Every time I see that picture it makes me hate Instagram a little bit more.
Any reason in particular for that? Seems a bit harsh.
It removes all the fine features from the funnel, most of the color and contrast information, and shrinks the resolution. It made this photo worse in every way.
To be fair, that image wouldn't exist (nor would we be having this discussion) otherwise as it wouldn't have been published to Instagram. I can't comment in regards to the photographer's filter preference though...
Maybe the resolution would have been the same. But it's possible to upload a photo in Instagram without stopping to apply a filter, isn't it?