Date: 2012-01-10 20:27:05 Created: 2012-01-10 15:23:05
This train of thought started with writings a few months ago which made me realize I am not and probably never will be a customer of Google. Google's customers are people who want to place ads, and my attention is being sold. Twitter has been trying to introduce ads for a while. Now Instagram is announcing that they are about to do the same. I have some thoughts around this "free now, ads later" model.
Essentially, it feels kind of dishonest to me. You build and get people hooked on an experience. Then, you alter it in order to make money. If you built something pure and focused enough in the beginning, which I would say Twitter and Instagram have, you are pretty certain to make things worse in the process.
Also, and perhaps more importantly in the big picture, you are taking your initial customers - the users who use your service - and selling them to your actual customers. So not only am I not getting the service I grew to like anymore, I am also not the customer and so my interests will no longer be the driver of the company providing the service.
So what if this is the only way you could have built this amazing service and network of users, this bait and switch clearly indicates you built something you knew you could not support as is. Is building an unsustainable dream something to be proud of?
Of course, I suppose this "strategy" is natural for VC-supported businesses - the potential for a huge payoff is there. You could hit the jackpot selling eyeballs looking at something of enough interest. But you also might miss that lofty goal and have everything disappear down the toilet at one speed or another. Building something sustainable from the start seems much more appealing to me. Then again, the pessimist in me comes in and asks how many of us would actually pay for all these ad-supported things. Perhaps ads can sustain more impossible dreams for longer? Perhaps it is the best, even the only, way? But I don't want to believe it, and I certainly seem to have my ad-tolerance ever lowering.
Clearly, I prefer to be the actual customer of the things I use. Why would I share my photos through Instagram if the real purpose of the service is to sell my attention? If the real purpose is to be another pipe for ads? Why would I want to trust someone running a service like that to keep my interests in mind going forward?
(And sure, there are plenty of cases where the balance tips and it seems worth the ads. See Google search and Facebook. But they too tread quite a bit on the wrong side of my comfort line, and are not beyond frequent re-evaluation and possible abandonment.)
Perhaps this is part of why I love Apple too? They sell stuff to me. I am their customer, and they have an interest in serving me appealing things. Me, not someone else. This arrangement feels simple, clear and honest to everyone.
My Flickr pro account is up for renewal soon. Paying for continued service there just started to seem even more appealing. Flickr lets me be their customer, will Instagram and Twitter?
In a way, I don't really care. I love what the two services are now, but if they change too much I will simply stop loving them and move on.
So … anyone out there making a nice for-sensible-pay version of Twitter and/or Instagram?