So I've had Instagram on my phone for all of three weeks now. It finally showed up for Android on April 3rd after literally years of it being iPhone-only, and I remember downloading it that same night and feeling kind of smug about it, like I'd been let into a club that was actually worth joining. The filters are dumb in a good way. I've been putting Lo-Fi on pictures of my coffee like everyone else on the internet apparently does.
Then on April 9th Facebook goes and buys the thing for a billion dollars.
A billion. For an app that, as far as I can tell, doesn't make any money and has like thirteen employees. I keep rereading that number and it still doesn't feel real. Zuckerberg's post about it says they don't plan on doing "many more" acquisitions like this, which, sure, okay. Kevin Systrom wrote on the Instagram blog that it's "not going away" and they're going to keep building it independently. I want to believe that. I really do. But I've watched enough of these things happen to know that "independently" is one of those words that gets quietly redefined about eight months later.
I'm not even mad about the money part, honestly. Good for them. Two guys and an app built in like eighteen months, cash out for a billion dollars, why wouldn't you take that. Its the principle of the thing that bugs me a little, which I realize isnt a very coherent complaint. I just got used to this app being its own weird little thing and now its going to be a Facebook thing, and Facebook has a track record of taking small nice things and bolting on a News Feed integration and a bunch of permissions dialogs until the small nice thing isnt small or nice anymore. Maybe Instagram dodges that. I hope it does. I'm just not going to pretend I'm not a little bummed about it.
While I'm complaining about things, can we talk about the Mac malware situation for a second? Because for years I have had to sit through conversations with Mac people (you know who you are) explaining very patiently that they don't need antivirus software because Macs "don't get viruses." And now there's this Flashback trojan going around that's apparently hit somewhere north of half a million Macs by exploiting a Java hole, and its been all over the tech blogs the last couple weeks. I don't even own a Mac right now, I've got an old Dell that sounds like a hair dryer when it boots up, so I have zero stake in this fight. But I'd be lying if I said watching that particular myth take a hit hasn't been a little bit satisfying. Sorry. Pettiness noted.
The other thing everyone keeps sending me links about is Pinterest. My sister has been on it since maybe January and has basically stopped talking about anything else, its all mason jar crafts and recipe cards and shoes she's never going to buy. Saw a piece today, actually, poking at whether the growth is starting to level off after a few months of what sounds like an insane trajectory, something like 400 percent month over month at one point. I don't know enough about their numbers to say if thats true or just people looking for a story. But it does feel like the kind of thing where a site gets so hyped so fast that the only place left to go is a headline about how the hype is fading, even if the actual usage is fine. Happens every time.
Anyway. I'm not deleting Instagram over this, obviously, I put a filter on my coffee cup three hours ago. I'm just going to be a little more suspicious every time one of these small apps I like starts feeling too good to be true. Also my Dell really does need to be replaced, its been six years, I think it predates this blog even. Something to think about for the next paycheck instead of getting mad on the internet about apps I don't own any part of.