VSCO is definitely a phenomenon amongst teenagers, regardless of the product placement possibilities in the article. I'd actually have rather seen an article on that, because I find it fascinating that a service without any of the Skinner-box gratification buttons ("like" "retweet" "share" "comment") has taken off in such a big way.
VSCO has a rather large following among the prosumer crowd, most of the Apple "Shot on the iPhone 6" ads mention VSCO and a photographer friend of mine uses it on his iPad with his 5D on the go. While I haven't used it myself, its certainly been name checked quite a bit and its success is largely due to it being a more empowered Instagram on the photography side.
I know pro photographers who use VSCO to edit their iPhone shots to upload to Instagram, as the tools are so much more powerful than IG's own. It's a great app.
Scores and Chains, as mentioned in the article, sound pretty skinner-boxy. Plus, every time someone sends you a response to a message is a skinner box reward, in a sense.
i'm just fascinated that i spend ages on facebook, twitter, reddit, hn and lobsters, and have never heard of VSCO before this. is there that little overlap between the demographics?
