Lens is very much a move to try to collapse the distance between the experience within Pinterest the app (or site) and the real world. Users point their camera at something and are looking for some additional information for it — such as a price tag, where to buy it, or what they can do with it. Many of Pinterest’s recent product updates are geared toward inching users closer and closer to that “do” moment. If it can get a user there organically, it can give advertisers a window into user behavior that they might not get on Facebook or Google.
By making Lens seem more and more like typical camera apps — say, Snap or just the camera app — Pinterest seems like it’s trying to make it fit more into the norms and behavior that you’d find in those other apps.
And that’s not necessarily bad: these apps have been refined over many, many years and settled on a user experience that seems to stick with people. Dropping that friction and making Lens more appealing is low-hanging fruit for Pinterest.
