Slashdot Mirror
Instagram User Drop Claims Overblown
Nerval's Lobster writes "When AppData first posted a graph showing a 25 percent drop in Instagram's daily active users, it sparked a flurry of discussion online—much of it focused on the recent controversy over the photo-sharing service's Terms of Use. The New York Post, for example, blamed the dip on a 'revolt' among Instagram users incensed over changes in the Terms of Use, including new legalese that some interpreted as blanket permission for the service to start selling user photos to advertisers. But a new statement from AppData, which tracks app traffic, suggests there's another cause behind the dip in daily active users: the season. 'The decline in Facebook-connected daily active users began closer to Christmas, not immediately after the proposed policy changes,' read a statement the firm sent to The Wall Street Journal. 'The drop between Dec. 24 and 25 seems likely to be related to the holiday, during which time people are traveling and otherwise have different routines than usual.'"
It's also possible (likely, even) that there's no loss of users at all. AppData only checks a subset of Instagram users, and the photo-sharing site itself has said the data represented there is not accurate. Another article points out that several other Facebook-related services showed significant drops, according to AppData, which could suggests a problem with the entire platform or with the data gathering methods.
It's also possible (likely, even) that there's no loss of users at all.
Considering what users put up with in Facebook, I'd say it is very likely that the controversy was limited to the slashdot crowd.
We in our tech circles know about the T&C of Instagram but to think that 25% of Instagram users know anything about this--much less care enough to stop using the service simply does not pass the sniff test.
NY Post, a questionably new source to begin with citing AppData, a company that has to use conjecture to create insight means there is NO NEWS HERE PEOPLE.
Maybe given that it is the holiday season a subset of users of such services decided to spend time with real people like real friends and family for a change? You know, instead of the hundreds of 'friends' they've never even met?
Users are addicted to the false sense of hipsterness that they get from instagraming their dirty laundry. And what happens when the dealer ups the price? They just pay more. Not even something like this in the TOS would affect user base:
...and we own all your photos and information. We will sell everything you upload to anyone who pays us money for it (including governments, law enforcement, courts, coworkers, your current, future and ex partners, etc)...
Nothing will change until a new dealer comes around with a better product.
Seriously. Cell phones finally started getting decent cameras to take pictures with so now people run filters to make them look like faded polaroids?
No. People run filters to create an artistic view of what they are trying to present. Sometimes this is a faded polarioid look trying to make a picture look old fashioned, sometimes it's one of many other filters instagram offers.
It's laughable that you think it his a recent fad. People have been toying with fake colour and intentionally crippled photography for years to achieve certain effects. Take a look at the Holga line of plastic cameras that the hipsters have recently made all the more popular. They also sell Holga lenses (plastic and very poor quality) which mount on Canons and Nikons. But hey it goes back even further.
Many of the pictures I see coming out of instragram are reminiscent of cross processing whereby people took their nice C-41 negative films, loaded them into their swanky Leica cameras, and then took them to the lab and ran them through E-6 transparency chemicals. This was instragram back in the 60s, and often it looked good.
But then this article has nothing to do with why users use instragram, just how many and when. This is news. Seeing a seasonal change that causes a drop around Christmas time is the opposite of what I expectedness given how people are now amongst friends, family, or on holidays and more critically always connected via their phones.