When Instagram was cool...
It's 2010. "Tik Tok" is playing on your brand-new iPhone... back when it was just a Ke$ha song. An app is downloading... for an hour... because your network didn't have any G's. It's finally done! Aaaaand it crashed :(
The early apps were a little rocky. Believe me, I built a few of them.
When Instagram came out we were blown away by how fast and slick it was. Have a grainy picture of a mediocre sunset? Pop the Brannan filter on it, slide the sharpness slider over and BAM! An awesome picture sent to your friends all over the world.
Ah, those were the days...
Now I scroll through Instagram and never actually see pictures from my friends. It’s all perfectly-crafted content from people I’ve never even met. There are suggested posts for as long as you can scroll. And the ads. My god. So. Many. Ads.
Entertaining? Absolutely. Soul-sucking? Sometimes. Isolating? Definitely.
Even for those of us who are a longggg way from being influencers, there’s a feeling that every time we post -- the lighting, the caption, and the hashtags all need to be perfect. After all, we’re comparing ourselves with the professional content in our feeds.
It’s so exhausting that we never end up posting. Sure, I see the occasional wedding, exotic vacation, or baby announcement, but the random sunsets have long since disappeared.
Back to basics
When my wife and I had our first child we were sending countless baby pics via text. It was clunky. Even our families are separated into different clusters, and we ended up with a dozen group chats zipping around.
Posting on Instagram wasn’t going to work either. Beyond the noise in everyone’s feed, there’s a lack of control over who sees each post. Maybe I want to share this pic with just my family and not my college buddies.
And there are tons of privacy concerns. Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook and owner of Instagram doesn’t even post his own kids on Instagram.
Without a great option, we started building PhotoJoy to create an app that we actually want to share on. A safe community that isn’t flashy or addicting, but keeps us connected to our loved ones.
No great options? Really?
There are thousands of photo sharing apps. I didn’t try every single one. However, I have seen and built enough apps to know they generally follow the same paths.
The vast majority of apps fizzle out and die. They’re supported by small teams, usually as a side-gig for the developers that have a dream of becoming big. I’ve built quite a few of these. As a user, our time is too valuable to spend it uploading photos and building a network on an app that might disappear.
The majority of apps that survive? They want to keep growing. Make more money. Become the next Instagram. I’ve built a few of these too, so I’m not throwing stones, but it starts to erode the core of what made the app great in the first place. Remember when:
- Facebook + Instagram feeds were filled with your friends?
- Uber was cheaper than taxis?
- AirBnb was better than hotels?
- Google’s motto was "Don’t be evil"?
- Streaming services were better than cable? And didn’t show ads?
All these companies are doing exactly what they are designed to do. Make money. But as a user, they kinda suck now, right?
Putting our money where our mouth is
What if the goal of the app wasn’t to make money? Would we still be sharing sunsets on Instagram?
PhotoJoy is run by the Ethical App Foundation, a registered non-profit corporation. It’s not a 501(c)(3) charity like your local animal shelter, so we pay taxes and operate like a normal business. However, like the animal shelter, we are not owned by anyone and have no shareholders - and any money we make has to be reinvested into our app or donated to charity.
By structuring in this way, our company can never be sold. Even if Facebook waves a billion dollars in our face.
As a user, you can be confident that our prices and app will stay consistent. We won’t shift our strategy for the sake of a few bucks, and your cherished photos and friends will never end up in Facebook’s or Google’s servers.
For a social app meant to connect loved ones, isn’t that the way it should be?
Looking ahead
We're carving a new path, so we’re not 100% sure what’s ahead. Hopefully the decisions we’ve made show that we’re in this for the long haul, and have our community’s best interests at heart.
As for me, I’m going to continue to use PhotoJoy forever with my family. The app is designed to sustain itself forever whether it’s used by 10 people or 10 million people. Either way, we’re happy to provide a safe way to share for those looking to reconnect.
- Chris (chris@photojoy.org)
