[rubicon33]

Honestly surprised there's a "need" for this. This is the kind of thing I would shoot down as a business idea, simply from the standpoint of - nobody needs that.

I'm obviously wrong as there are successful examples like universe out there. But boy does it show me that I'm often completely detached from the consumer in these instances.

[collistaeed]

Fwiw I can remember a time when I was like "Why on earth would anyone want Squarespace when they can host their own site!?"

These days I try to assume I probably don't understand! For the start of this product, we had a Design Sprint where we came up with the idea, and then brought in real Instagram users to test the idea on (with very lowfi prototypes) befor actually building!

[dvtrn]

These days I try to assume I probably don't understand!

We could learn so much more in life and have such better interactions if this were the default condition going into the unknown.

“Maybe there’s something here to be learned”

[mywittyname]

The number of businesses which need hosting is larger than those who are capable of self-hosting. So Squarespace makes obvious sense.

Through that lens: is the number of businesses/people that need a website builder greater than the number of them with access to a desktop computer? For the US, I'd say no. But in Asia I can see this being the case.

[throwaway66666]

I mostly agree with you, but this part is what sells it to me

"Turn your link in bio into an Insta website."

I could see that catching up, though it would still of course be a limited audience.

And also that they did such a nice job with the design and the branding. Would be easier to be more critical if it didn't look that nice.

[mtberatwork]

> Turn your link in bio into an Insta website.

What the heck does that even mean?

[nickloewen]

I think: Instagram doesn’t allow links in image comments/captions, but does allow a link on your bio/profile page. So people end up sharing links by setting their profile link, and then commenting “link in bio.”

So the pitch here is, I think—make a full website to accompany your instagram posts, just as easily as you posted the photo itself.

[hurricanesugar]

“Link in bio” is something an Instagram post creator/author says at the end of a post that provides additional context to the photo.

[Photo] “Love my new custom Yeti cooler on road trips like this! Link in bio”

You cannot post URLs in your post, but you can in your bio.

[edraferi]

What a weird limitation. Keeps spam down, maybe.

[rchaud]

It's by design. Instagram is another example of 80-20 (really 95:5) in terms of content consumers vs. creators/influencers. And the latter group are always selling some kind of product.

IG makes its money on advertising inside of the platform. As a result, they want to limit the ability of creators' to create their own ads by linking out to non-IG properties.

[kanaba]

It keeps users in the app.

[carlosdp]

Probably has a lot to do with reducing phishing attempts too.

[xeromal]

It means your old. :P