Instagram Launches First Ad, Users Not Happy, Trolls Have a Field Day

Let’s be honest, we all saw this one coming. Ever since Instagram first announced that ads would soon be appearing in US users’ feeds, we’ve known that the official launch would be met with a less than enthusiastic response. Now that the first ad has gone live, it seems we struck this nail on its head.

For what it’s worth, Instagram did give people plenty of heads up while trying its best to emphasize that you can tailor your ad experience. The company even released a short blog post complete with a sample ad so that users might understand what they were in for.

But, undoubtedly, not everybody keeps up with tech news, and those who didn’t see this coming were understandably blindsided and upset. And what better way to air that grievance than in the photo’s comments?

The unhappy recipient of all of this ire is designer Michael Kors. The ad photo is an actual photo from the Michael Kors account, so people who were following the designer would have seen the shot anyway. Those who were not following him, however, were not afraid to voice their displeasure with having the photo forced onto their feeds.

Comments, which can be read by clicking through in the post above, ranged from the simple plea “no ads please” to several users claiming this would be the death of Instagram.

We’re curious how the advertisers themselves will feel about this. This photo has received much more attention due to the fact that it was “sponsored” onto many people’s feeds — 229K likes as compared to his average, which is around 60K — but it has also led to some pretty nasty commentary, something we doubt the designer is used to from fans who followed him voluntarily.

(via Engadget)