It’s been just four days since Instagram introduced video, but users have already uploaded enough content that would take you years to watch. In the first 24 hours of the feature’s availability, Instagram’s more than 130 million active users uploaded five million videos. At a 15-second maximum length and three-second minimum length, that’s at least 750,000 minutes of video – which would take no less than a year and 155 days to watch.

Instagram’s video feature has been dubbed a Vine killer by many. It takes the capabilities that made Vine so popular – stop motion capabilities, for one – and took them to the next level, offering filters, the ability to delete video takes and cinema, the video stabilizing technology. Instagram also has a major lead on Vine in that it already has its established user base. Starting with Vine means starting fresh with building your followers and followings for that platform, but adding video to Instagram is just that – adding video to an already existing account and followers.

At peak, Instagram users uploaded 40 hours of video per minute on Thursday night as the Miami Heat defeated the San Antonio Spurs during the NBA Finals, an Instagram representative said.

Image via CBS News

The Other Side: Why People Don’t Like Video on Instagram

Disclaimer: I am pro-Instagram video, and based on the sheer amount of video that already has been uploaded, I’m not alone. I think it improves on Vine, keeps the heart of Instagram the same and takes advantage of the opportunity for video sharing. However, as it usually goes with most products, issues and happenings, there are two sides. There are dedicated Vine users who vowed to stick to Twitter’s (News - Alert) video sharing service (See: 11 Vine Responses to Instagram Video) and others who just prefer Instagram to stick to its original roots of simple photo sharing.

Reasons such as low-quality content and bandwidth overcapacity are at the heart of the anti-Instagram video argument. (Instavid? Vinstagram? What term will stick?)

-          “They did this to spite Vine (and Twitter, which owns Vine), not because it makes Instagram better, because it doesn’t make Instagram better, it makes it worse. Slow to load, noise I don’t want, bursts their bubble of simplicity and focus. Thankfully there’s a setting to turn off ‘Auto-Play Videos’; otherwise I’d abandon ship.” – John Gruber, Daring Fireball

-          “One of the great joys of Instagram until now has been the lazy scroll. Fire up the app, and just swipe and swipe and swipe and passively take it all in while the colors and shapes sail past your eyes. You pause every so often to like something or make a comment, but the pleasure is never interrupted. The problem of video was apparent when, immediately after getting video, people started posting videos of their desks (a phenomenon we also saw with Vine). Video is a different medium than photography, and if we start taking videos on Instagram the way we have for YouTube (News - Alert), Snapchat, Vine, et al, our feeds will become polluted with crap. Because unlike those other services, there's already something in place that we like a lot.” – Mario Aguilar, Gizmodo

-          “Instagram Video slows down the consumption. There have been a number of times already, even with my LTE iPhone (News - Alert) 5, that I couldn’t load videos fast enough in Instagram. I didn’t move to another area to get service, or switch to Wifi. I closed the app. Instagram was made to be easy. Easy creation and easy consumption. Vinstagrams make things difficult.” – Jordan Crook, TechCrunch

Will People Still Love Instagram?

Aguilar had a good point in his article – there are plenty of other photo sharing and editing apps and services out in the market. What makes Instagram so popular? For me, it’s a combination of its user base – it’s where my friends and favorite brands are –, the interoperability between Facebook (News - Alert) and Twitter (although, Twitter nixed that a little bit a few months back) and the simplicity of sharing and creating beautiful photos.

Just like how some people opt to share screen shots of text messages or other photos that do not require a filter, let alone a place on a photo-sharing platform, people will do the same with video and post 15 seconds of content we would rather not see. We take the good with the bad and interact with what we like. The opportunity to create beautiful, creative videos is the same for photos on Instagram and I’m excited to see people take advantage of that to transform Instagram into a platform for rich and beautiful multimedia content – not just photos.