Matthew Lang

For a long time, I’ve been a user of Path. A social media network for those who want a level a level of privacy. It was another Twitter or Instagram but only for those that wanted to keep their timeline limited only to a few people.

In a time when everyone was sharing everything and anything, it was great to see a product that changed it’s approach to sharing.

I was happy for a few years there. Sharing moments with the family and knowing that anything I shared there would be private.

As other social media networks started to move on with new features, it felt like Path was falling behind.

To make themselves relevant again, Path split their app into two different apps. One for sharing to your timeline and another for messaging. The messaging feature was simple, but the decision to share the messaging to a separate app just looked crazy. At the time I already had many other messaging apps. I didn’t need another.

Thankfully, they’ve since merged the two apps again.

Then Path decided they needed a little extra money. So they decided to launch a subscription tier that would include a bunch of stickers on your account so that you could, you know, put stickers on your posts and comments on Path. It’s not the kind of feature that I would want to pay money for, but that’s what they were offering.

As time marched on, I slowly reduced my posting frequency to Path and instead opted for an Instagram account. Despite my preconceptions about it, I’m happier posting stuff on Instagram than I ever did on Path. The whole experience is spot on for me, and there are very few elements of the social media network that I don’t like. I even use it for messaging with Jennifer and family in Canada.

Having not posted to Path in some time I revisited the app a few weeks ago and discovered some changes.

First, you can now share stories on Path, much like Instagram and Snapchat.

Secondly, you can now share your Path moments publicly and even follow other people, even if you don’t know them. There is still a level of privacy with Path, but it appears to have been eaten up by the need for Path to be a competitor with Instagram.

With Path changed so much in the last few months, I’ve entirely stopped posting to it and now post to Instagram which in turn, posts to my micro-blog.

My problem with Path isn’t that they’ve started charging for a premium tier, it's a fact their now another Instagram clone and sharing many of the same features that Instagram has. I don’t need another Instagram but nor do I need Path these days. I’m happy to share moments on Instagram, and that’s it.

I never thought I would see the day where I would be dissing on Path, but their recent changes have been features that I will never use.

The last nail in the coffin for me and Path though is that you can’t export your content from Path in any form. I emailed Path’s support team about this. They answered that I should disable my account. Not what I was hoping for, by my request for an export facility has been passed onto the Path team, but I’m not holding my breath for it to appear anytime soon.