Dan Lyons gets to the heart of the Instagram/Twitter spat in Instagram Turns Evil, And It’s All Our Fault:

Companies like Twitter and Instagram (and Facebook, which owns Instagram) are set up in such a way that their interests have never been aligned with the interest of their users, but in fact are in complete opposition to them.

The only way these companies can succeed financially is by tricking members and forcing them into walled gardens. Think of it this way – there’s a reason that they don’t hold a circus out in the open, and instead put it under a tent – and it’s not to keep you dry in case of rain.

Dan is saying this is all our fault for letting these companies box us in. But really — what’s the alternative? Where’s the paid Instagram clone that has the same network effect as the free one does? This is not an easy problem to solve.

Related post from the Elezea archive: Everything for free, always: how Facebook ads show us the sad state of the Internet.