It’s not the end of the world for Instagram, or Instafans, after all.

With rival apps gaining members by the thousands, Instagram reverses itself fully, after initially pulling back on its monetization plans.

< Here’s my suggestion for turning Instagram into a stock photo site without lessening its existing services, and monetizing both “gold” users and the platform itself. ~ @waylonlewis on Instagram

> Here’s 10 Instagrammers who’s feeds I love to love.

< Here’s National Geographic’s reaction to Instagram’s initial changes.

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“Instagram withdraws policy change, won’t put users’ photos in ads.”

“I want to be really clear: Instagram has no intention of selling your photos, and we never did. We don’t own your photos — you do.”

Excerpt via NY Times (read the full write up here):

In the aftermath of the uproar over changes to Instagram’s privacy policy and terms of service earlier this week, the company did an about-face late Thursday.

In a blog post on the company’s site, Kevin Systrom, Instagram’s co-founder, said that where advertising was concerned, the company would revert to its previous terms of service, which have been in effect since October 2010.

“Rather than obtain permission from you to introduce possible advertising products we have not yet developed,” he wrote, “we are going to take the time to complete our plans, and then come back to our users and explain how we would like for our advertising business to work.” Users had been particularly concerned by a clause in Instagram’s policy introduced on Monday that suggested Instagram would share users’ data — like their favorite places, bands, restaurants and hobbies — with Facebook and its advertisers to better target ads.

They also took issue with an update to the company’s terms of service that suggested users’ photos could be used in advertisements, without compensation and even without their knowledge…” Read the full article here.