Instagram, value and hard work

Pretty poor analysis of today's events.

1. Misunderstands the 1st rule of breakthrough consumer internet companies. The challenge is always getting users and almost never monetizing a loyal user base. This happened with Yahoo, Amazon, Google, Facebook...strange that people still bring up this argument.

With a flip of a switch the Instagram team could put a banner ad and make >$10M/year but they decided to pursue a more native business model that will take time.

2. Myspace didn't fail because of some inherent problem with their model, they failed because their team was unable to compete with Facebook.

It's true that Instagram could suffer a Myspace fate but the data so far suggests they're more like the Facebook of their space then the Myspace.

3. This is the worst point. Every startup has a random success multiplier but Instagram was big enough that the high order bit was their hardwork (persistence) and talent.