If you go to YouTube, one of the most popular videos you’ll see is how Vero beats Instagram. There are many positive things to say about Vero, however, it will probably never reach the same popularity as Instagram. If anything, Vero’s popularity will die out in the hype.
People are making videos about Vero. The platform is seeing a massive influx of new users, and for good reason: it promises to do things differently. It’s like being a political candidate before an election: vote for me and you’ll live better tomorrow. Except, that’s not how it works.
Remember Clubhouse?
The social media platforms that make up a huge wave of hype tend to die out within months. Perhaps a good example would be the Clubhouse. It is supposed to be an ethical, invite-only social media platform that has “revolutionized” the way we behave online. Clubhouse promises an unparalleled voice chat experience that, for many, means human interaction. In COVID, that is essential. Celebrities, influencers and everyone else who’s bothered decided to join. With such a huge wave of popularity, the aforementioned popularity has been lost for a few months. The numbers show Clubhouse installs at an all-time high in February 2021, near 10 million. By March 2021, they’re down to about 2.5 million. At the same time, the user base has dropped by 70%. At the end of the day, we have a platform that dies as quickly as it was alive.
The social media graveyard has other giants, such as Google+, MySpace, Vine, etc.
But Vero is not dead yet. I really wish it would never die, as it has so many good ideas for it. However, with the initial wave of hype came a wave of users leaving. The hype first started circulating in 2018, when Vero hit 150,000 downloads at the end of February. By early March 2018, it had reached 2 million. Those who hated Facebook and came to Vero for something better were soon disappointed with some terms and conditions. As it turned out, Vero was more in control than was initially expected.
Benefits of Vero
Developed by a talented team, Vero promises to change the way we experience social media by becoming a direct competitor to giants like Facebook and Instagram. Here are the ways Vero promises to stand out from the crowd.
Made for photographers, Vero allows you to post full resolution files to their platform. While it’s certainly a boon for photographers, I doubt it will attract much interest from those who don’t like pixel-peep. However, there is a benefit to posting full resolution files, as it allows you to experience the visuals more deeply. I can almost never bother uploading a full resolution 50MB file to the internet. It is not only a very bad use of space on the server but also an unnecessary use of bandwidth. If you know how to export the file in web res for Instagram and sharpen it, you can still show fine details at the 1,600 px long side.
One big benefit of Vero is privacy. Vero allows you to have posts for a wide variety of audiences. Something like posting on Facebook for friends as opposed to everyone on Facebook. Vero goes one step further allowing you to have a custom audience for each post. Let’s say you’re on vacation and want to post a private selfie with your loved one for your friends and a more scenic image for your wider audience – Vero lets you do that. This feature is something that many social media platforms should introduce, as it is quite annoying when trying to manage two accounts, one private and one public. Also, it sucks to refuse to comply with private requests, as I always feel like people would be offended by it.
Finally, you can customize your feed. There are several Vero post types that users can choose from. They all carry different types of content, frankly reminiscent of Facebook.
Because Vero wants to empower users, it will allow you to customize the type of content you see from the people you follow. For example, if I have a friend who takes great pictures but has terrible taste in music, I might choose to only see their pictures and not other posts.
Why Vero Won’t Replace Instagram
All of this is great, but Vero still won’t replace Instagram. They are fighting a giant. Instagram has a much larger user base than Vero, and Vero’s participants are mostly artists bored with Instagram. Customers, buyers, and creative directors all on Instagram couldn’t be bothered to join Vero. The networking potential that Vero offers makes little sense compared to Instagram. The great thing about Instagram is that you can expose your content to a large number of people you work with or want to work with. When your quirky art director arrives in the room, they pull out Instagram and scroll the feed. Instagram works for the people who give you money, so why should they invest the time in creating a Vero account if they can just spend that time browsing a never-ending feed of content on Instagram? So in terms of networking, you should use Instagram or even LinkedIn. Vero seems to be a club for artists who don’t want to post Reels.
People want algorithms
You have read correctly. Everyone hates the algorithm because they can’t take advantage of it and because it requires creators to constantly adapt to new realities. At the same time, the almighty Instagram algorithm is what makes the platform so interesting to users. Instagram is the benefit of keeping their users on the platform, and the algorithm is designed to do that. The more time people spend on Instagram, the more ads they’ll see and the more Meta will get in revenue. The algorithm is made to facilitate that. If the feed were purely chronological, the platform would very quickly become boring. The reason you’re back on Instagram could be the algorithm and the new Story someone posted.
Stop thinking
Will Vero ever get rid of Instagram? No, probably not. Mainly because the initial hype for it is dying out, just like the creators club is fed up of Instagram. It sounds stupidly nihilistic, but since Instagram has so many people on it, it can afford to ignore its audience of professional photographers who want stills instead of video without any concerns. the rest of the users want. For photographers, Instagram has never been a great platform to start. Flickr has been geared more towards the professional photographer crowd. However, somehow Instagram has more photographers on it than Flickr and a lot. In the end, Vero is a great idea and it would be beneficial if Instagram could add some of the features Vero has. But Vero is unlikely to become the next Instagram or Facebook.
