Slashdot Mirror
Instagram Loses Almost Half Its Daily Users In a Month
redletterdave writes "Instagram scared off a lot of users back in December when it decided to update its original Terms of Service for 2013. But even though the company reneged on its new terms after a week of solid backlash, Instagram users are still fleeing the photo-sharing app in droves. According to new app traffic data, Instagram has lost roughly half of all its active users in the month since proposing to change its original Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. In mid-December, Instagram boasted about 16.3 million daily active users; as of Jan. 14, Instagram only has about 7.6 million daily users." Towards the end of December data showing a 25% drop in Instagram's daily active users came out. While it caused quite a bit of discussion online, it was suggested that the decline was due to the Christmas holiday or an inaccuracy in the data.
I find it to be a decent example of how not to treat your users.
Although probably hard to determine, I would venture to guess that Instagram blocking access of their images to Twitter had a bigger effect.
Because if it's true it's good evidence, and a good warning for other companies, that you can't send up a trial ballon and see if you can get away with something outrageous and just recant later if the users notice without suffering any negative long term effects.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
The sooner instagram dies the better. There are great cameras in smartphones now, it's crazy people want to make their photos look like crap with filters.
Thank you.
To be clear:
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/trove
1. A treasure trove; a collection of treasure.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/drove
2. (usually plural) A large number of people on the move (literally or figuratively).
Of course, if you run a company that can monetize it's users, a drove IS a trove.
I don't even know what the fuck Instagram is, but a google search that took me all of three seconds turned up
Starmatic
Flickr
Blipfoto
23snaps
Snapseed (bought by Google)
Mobli
EyeEm
Tadaa
Cinemagram
TripColor
Snapchat
picplz
dailybooth
hipstamatic
step.ly
burstn.com
Blurtopia
lightbox
And now I'm bored, because I've already spent upwards of a minute copypasting company names.
Services like instagram absolutely require user submissions to survive. They make their money on advertising and that only works if they have stuff that people want to come and see. Since they have no content creation arm, they rely on user submissions. Piss off the users, and they've got nothing and they are boned.
It would be more like if the guy in the comic was leaving all sorts of cool antique items in Chad's garage and Chad was charging others to come and look at them, but was still saying he was going to take and sell them.
Free or not, people still hate the bait-and-switch. And why shouldn't they? Before the TOS change, the free service left their content under their control (and copyright). Then, after the switch, the same service suddenly grabbed your copyright away from you and decided to do whatever they want with your stuff.
I recognize that they don't have any obligations to provide a good service, especially since it is free. I also recognize that "you can host your images here at no cost, and in return we get a license to use them" is a bargain that some might find reasonable. The problem here is not the deal itself, but that the deal was so suddenly and significantly changed.
I will add that this deal, however reasonable, is not one that many people want to take.
so, in a nutshell, it's doing to pictures what slashdot keeps doing to news stories?
What nitwit modded you insightful?
Look, I pay money for a hotel room-- that fee goes to an expected level of security. I pay nothing for Instagram's services-- no expectation of security, or of any service at all. Is instagram an online storage business? No. Therefore, the pictures you upload are not there for you to store-- they're for Instagram to use however they want... your pictures are free, as in beer.
Point of fact, since no one is paying you for your pictures, they are literally worth nothing.
Link to an XKCD in case you're still confused as to what storage, business, and free is.
You can split hairs about his analogy all you want but he still has a point. Your pictures are only free (as in beer) for Instagram to flog to their corporate buddies as long as people are willing to put up with it. Shockingly, for whatever bunch of arrogant and inexperienced young Turks at Facebook who came up with the dumb idea of hijacking user's images, it seems that Instagram users are in fact not willing to put up with it and are fleeing the service in hoards.... well DUH! the joke's on Instagram/Facebook. Instagram is it's users, without the users and their images Instagram is worthless (as in used paper-towel that somebody has blown their nose with). Because somebody failed to realise this a $1 billion investment is circling the drain. It is always fascinating to watch as a real world example of truly epic ineptitude unfolds.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
I find it to be a decent example of how not to treat your users.
