Second Brain

Unshipping Features at Instagram

The Story

At Instagram, Boris fell in love with a culture that was radically different from Facebook’s “ship everything” mentality. Instagram had a concept called “unshipping.”

The idea: if you only add features to an app, it gradually gets worse for most users. Each feature might be used by 10% of people. Over time, features accumulate, and the average user sees a cluttered app full of things they don’t use. The screen is limited real estate. Every feature competes with others for attention.

So Instagram set a usage bar. If a feature didn’t meet it, they deleted it. A small percentage of users would be upset, but it was great for the majority.

Boris describes the trade-off plainly: “By adding a feature, that’s taking the opportunity away from a different feature the person could have used.”

Lesson for Creators

More is not better. Every piece of content you publish, every product you offer, every service on your menu competes with everything else for your audience’s attention. Pruning underperforming content, shutting down offers that don’t meet a usage bar, and simplifying your product lineup can improve the experience for the majority. A few people will complain. Most will thank you by paying more attention to what’s left.

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