It Replaced Instagram for Me: 10 Reasons Why I Am Still on Vero
A few of you may remember, but most might have missed it entirely: Around 2018, the mobile social networking app Vero experienced short-lived hype. Within a day the user numbers exploded from about 150,000 to over 3 million. However, Vero was not able to handle that load and many were disappointed by failed sign-ons and several other issues that resulted from the load.
Nevertheless, Vero is still alive and released a major update this year with Vero 2.0. For me, it is still the better Instagram from a photography perspective. Especially since it is way more than Instagram in some aspects and way less than Instagram in others.
So here are my ten reasons, why I am still active on Vero.
1) Vero has no algorithms that dictate to me what I shall see. Have you ever noticed that you may have missed a post from a friend, only to realize that Instagram never showed it to you? Instead, Instagram showed you other content, especially sponsored posts and ads. It’s frustrating. To that end…
2) It presents a strictly chronological feed that allows me to view the posts that I missed. Vero even remembers where in your feed you left off and lets you pick up from there. So after you open the app, the next time you don’t scroll down in reverse order until you see the last post you saw. No, you just scroll up until you have reached the top and can rest assured that you have seen everything that was posted by those that you are following since you last opened the app. It’s so simple and so intuitive.
3) There are no influencers and almost no attention whores. There is no money to make on Vero and as a result, there are far fewer users on Vero than on Instagram. That means far fewer activities that just aim to get more attention. Hashtag abuse is, unfortunately, still a thing on Vero, but to a far, far lesser extent than on Instagram. People on Vero know that they will have way less reach than on the big networks and they don’t care: they are there for the original content and the connections.
4) No bots. If someone likes your post or leaves a comment, you can be pretty sure that there was a human who saw your post and left it intentionally. I’d rather have 20 honest likes and comments from real humans than 1000 likes from bots. I should note that there was some criticism that you need to register on Vero with your telephone number just like you do with Signal or WhatsApp. As far as I am concerned, if it keeps the bots and spammers away, I am all for it.
5) Ad-free: just real content. Vero once said that just the first one million accounts will be free and after that users might have to pay for access. Well, years later, and the app is still totally free to use.
6) Clickable links and more. Isn’t it ridiculous that in 2021, Instagram still does not allow links in posts? Why? Well, because they want you to stay on Instagram and not leave it. But with Vero, it’s not restricted to just images or short movie clips. You can post just links, music, movies, books, apps, games, places, or even can share another profile that you like. The amount of freedom and number of options is incredibly refreshing.
7) You can control who sees a post. With Vero there is no need for separate accounts. A very easy and totally sufficient audience selector allows you to effectively control who is seeing your posts through four easy-to-use levels: Close Friends, Friends, Acquaintances, and Followers & Public.
In addition, you can follow anyone’s public post without connecting with that person.
8) No stories. Who needs stories anyway?
9) Real zooming. Zooming on Instagram is like a bad joke — a really bad one. On Vero, it works as you would expect it to: zoom in, take your hand of the screen and view the details of the image in full-screen… and then pan around to see the rest.
10) It’s beautifully designed. Well, this is subjective, of course, but to me, the app is just way more beautifully designed than Instagram.
Is Vero perfect? Of course not. I am still missing a way to upload pictures directly from a desktop. I wish the company would remove the “Popular Hashtag” section to reduce the chances that the section would be abused. Lastly, Vero has an iPad app, but not yet an app for Android tablets.
Other than that small list though, I don’t look back to Instagram and never regretted that I deleted my account there.
If you are not just trying to get as much attention as possible and you are looking for a better, less restricted, and more modern experience than Instagram that gives you back control over what you want to see and prefer interacting with real people from all over the world, I think you should give Vero a try. You can find me there as @aperturized.
The opinions expressed are solely those of the author, who says that he was not sponsored in any way by Vero.
About the author: Carsten Schlipf is a German UX designer and amateur photographer. You can find his work and more of his musings on photography on his website. This article was also published here.
