Instagram Challenger Bokeh Canceled

Around early Summer 2019, a new photo social network was kickstarted. Bokeh was to be like Instagram before Facebook ruined it. With promise and potential built-in, being based upon solid core principles, I was interested and supportive, backing the endeavor on Kickstarter. Sadly, after two years in development, the project has been canceled.

I was enthusiastic about Bokeh and the idea that something like the original Instagram could reappear. I wanted a social media platform more focused on the photo aspect rather than the social aspect. I guess that would have been like Flickr is now, which when I last checked was still pretty nice.

While a bit disappointing to see the project not meet its goals, I understand not all dreams become reality. Still, it was worth a shot; I believed in it.

Now that we’re at this point, though, I’m wondering if maybe it’s best to not have any new social media sites. They simply tend to degrade over time for various reasons. However, there is another new photo/social site up and coming called Glass.

Glass seems to embody similar core principles as did Bokeh, one being that it’s a paid service, so it’s not based on the scammy ad model that sucks up all your private/personal data (meta or otherwise), using it to target ads at you, and possibly using it for other nefarious purposes. The other Bokeh-like feature is no algorithms, just a chronological feed. How quaint! Also no metrics, no likes, and only commenting; I’d like to try that.

So we have Flickr and Glass available for photo/social and maybe others I’m not aware of. Good options exist for something like Instagram circa 2011, but I don’t have the same interest in all that anymore. When the photo bug bites me again, I’ll probably just use SmugMug owned Flickr. But Glass remains on my radar.