Is it a privacy risk at all, though? Instagram starts uploading after you click the green check mark, which presumably says, "Hey, upload this for me," and continues uploading while you dilly-dally over the photo metadata sheet.

I'm a complete paranoid when it comes to privacy issues, and I don't see any issue with an upload that starts after I click a green check mark that, to me, means, "Hey, upload my photo, please!" There's the question of what happens to the uploaded photo on their servers when you cancel at the metadata stage, for sure, but that's a data retention question, not acquisition.

From what I've used of the Android app, there are enough warnings that notify you that the photo is being uploaded.

After taking a photo with your camera (or selecting one that you have stored locally), you get to a details page with a big button that says "UPLOAD" at the top right. So assuming that one does take naked photos of oneself or someone else, you'd have to confirm the upload. I only bring this up because FTA, the iOS screenshots just say "Done".

Now, if Instagram does indeed upload before you press the big green "UPLOAD" button, I'd say that's a breach in trust with the app.

Which is exactly how Facebook works... i.e. you select some files and then you mess around with the album properties, like date/place take, album notes and whatever else there is. Granted you need to explicitly choose the photo's in the first place, but that's the green button you speak of.

"You look nice and everything, Honey, but you could use an Instagram filter."

No, you're not. Several answers of this sort, ignoring the expectation that apps to disseminate information without your permission. This is a general expectation, but in particular on iOS there is a clear tilt towards ensuring the user is happy with such actions.

You know that Instagram can load photos from your camera roll, right? "what would this nude photo look like with that filter?" is a common use-case, I'd guess. And a strong expectation that it would not be sent to an outside party as a result.

That's a pretty damn presumptuous thing to say... have you seen any studies or conducted one yourself where people admitted to leaning towards user-experience benefits about online photo sharing at the expense of privacy?

I agree with your point though that users have a responsibility to figure out the objective of the app in order to understand the context of its intended use.

I think Facebook is an excellent piece of evidence that users are generally concerned about UX over security.

Just because you and I are are thinking about security, doesn't mean most people are. And I don't even feel like this is a horrible thing for Instagram to do. It is an app specifically for uploading and sharing photos.

There are concrete studies (search Acquisti) that shown Facebook users have a big disconnect between what they want as privacy and what they do. And that disconnect has , in more than one top journal papers, been attributed to a lack of total grasp of the privacy settings and its implications by the common public. So I think one should refrain from making bold claims like "users are generally concerned about UX over security" (I believe you meant privacy and not security).

I totally agree with the philosophy behind your claim that users see privacy as part of a utility function where sometimes the value of the experience trumps privacy controls and it also depends on the value one attaches to the information he/she is sharing. So from that perspective, especially given the publicly accepted norm that everything on instagram is public (like in Twitter), this "privacy calculus" will probably work out in favor of Instagram's decision here. And yes, it is not a horrible thing for them to be doing either.

But it does break the trust for those who are accustomed to the connotations of certain UI features (like "Done" button and progress bar).

Instagram will get away with this, but if somebody with a less trust level was engaging in such pre-"Done" uploading activity, there would be pushback. What I fear is that the co-founder by sharing this with the developers community will encourage this behavior in other startups/apps and this will then become an industry best practice even for the shady apps (just like it did for the address book).