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Comment by zaidf | Hacker News Reader

Hopefully I am wrong but this could become symbolic of self-inflicted pain by a company.

Here's my reading:

(1) Twitter started off by pissing off its API users.

(2) Instagram, a company that is by most means excelling because of a great product and focus, takes the bait from Twitter and runs all over its own users and compromises its core principle by making their product shittier. Instagram thinks significantly fewer pictures will be shared on twitter overall as a result--a risky assumption.

(3) Twitter rolls out its own photo effect service and gets to be seen as the nice kid on the block. Meanwhile, Instagram Corp. remains confident Twitter's own feature can't touch its engagement though objectively, this may be a risky bet.

(4) app.net jumps in telling the Valley "TOLD YALL!"

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> app.net jumps in telling the Valley "TOLD YALL!"

Haha, ever since this story broke, I've been waiting with bated breath for a post by Dalton about how this is another sign that Twitter is "pivoting" or how users are going to get tired of not being the customers.

Dalton isn't incorrect or lying when he suggests that users are getting tired. However, the core question for his business is at what rate are users getting tired? And is the rate accelerating? So far, I don't see this nuanced conversation and yet, the entire App.net argument hinges upon it.

I'm not saying that he's incorrect or lying, I'm just saying that he sounds a tad pretentious every time he makes one of those posts.

> the core question for his business is at what rate are users getting tired?

Right, and tired enough to pay $5 for a one-month subscription to App.net. And the fact that App.net offers only Stripe for payment doesn't help things. Neither does the branding problem that App.net has - for the average person, it's difficult to understand what exactly it does. It's more powerful to have a social networking platform than a specific site, for sure, and I immediately appreciated its value when I heard about it. But I don't think most of my non-tech savvy friends could or would.

You nailed it. tired enough to pay probably matters more than even the rate of getting tired.

sadly, the first bit of reasoning would be much more convincing if instagram wasn't owned by a twitter competitor

Exactly. It'd be one thing if instagram was a popular independent service. But they're not. Let's not forget who their big brother is, peering over their shoulder.

I'm neither convinced that Twitter would have any interest in creating an Instagram clone (their recent behavior seems to indicate they're more interested in being a media distribution platform for brands than a venue for personal expression), nor that there is any reason to believe its chance of success would be any greater than that of a complete newcomer to the space.

Personal expression increases engagement and thus audience, which brands seek.

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