[...] the app has garnered over 100,000 downloads a day since launch. Still, these aren’t blow-out numbers. Remember when Instagram launched on Android and hit over 1 million downloads in a day? And then hit over 5 million downloads in six days? Yeah. Those were blow-out numbers.
You also have to consider that Facebook has over a billion users, so 500K doesn’t really move the needle.
Is he seriously trying to make this comparison? Facebook Home is not just a new app to add to you phone, it's an entirely new concept. Installing Facebook Home will completely change the way that you use your phone. Many people don't want that kind of change, or if they might, they will be wary of it until it is more proven and hype about it increases and reaches the average Android user. At this point, the vast majority of Android users probably don't even know what Facebook Home is, and even if they did their phone probably can't run it because only a handful of the newest models can.
Instagram, on the other hand, launched on almost every model of Android phone after it was already a massive success on iOS. Almost every average Android user had probably already heard of or even used Instagram from their iPhone owning friends. When Instagram launched, people rushed to get it by the millions because it was already proven and already popular. More so, it was just a simple app. If they ended up not liking it, they could just delete it because normal apps do not effect your OS as a whole.
Facebook Home is not meant to hit millions of users in the first few days. No one expected it to and no one is surprised that it didn't. It's ridiculous to be pessimistic about Facebook Home's launch and future simply because it didn't manage to hit an insanely high download rate that it was never meant to compete with this early.
