Image Credit: Gizmodo
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Screw Your Class Warfare, It’s All About Platform Love

Image Credit: Gizmodo

According to many journalists of the tech persuasion, Instagram users went through a spell of class warfare earlier this week, after the photo service released an Android app for the previously iOS exclusive product. Today, Instagram was acquired by Facebook for $1 Billion, and the hate was much, much worse, and from users of both platforms.

So what does this mean? Is there class warfare between mobile OS’s and Facebook?

No, it just means that a lot of Instagram users loved the exclusivity of the product. Some say that all Instagram users are hipsters (Definition: Hipster’s can’t be defined because then they’d fit in a category, and thus be too mainstream) but I don’t agree.

To me, the best thing about Instagram was the exclusivity it had on iOS. Not because Android users aren’t in the same class as iPhone users, or because they can’t take photos as well, but because it differentiates the platforms. There is a reason that the Forza series of racing games are only on the Xbox, and the Gran Turismo series is PlayStation-only. It gives you a reason to get and stay on that platform, other than the hardware. The hate wasn’t against Android, or its users, it was against anything that wasn’t iOS

We should have apps that are exclusive to their original OS, be it Android or iOS, but in this ever-growing market, that sentiment is becoming unfeasible. The opportunity for rapid growth on a second OS is something that many can not and would not pass up. Users take pride in their exclusive apps, but this era may be coming to an end.

Instagram will flourish with the opportunity to impact hundreds of millions of new users with its recent moves. And if you are one of the people who had hoped the hipsters would leave the service, the one-two combination Instagram just unleashed surely has granted your wish. But from what I’ve seen today with the Facebook deal, the hate isn’t class warfare. People don’t hate Facebook because of class — they hate Facebook because it’s Facebook.

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2 thoughts on “Screw Your Class Warfare, It’s All About Platform Love”

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