[hakanito]

I would guess one reason for Instagram to go the RN route is simply easier hiring.

For every really good iOS/Android developer, there are probably 10 really good web developers that easily can pick up RN. As a web developer myself, it's a full time job to keep up with the JS ecosystem alone.

I tried learning ObjC a few years back but gave up because of limited time, weird syntax and very slow feedback loop.

Now I am stoked that I can finally build native apps with the web tech I spent so much time learning, and I don't think I'm alone in that regard.

[weixiyen]

Instagram is the last group that would have problems hiring iOS and Android developers. I'm almost certain that's not the reason for the switch to React Native.

The main reason to switch is that the user cannot tell the difference for their use case, and they get to iterate faster.

[Bahamut]

I'm not sure if this is still the case, but I remember hearing a year and a half ago or so that the Instagram team was still pretty small then. FB is pretty lean in terms of number of frontend devs - at that time I remember being told the number was ~250 or so, which has probably grown since then.

[hakanito]

Yeah it's certainly not the main reason. Perhaps just a nice side effect, but I don't think it's a negative one

[rimantas]

The thing is that any good iOS/Android developer will know the platform they are working on while good web developer may have no idea what native SDKs offer and end up reinventing the wheel, badly.

[hakanito]

Good point! However I would assume any (smart) developer would be aware of this and does the research, as always when in foreign territory..