Instagram<\/strong><\/a>, for a billion dollars in cash and stock was met by frustration by many.<\/p>\nThe truth is, when the service or app are free, the real product is its accumulated user base. When Flickr was acquired by Yahoo for a measly $35 million, the same reaction ensued. Flickr had 50+ million users at that time.<\/p>\n
Facebook spent one billion dollars out of the many it can spent, for a core service used by a small portion of its members. They could have built their own image manipulation and sharing app for considerably less, but by buying Instagram Facebook reaches out to a large pool of Internet users, that potentially don’t use Facebook.<\/p>\n
For the 30 million users of Instagram, it’s clear that they are now integrated into Facebook, whether they like it or not.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Time and again, the users of free online products and services cry ‘foul’ the moment their favorite gizmo is acquired by an 800-lbs industry gorilla. The news about Facebook buying photo-sharing app and web site, Instagram, for a billion dollars in cash and stock was met by frustration by many. The truth is, when the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,3],"tags":[9,193,10,37,68,792,793],"class_list":["post-2269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","category-domains","tag-acro","tag-acronet","tag-acroplex","tag-acroplex-llc","tag-acroplexcom","tag-domain-news","tag-facebook-buys-instagram-for-1-billion","entry"],"yoast_head":"\n
Reminder: If you use it for free, you are the product - Acro.net - A Domain Investing Blog by Theo Develegas<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/acro.net\/blog\/reminder-if-you-use-it-for-free-you-are-the-product\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Reminder: If you use it for free, you are the product - Acro.net - A Domain Investing Blog by Theo Develegas\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Time and again, the users of free online products and services cry ‘foul’ the moment their favorite gizmo is acquired by an 800-lbs industry gorilla. The news about Facebook buying photo-sharing app and web site, Instagram, for a billion dollars in cash and stock was met by frustration by many. 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