[seppin]

> Instagram only became sustainable under Facebook.

That's an incredible leap to say IG couldn't develop their own ad network as a stand alone company. Hire a few people away from Google with options in a growing company the same way FB did.

If IG didn't sell they would have fully killed Facebook's relevancy by now.

[throwaway4715]

Yeah, but the IG founders didn't want to put ads on the product at all. It was not a sustainable business while in their control.

[seppin]

Do you have a source that they refused any ads at all? There's a difference between having a few tasteful ones and overloading it like it currently is.