One thing that we have loved about Snapchat is that you can share your QR code with others and that is the best way to share your profile rather than writing your username or doing something else. Now, we all know that a lot of stuff has been copied from Snapchat to Instagram and we can add one more thing to this list which is QR codes. Because now Instagram also lets you share QR codes with others which can be scanned by a QR code scanner or the camera app and the profile can be found easily.
Now, you would say that QR code scanning is not new on Instagram and you could send it earlier as well. Well, the difference now is that QR codes have become universal on Instagram and not proprietary anymore meaning you can scan the Instagram QR codes now with any app that supports QR code scanning. Earlier, the proprietary codes could only be scanned with the Instagram app and not any other app which was a problem.
We don’t know why Instagram’s QR codes were proprietary earlier and one reason could be so that more people would use the app to scan other people’s profiles rather than using third-party apps or the browser. But that seems to have backfired and the feature might not have been used very much so the company has now gone back to the universal method which is tried and tested.
Like we see with the payment app QR codes for apps such as Apple Pay or Google Pay or even Samsung Pay, the idea with universal Instagram QR codes is also to have them as stickers on shops and places where people can show their Instagram ID with just their QR code and make people follow businesses or even individual profiles.