After Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger decide to leave the
firm today. A similar event happened in April 2018, WhatsApp chief executive
Jan Koum to quit WhatsApp. Which brings about questions of Facebook's current
leadership. Is this just a massive
coincidence or is this Facebook's worst year ever as a company? I would suggest
the latter as Facebook strays away from some of the start-up values that the
social network used to inherit.
Another striking coincidence in both these founders leaving
the umbrella company Facebook, both their leaving statements have an uncanny resemblance.
Koum’s stated he was “taking some time off to do things I enjoy outside of
technology". Whilst Systrom states “"Building new things requires
that we step back, understand what inspires us and match that with what the
world needs; that's what we plan to do." Also similarly both state they
will be having a watchful eye on their founding companies as Koum says “I'll
still be cheering WhatsApp on - just from the outside.” Whilst Mr Systrom
said the pair both remained "excited for the future of Instagram and
Facebook".
It comes at a time where Instagram becomes increasingly more
like Facebook becoming bloated, heavy and commercialised. The argument is that
Instagram owners were promised autonomy over Instagram as part of the acquisition
deal back in 2012. This control has been slowly dwindling and in May Instagrams’
VP of Product Kevin Weil moved to Facebook’s and was replaced by former VP of
Facebook News Feed Adam Mosseri — a member of Zuckerberg’s inner
circle. It also touted that Mosseri could be the one to take over Systrom and
Krieger’s position at the head of Instagram.
Instragrams popularity hugely outweighs Facebook which leads
to increased pressure to make revenue from the app to recuperate the losses
from Facebook. This has led to increased ads and features on the platform over
the years. In the eyes of consumers this has resulted in to a loss of
simplicity and minimalism which the app was so famous for.
Interestingly co-founder of WhatsApp Brian Action in March endorsed
the #deletefacebook social media campaign that took off after reports of Cambridge
Analytica using Facebook's user data came to light.
To conclude this will be a year Zuckerberg will want to
forget in a hurry. Seemingly commercial incentives have tarnished the
reputation of what this social network once started out as. Consumers will be
soon to catch on and currently Facebook looks like a sinking ship. Having said
that Facebook will always have an illustrious appeal as users have a fear of
missing out. This leads to a dependency to not deleting their accounts off the
site. However it looks like there are increased problems in Facebooks
leadership and mixed messages about the company’s values.
Follow @EdwardMuldrew
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