Instagram founder not happy with the app, says it has lost its soul

Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom on Friday said that he is not happy with the evolution of the photo-sharing app to a marketplace.

He said, "I think we've lost the soul of what made Instagram Instagram," Systrom said.

Systrom said earlier he used to go to, "Instagram to see what his friends and family were up to, but now it has turned into a business apparatus as creators and brands use the platform to make money."

"My biggest regret, I think, at Instagram is how commercial it got," he added.

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Pointing out the problem with the app, he said "there are incentives to go to more commercial, more creators, more deals, more ad dollars."

He further explained that this has led to people showcasing their apparently amazing lives with no bounds, doing the fanciest things, looking the best, and wearing the fanciest clothes and that is 'terrifying'.

"Life is really hard, and whatever people post on Instagram is the tip of the iceberg," he said. "It's this race to the bottom of who can be the most perfect."

He also said that the evolution has been extremely sad as his friends who earlier used the app to share their vacation pictures and moments of life now have #AD in the description in most of their posts.

"That, to me, is not the Instagram we started," Systrom said.

Systrom has opened up about his feelings regarding the app, almost a decade after selling it to Mark Zuckerberg's Meta (formerly Facebook). In 2012, he sold the app for $1 billion.