Instagram's co-founder says that the app has 'lost the soul'

Instagram’s co-founder isn’t happy with the direction the platform has taken, claiming it has ‘lost the soul’ of its original purpose.

The photo and video sharing social networking service is now owned by Meta Platforms, Inc., formerly known as Facebook, Inc., the same technology conglomerate that owns Facebook and WhatsApp.

Following its initial launch in October 2010 by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, the app grew massively and has gone from a space for friends and families to share pictures of their day-to-day on a feed to incorporating TikTok-style reels, a Stories feature similar to Snapchat and the ability to buy and sell products using Instagram Shopping.

There are now over one billion Instagram users.

Koshiro K / Alamy Stock Photo

We’ve all seen sponsored posts and advertisements from top celebs and influencers on the app as well. Then we have all the wannabe influencers for whom Instagram has become a major market place.

However, Systrom is not pleased about it at all.

“I think we’ve lost the soul of what made Instagram Instagram,” Systrom mused during a interview with tech reporter Kara Swisher on the On with Kara Swisher podcast.

The area of the current version of Instagram that is the biggest disappointment to the computer programmer and entrepreneur is the focus on ‘commercial’ and ‘more ad dollars’ among other issues.

@kevin/Instagram

“My biggest regret, I think, at Instagram is how commercial it got.”

He added that Instagram’s ‘incentives are to go to more commercial, more creators, more deals, more ad dollars,’ which can result in unintended social consequences.

This has, according to Systrom, ‘focused the energy on people living apparently amazing lives with no bounds, doing the fanciest things, looking the best, wearing the fanciest clothes.’

By focusing on life’s curated highlights only has creates a ‘terrifying’ dynamic, he explained, in which Instagram users believe they are seeing people’s real lives and not just the best moments.

kevin/Instagram

Systrom added: “Life is really hard and whatever people post on Instagram is the tip of the iceberg. It’s the race to the bottom of who can be the most perfect.”

The problem has filtered its way through to Systrom’s own Instagram feed, as he said he has seen friends who used to upload pictures of their daily lives turn to posting “#ads”.

Systrom declared: “That, to me, is not the Instagram we started.”

The former Instagram CEO resigned on 24 September 2018 after selling the app to Facebook in 2012 for $1 billion. He is now one of the cofounders of the AI-powered news app Artifact, which was launched at the start of the year.