According to Mosseri, Instagram’s users are shifting to video. That may even be true! “Indeed, I did not want to switch to video and consequently stopped using the platform as much.
Meanwhile, people who use Instagram to make money were forced to post more videos to remain in people’s feeds. It doesn’t seem very organic if you ask me.”
Adam Mosseri is an American businessman and head of Instagram. He formerly served as an executive at Facebook, said, “I didn’t want to enter Instagram, but I had adopted a kitten with an internet following, and the cult wanted to know how the kitten was doing. So for a while, I dutifully updated once a week. But then Instagram started to change.
Two big things occurred in 2016. First, there were modifications to the feed. Algorithmic. Well, all right. Then, the Snapchat imitation: the Story. It was whatever. I didn’t mind it. After a while, I stopped posting photos in favor of posting Stories because more people looked at the Stories. There started to be more ads clogging the Stories, so I stopped watching as many. And I stopped posting photos or Stories as often.
Then came the ham-fisted video stuff: IGTV, which I avoided as much as possible, and the TikTok imitation Reels, which were much more challenging. It is where the algorithmic feed bit people. I saw stuff passed around on social media about how to please the algorithm: a certain number of Stories and Reels.
People wouldn’t see your posts if you didn’t do what the algorithm wanted. But unlike influencers, who have based their businesses on this platform, I could choose not to do that. I used Instagram less and spent more time on Reddit since I prefer text to video.
Now, something to make the feed still worse is “discovery.” That’s when a bunch of videos from people you don’t follow get shoehorned into your feed. That’s where we are now with Instagram. The people who I have made an effort to follow — the people whose posts I most want to see — are getting de-ranked for strangers’ videos.”
“They come now, the Kardashians, who have said that the new Instagram sucks. These women make money on Instagram; indeed, the platform wooed them deliberately and built itself around influencers such as the Kardashians. Unlike me, they are essential constituents of Instagram,” so the platform’s head, Adam Mosseri, responded.
Sounding like an exhausted parent, Mosseri agreed that Instagram’s new feed sucked and its recommendations might be wrong and then told us it wasn’t going to get better. Instagram no longer cares about photos.
It’s funny to see Instagram and Facebook because no one wants to use Facebook either. People talk about Facebook like it’s a drag, and it’s increasingly how they talk about Instagram, too.
The platform changes are upending people’s businesses for two reasons: one, they have to rejigger everything to try to please the algorithm, and two, Instagram is driving parts of the audience away. I mean, if I want to watch a TikTok, I will, you know? I came to Insta for the cat photos.
But Facebook is in a challenging position. It’s renamed itself “Meta” after something that doesn’t yet exist and has to figure out how to keep the lights on while it “builds the metaverse” or whatever. And Apple’s privacy push — “Ask app not to track” — has cost $10 billion in lost Facebook revenue.
So the changes suck, and Mosseri is letting us all know that Facebook doesn’t care that the changes suck. It’s trying to squeeze as much growth-hacky engagement out of its legacy platforms as possible. High-quality photos — the original value proposition of Instagram — matter less than scammy ads for weight loss, speed (oh, sorry, “ADHD treatment”), and ketamine. Quite a way to fall from that first Michael Kors ad! It seems like Instagram is, in some critical sense, over.
Another aspect of Instagram is Meta-owned Instagram is facing teething concerns with its Stories feature, and many users were gone in the lurch while considering someone’s stories.
Users went to social media forums late on Tuesday as they had to consider all of someone’s stories again before catching new ones. The case also cropped up when someone posted a unique story to their feed.
“Does anyone else have this problem where someone posts a new story, and you tap on it to watch it, and it transmits you back to the first Story they posted and not the new one? Lol, it’s irritating i hope it gets fixed soon,” published one user on Reddit.
Another user stated: “It was ensuing to me, too! i logged out and deleted the app., then reinstalled it, and it is back to functioning naturally, thankfully!”
A Meta representative said that the company is “aware that some people are having a problem accessing Instagram Stories” and was “functioning to get things back to normal as fast as possible.”
Meanwhile, the photo-sharing platform is pushing a new Stories layout that conceals excessive posts. Users can presently post 100 Stories at once.
Currently, it seems that only a small group of users have accepted the update with the new Stories layout, so, likely, that Instagram is still testing these changes before rolling them out to all users.
Instagram Stories allows users to share photos and videos to their Story — which is visible to followers of the user’s Instagram account. Recently-posted Stories are denoted by a gradient border around the user’s profile picture. Like Snaps in Snapchat, Instagram Stories disappear after 24 hours.
Your Instagram Story is published separately from the photos and videos found in the tiled gallery of your Instagram profile. And although you might know the basics of sharing them, there are hidden tools within the app that can make the photos and videos you add to your Story more creative and engaging.
Instagram Stories allows you to share short videos and images to a temporary “Story.” You can add stickers, time stamps, and doodles to each Story and apply certain filters and effects. If your account is public, your Story is visible to anyone, but if your account is private, your Story is only visible to those who follow you.
Viewers can directly respond to your Story via direct message (DM), but you can also disable replies in your app’s settings. You can also see who’s viewed it by opening up your Story and swiping it on your screen.