Remember why Facebook bought Instagram

With the hullabaloo dying down over the short-sighted change in Instagram‘s privacy policies, let’s look back at the reason why the purchase by Facebook was made in the first place. It really didn’t have anything to do with photography, but in user growth and engagement (see below). Instagram reached 50 million users in less than half of the time it took Facebook, and is gaining 5 million users more per week.

As Facebook user growth begins to slow, especially as the time of its IPO was drawing near, the rise of an upstart like Instagram was definitely a threat.