In their defense, the 20th century is over. What company doesn't shit on their customers these days? From MS's W8 to Sony's XCP and otherOS, Apple's "you're holding it wrong" and its replacing Google Maps with a turd sandwich, Oracle's refusal to fix Java bugs until the government gets involved... fucking over your customer is the new normal.
It's one of many downsides to a global economy. With seven billion prospective customers you can afford to target only those who are stupid and lack self-respect. The rest of us are boned, all we can do is bitch, and refuse to go along with the stupidity.
Whenever I see users act like this, it gives me hope. I'd be more hopeful if Instagram died, maybe it would give other companies pause.
Free Martian Whores!
to be fair, the user bleed isn't about ToS.
It's because of the twitter disintegration.
They're using their grammar skills there.
They already had pretty lousy terms to start with. Nobody reads terms when they sign up. They only start getting enraged once somebody else tells them the terms suck, usually after they get changed and people influential enough to be listened to complain vocally. In fact, Instagram merely made the terms more specific and by doing so, allowed users more freedom in a lot of cases than with the previous terms. The only real difference was that they actively stated that they might print ads over users pictures when displaying them. They already had that right with the previous terms, so meh.
The true lesson here is that people should read terms before they sign up and if a company makes the terms illegible, they should vocally complain to the company about the terms being illegible. Since most people can't be bothered, they end being part of a human centipede. I guess people need to have that happening to them every once in a while to be reminded that there's no such thing as a free lunch and if you're not paying, you're the product.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
It's one of many downsides to a global economy. With seven billion prospective customers you can afford to target only those who are stupid and lack self-respect. The rest of us are boned, all we can do is bitch, and refuse to go along with the stupidity.
Sadly, one thing the big tech success stories of recent years have proved beyond any doubt is that a lot of people will place convenience and cheapness above almost anything else, including quality, customer service, respect for privacy, etc.
This will continue unless and until enough people (a) make it clear that they would prefer to have a better product and better service from the business running it, and (b) are willing to pay enough actual money for it that it becomes commercially attractive.
What we seem to have today is a curious distribution of customers/commercial interest. There are mass-market, cheap and nasty products that make money on sheer volume (or even make money based on the mere expectation of making actual money from sheer volume one day). That includes the "you are the product" services where you don't pay any money at all to use them. To some extent it also includes creative industries with the ever-present IP and black market/piracy issues. Then there's a middle-ground, where the products and service are qualitatively better than the cheap junk and the price is higher accordingly, but there are enough people paying the higher price to keep these offers accessible below the die-hard specialist/enthusiast/elite market who will pay just about anything to have the best possible stuff. And finally, sometimes there are very high-end products that do a much better job and come with good service, but they have a much smaller potential market because of the price tag they come with, so it's mostly only that enthusiast crowd who buy.
Unfortunately, often that middle ground doesn't really exist in a given market because it's too hard for commercial organisations to identify and target it, and sometimes the high end of the market is barren or empty as well, leaving cheap junk the only option left. Economic theory might suggest that if enough people want better products and are willing to pay more for them then someone will come along and fill the gap, but so far that theory isn't standing up well to modern market dynamics where competition doesn't always work as well as it's "supposed to" for various reasons: literally global networking effects, artificial barriers to competition, and other such factors that can create a huge advantage for an incumbent with a mass market cheap and nasty product and a war chest.
I'm optimistic that this is just growing pains as we learn to cope with the implications of modern technologies and truly global markets with near-instant feedback, and that in time (perhaps after the global economy recovers from the current extended mess) new players really will enter the markets and start to compete on genuine quality and customer service again. If it becomes clear that this is still a viable option, then it's possible that businesses who treat their customers well could take advantage of the same modern efficiencies and word-of-mouth advertising to rise rapidly, and I think cultural change from apathy to acceptance or even positive support for such models is not only plausible but potentially something that could happen very quickly if momentum builds.
However, I fear the situation is going to continue deteriorating for a while longer before it starts to pick up, and I do worry that an entire generation may be growing up never knowing the alternatives or understanding the hidden prices they pay for what they use today. It's going to be hard for cultural change to happen if a significant chunk of the population have no concept of what the alternative might be.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.