Is Instagram doomed to follow in Facebook’s footsteps?

Instagram doomed to follow in Facebook’s footsteps

IT’S NO understatement to say Instagram revolutionised photography and photo sharing, but it may already be losing its charm.

While photography as an art form has existed for nearly two centuries, Instagram distilled it to its purest form and allowed users to easily express their creativity with others.

Take the 1:1 square format, for example. Many photographers would have laughed if you told them ten years ago that it would become the most popular aspect ratio. Now it just seems natural.

Instagram has even become part of our everyday vernacular. “Is this Insta worthy?” is now a common rhetorical question – and a very serious decision.

But as the dust settles from the recent departure of co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, what is future for Instagram and its one billion users?

Humble beginnings

It is strange to think that the service was only launched eight years ago as a simple photo-sharing app exclusively for iOS.

In 2012, Instagram was bought by Facebook for US$1 billion, an especially high figure when you compare it to Yahoo’s acquisition of rival service Flickr for US$35 million.

Facebook initially held Instagram at arm’s length, allowing Systrom and Krieger to continue to develop the service and maintain the workplace culture they had built.

However, for better or worse, Instagram started changing with the times. It’s hard to know precisely who is responsible for what changes, but we can make some educated guesses.

The evolution of the platform

Systrom and Krieger are said to have been responsible for the feel of the ‘original’ Instagram: uncluttered and straightforward. It was these two qualities that made it so unlike other social media experiences.

Facebook was likely responsible for some (or many) of the extra features that have been added over time including more advertisements, an algorithmic timeline (similar to Facebook’s news feed, as opposed to Instagram’s previously chronological timeline), and an increased focus on video which saw the recent addition of IGTV.

The Instagram of the future

Systrom announced his and Krieger’s departure from Instagram in a September blog post, in which he described the pair’s apparent motivation for moving on from the company they created eight years ago.

“We’re planning on leaving Instagram to explore our curiosity and creativity again,” he wrote.

“Building new things requires that we step back, understand what inspires us and match that with what the world needs; that’s what we plan to do.”

Left to right: Instagram co-founder Mike Krieger, Instagram’s new CEO Adam Mosseri, and Instagram co-founder CEO Kevin Systrom.

It is hard to say for sure whether they left because they were genuinely ready for something else or because Facebook’s control became too dominant.

Instagram’s VP of Product, Adam Mosseri, has been announced as their successor. Mosseri has been with the company for over ten years and started as a product designer back in 2008; prior to that, he was the manager of Facebook’s News Feed. It is safe to say he is an industry veteran.

What remains unknown is how Instagram will evolve. Will Mosseri champion the Instagram community and streamline the app in favour of simplicity? It seems unlikely at this stage given Facebook’s vested interest in combining the two platforms to become an advertising juggernaut.

However, such a strategy could backfire, especially if Instagram loses the essence of what made it popular in the first place – a no-nonsense way to share great photos with friends.

Social media in general has been tarnished by events such as the Cambridge Analytica data scandal, which led to 1.8 million Australians deleting their Facebook accounts. Add too much clutter, non-stop advertising and a lack of privacy to Instagram and it risks the same user backlash.