(And Facebook, you may be next.)
Facebook’s photo-sharing site Instagram is in some hot water today. Shortly after announcing it was updating its terms of service (TOS) that would give them the right to sell users’ photos to advertisers without notification or compensations, photographers all over the Internet have been screaming loud and clear.
And I am one of them.
Instagram, it seems, has heard the complaints, but if its actions are like everything else Facebook has done in the past few years, they will just find some new sneaky way to accomplish their same goals.

During lunch today I cancelled my Instagram account. And if Facebook doesn’t stop its acute case of megalomania, I guarantee my Facebook account will be the next to close.
How foolish can the people behind Facebook and Instagram be? I guess they really aren’t all that smart after all. Facebook paid a record $1 billion dollars for Instagram back in April, but if it continues making stupid moves like this, which only infuriate its customer base, it is likely to go down as one of the dumbest Internet purchases since Mark Cuban sold Broadcast.com to Yahoo! for a staggering $5.7 billion way back in 1999.
Ever since Facebook went public earlier this year the price of its stock lost value and has underwhelmed. Now Facebook is eagerly trying to find ways to monetize one of the most popular websites on the Internet. Several people asked me back then whether Facebook was a wise investment. “No,” I said, “It is a stupid purchase.” And now Facebook is only confirming my reservations.
In addition to making business page cough up money now to have their status updates seen at all, Facebook has been tinkering with its privacy policy non-stop much to the chagrin of its users. It rally makes one think about giving up on them once and for all. Throw in the fact that they think they own my photographs, and that they can profit from them, and that they can do so without giving me a cut of the action, and do so by trying to sneak a change to the TOS during the holidays when they hope most people are looking the other way, well, I think Facebook just jumped the proverbial shark. And with that I sincerely believe the end for Facebook is near. No, not this year, or even next year. I may just be a lowly Montana photographer, but I believe their days are numbered. In approximately three years Facebook will become the AOL and MySpace of this decade, and all of those other Internet companies that rested on their laurels and became so bullheaded their customers found other options.
Besides, I like to use filters the old fashioned way…by actually screwing them on to the end of my camera. I also like bitching the old fashioned way. Not by logging onto Facebook to tell everyone who doesn’t care what I think. No. I would much rather tell someone in person.
Lucky for Facebook they aren’t headquartered in Montana.
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