I HAVE A SECRET
AD-FREE INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT, And It’s Bliss BY MARK WILSON
I
want to tell you about a secret place. A magical place. A place called Instagram in 2010. People posted photos–of their pets, their food, their adventures–and you just flipped through them as an escape from everything terrible in your life. Crucially, there were no ads or attempts at monetization. It was just pure visual bliss. Only about two years ago did I learn that Instagram wasn’t still like this for most people. That’s because on my Instagram I don’t see ads. Even after upgrading my iPhone. Even after switching to Android. Even after Instagram got rid of the reverse chronological feed and added its self-destructing stories. I have all the new features, just none of the baggage that comes with them. When I realized that my experience was not common–and, in fact, that other people needed to squint through the ads to see posts–I figured it was because I wasn’t using Instagram hard enough. Maybe I was just an aging millennial not worth the effort of bra ads (I’ve heard from my female colleagues that there are a lot of bra ads). After all, I was still using Instagram in friends and family mode, and so I only followed a
10 FASTCOMPANY.COM APRIL 2018
