects but much far more successful ones in the long run.

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