Why the founders of Instagram stepped down and what this means for the future of Instagram (and for you)

The big news this week in the world of social media is, of course, that the two founders of Instagram are both leaving the business. 

And, for once, this is one bandwagon I’m not running a mile or so behind, watching as its dust trail evaporates on the distant horizon. I’m actually on-board this time; not quite front-row-centre, but definitely towards the middle or - at the very least - sat in the final third, rubbing shoulders and muscling for space with a couple of hundred column inches, which all tackle the issue of what this announcement means for the future of Instagram. 

So, if this article doesn’t get some serious readership, then I quit. I mean, look at that clickbait headline for goodness sake - I should be hitting a thousand views before lunchtime!

Unfortunately, as with a lot of things on the internet, this article is a bit of smoke, a couple of mirrors, and a bit of a lie.

I can tell you as much about what this all means for ‘the future’ of Instagram as every other article out there; which is pretty much nothing, as we just don’t know.

Sure, I can guess, ponder, and predict as much as the next person (and oh boy, will I!). However, what might be more useful for anyone reading this is not what this news means for the future of Instagram; but, what this news means for you (influencer, creator, or passerby).

Let’s tackle my pondering first, as it’ll take up the most time. 

On the future of Instagram I’m stuck between two opposing views…

On one hand, Facebook is in charge of Instagram (we all know that, right?) and they do have a track record of focusing on the almighty dollar and bloating the hell out of their social networks in blind pursuit of it. 

Just look at Facebook (the social network, not the business); it went from a simple place - where we declared our friendship with uni friends, then old school mates and (some) colleagues, poked each other, shared a few select photos of our holidays, and grew increasingly insecure about how our lives seemed to have turned out when compared to other people - to one saturated with check-ins, friends-of-friends-of-friends requests, FarmVille games, questions-upon-questions about why we’d been where we’d been and why, events near us, BMWs for ￡1 on marketplace, and the fakest of fake news.

Whether this bloating has single-handedly led to the decline of Facebook (and it is in decline), I don’t know. Maybe the decline was inevitable, regardless of the changes they made to the service); as with so many ‘first starters’, perhaps Facebook was doomed to grow, peak, mature, and slowly die, trampled to death by the tidal wave of better, brighter, and far cooler imitations that came along.

Regardless, Facebook are a big old business with a lot of intelligent people at their disposal. The first child might have grown-up a disappointment and the family will be damned if the same thing will happen to the second.

Instagram will be that properly nurtured child (so says my first line of thought). Facebook won’t bloat it with unnecessary (and unwanted) features that muddle its brilliant simplicity and annoy the hardcore users.

Okay, so anyone reading this is now pointing (and screaming) towards polls, gif messaging, non-chronological newsfeeds, and the ability to share Stories within Stories of a Highlight of a previous Story. And yes, I agree; Instagram has been developed, changed, tweaked, and updated - yet, it’s core product (image sharing) remains the same and, after all, there’s more than one way to complicate a social network.

Facebook’s (the business) biggest failing with Facebook (the social network) is that it complicated the network in an overtly brash and garish way, stuck out like a sore thumb for all to see. Like the guy on every street who covers every inch of there house in Christmas lights come November 1st, changes to Facebook slapped you around the face and screamed loudly - “INVITE ALL OF YOUR DECEASED RELATIVES TO JOIN FARMVILLE TO HELP YOUR CORN GROW!!!” 

Instagram, meanwhile, has become subtly complex, with additions and developments flying as low under the radar as they can do, in the least intrusive fashion possible. When Instagram add a feature, it doesn’t get in the way of the core service - and, in doing so, Instagram keep the user experience clear, simple, and (broadly) unadulterated.

So, that’s ‘on one hand’; Facebook (the business) learning the lessons of Facebook (the network) and developing Instagram as Facebook 2.0 (with bells, whistles, and money making opportunities), yet in a way that doesn’t offend (the majority) of users.

Now, let’s look at the other hand...

Facebook often appear arrogant and single-minded in the way they operate. They have a plan and come hell, high water, attempts at government regulations, and users threatening to leave in droves, they won’t deviate from it - and, in doing so, they’ll kill Instagram by making it Facebook 2.0; a social network dedicated to wringing money from everyone who uses it, in any (and every) way possible.

The above paragraph is really really unfair. I don’t know Facebook or anyone at Facebook and I’m certainly over a million degrees removed from the guys at the top. But, going purely on how the media portray Facebook and the thoughts and feelings that rumble through my gut, I’m sticking with this as my ‘other hand’ point of view (of course, there’s a very big grey area in between).

The problem is, as a friend once said about our ‘mule with a spinning wheel’ football team, the business of social media is a race for blood, blood, and yet more blood.

Social networks are continually on the hunt for new users. They want their juggernaut of growth to keep on rolling, indefinitely; until more people than exist on the planet have signed up for an account. It’s this growth that fuels their value. It’s this growth that keeps investors and adverters, alike, pumping their money in.

So, how do they plan to keep on growin’? By bringing all of the people who don’t use the service shiny new things. Build your own emoji, tag your calorie count, launch your own satellite, and anything else you can think of is added to social networks in a desperate attempt to ‘win’ over new users. It doesn’t matter if those changes destroy the origins of the social network, its core purpose, and what made it interesting to begin with. And who cares if those 1 billion loyal fuddy-duddy users get upperty about the changes; they’re already accounts ‘won’ and the goal of this game is to win new users, not keep old. More blood, more blood, more blood, until there's no-more left to be had.

That’s ‘the other hand’; where Facebook, in their never ending pursuit of growth, driven by a ‘we know best’ attitude, turn Instagram into a Facebook 2.0 that everyone hates.

And, as I’ve already said, there’s a huge grey space in-between these two positions that we might find ‘the future’ of Instagram in - which is as big a cop-out as you’re ever likely to see.

But, does it really matter? Facebook will do what Facebook will do and either of my positions (or anyone else’s) might well be proved right. What’s more important is what ‘we’ (those who sit outside of Facebook) can learn from this whole episode - and that, for my money, is that anyone (and everyone) who makes a business and/or hobby from Instagram needs to realise the dangers of platform dependency.

Social networks are a business, not a democracy. You (the user) has no say in how they work, really, and no great insight into how they’ll change now or in the future.

It’s oh so important to remember this, if you’re an influencer, creator, or whatever else you want to be called, who depends on a social network for their income. If Instagram (or any other social network) declines, collapses, or dies, anyone with a significant financial dependence on the network will suffer. 

The logical conclusion here is that these folks should look to spread their risk - and I don’t just mean across the other social networks when I say this. There’s a world of skills that anyone operating as a business (or hobbyist) on a social network has that are applicable in other areas of the digital world (and even outside); photography, writing, presenting, modelling, styling, promoting, marketing, branding, and whole raft of things beside.

It’s important to hone these skills, develop them, and see how they need to tweaked, adapted, and changed outside of your primary social network (and outside of social networks in general). It’s also important to work out how you can publicise and apply these skills outside of social networks; i.e. how these skills can earn you a living in another industry. 

There’s an entire article to be written here on skills transfer across the digital world and beyond; but, for now, all I'll say is that recognising a platform dependency in your ‘business’ and keeping the idea of skills transfer in mind will mean that the risk of any and all changes to a social network (like Instagram) are vastly reduced.

This means you can stop worrying when you hear about founders stepping down, stop trying to second-guess the likely changes to a network (and what these mean for you), and ignore the vast number of articles that spring-up predicting success, failure, doom, terror, or a subtle blend of every possibility going, each and everytime the wind blows change across a particular social network.

Just don’t ignore mine, of course