Are you really Instagram's customer? As in, they accept money from you?
And to be frank, I'm not sure if I can read stuff like:
> That they have a contract with Facebook whereby the poster gets to use Instagram in consideration of the quantifiable amount that Facebook earns from selling any and all data that the poster gives them?
in any way that gives you the benefit of any doubt. I mean c'mon. The poster said that there was an "unconventional transaction" happening. Since when does a "transaction" imply such a contract? It comes across as you purposely being obtuse either because you enjoy trolling or due to some OCD-like need to be "right" on the Internet. If neither of those are true, then I apologize, but would suggest that you reflect on how you are coming across to others.
On the other hand, they're a lot more transparent than Google, their special sauce does not include their infrastructure, most of which is open source or they've open sourced, and no doubt due to their singular focus and relatively smaller size you can get contact real people rather easily, sign up for updates on their software and infrastructure, etc. Google is so big that, as you've discovered, they don't have to care.