[interestica]

There was a comment 10 years ago about Facebook's acquisition of Instagram comparing it to Google/Youtube which was especially notable because it asked readers to "check back in 2022".

(https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3818055)

> This is not going to be one of the best tech acquisitions of the next decade.

> Instagram is a photo service in a sea of other photo services.

The interesting thing to me was their comment wasn't 'wrong' per se, but just that their logic was founded on that false assessment ("photo service"). In fact, their assessment of the value/success in YouTube's acquisition could have been applied to Instagram (in that it let Facebook access a different type of image-based social sharing).

[raldi]

Both the YouTube and Instagram acquisitions gave me a feeling of, “This is either going to be the best acquisition of its generation or the worst.”