Live data from Hacker News

Instagram is shifting to videos – users aren't happy

washingtonpost.com

121–130 of 484 posts

Re: Instagram is shifting to videos – users aren't happy

#121

It's interesting that they don't care, it's a Marie Antoinette-esque attitude to their lifeblood, and ultimately what will end their dominance. The truth is they converted a free service into a pay service (the gas-lights creators and businesses into paying for visibility). The visibility, even when paid for is not very fruitful for many as well... If you run a small business like a restaurant in the US, but get 40,0…

I can't see IRC coming back as there's just slightly too much friction for the common person to get up and running. I could see websites coming back (I mean like the way people used to actually browse websites instead of social media). The problem with websites at the moment is discoverability. Google's SEO is a major roadblock to this at the moment. A way around it might be a "web of discoverability", with meaningfu…

> a "web of discoverability", with meaningful, relevant links on each website curated by the site owners themselves.

Are you old enough to remember "web rings?"

Re: Instagram is shifting to videos – users aren't happy

#122
post #76
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really think Google have a failure to innovate? Obviously search was their first, core innovation, but over the years they’ve delivered so many other successful products (many acquired, true, but even those they’ve evolved really well). Off the top of my head: - Maps - AdWords - Gmail - YouTube - Analytics - Translate - Calendar - Sheets - Docs - Drive - Meet - Slides - Drawings - Forms - Trends - Alerts I’m sure…

I think he's talking about today, not 10+ years ago.

Aren't they also mostly just web2.0 versions of Microsoft Office products? Like Docs and Sheets are just Word and Excel right? I feel like I'm missing something. Certainly putting them in browser plus some cloud storage is innovative, but doesn't it seem kind of obvious?

Re: Instagram is shifting to videos – users aren't happy

#123

Theory on facebook failure/Google failure to innovate: They have the highest leetcode standards out of FAANG. As does Snap. They hire people that basically memorized computer science algorithms. And so their employees are bookish, not innovative people. Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon do not have the same issues with creating new products. Keith Rabois (top VC), mentioned that FB has always prioritized optimization over…

This seems like wishful thinking. Why assume that academic intelligence makes you less creative? Do you think that people who graduate with high grades out of Harvard/MIT/Stanford are less creative than people who graduate from second-tier universities because they are too bookish?

I think the reality is probably that it's hard for any large company to be truly innovative. Once you get to a certain size, red tape and size make you slower. You also have an existing golden goose that you don't want to kill (for these companies, ad revenue), so you are more constrained. Furthermore, you only care to take risks that have massive payoffs... new ideas at Google need to be $1b+ to make a dent and $50m ideas don't really matter much anymore. In any case, are there any large companies that don't do leetcode that you would consider innovative? I'd argue maybe Amazon (1 day delivery) and Apple (M1 and M2 chips), but not so much in their software divisions where the leetcode happens.

Re: Instagram is shifting to videos – users aren't happy

#124

Theory on facebook failure/Google failure to innovate: They have the highest leetcode standards out of FAANG. As does Snap. They hire people that basically memorized computer science algorithms. And so their employees are bookish, not innovative people. Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon do not have the same issues with creating new products. Keith Rabois (top VC), mentioned that FB has always prioritized optimization over…

  Google failure to innovate
I disagree and, in fact, there's a whole website dedicated to its failed innovations[0].

Google's problem is not a technical one. It's a social and cultural one. Google is way ahead of the pack in terms of innovation but it's stuck in the past (and by past I mean present). Remember Google glasses? Remember how that turned into the Glasshole meme? (And apparently it's coming back[1].)

The rate of innovation is greater than people's willingness to adopt them. And also let's not forget that Google has a very specific modus operandi.

[0] - https://killedbygoogle.com/

[1] - https://www.theverge.com/2022/7/25/23054367/google-ar-glasse...

Re: Instagram is shifting to videos – users aren't happy

#125
I've never had an Instagram account but I stopped lurking when they forced me to make an account. I guess I'll look at butts somewhere else.

Tangentially- what is the deal with social media sites forcing you to login to lurk? I understand they want more data but lurkers are still forced to view ads.

Re: Instagram is shifting to videos – users aren't happy

#126
post #102
post #71

The key point here is that TikTok is now beating all the US social networks. This may be the beginning of the end for what Silicon Valley calls "tech", but is just ads with social content. Peak Facebook was in Q2 2021.[1] Instagram is losing to TikTok. (If you think the "metaverse" is going to be important in the social space, check out what's happening in China in that area. While the US has been distracted by the N…

What are Chinese companies doing metaverse wise?

Yeah, the parent left us on a bit of a cliffhanger there re China.

Re: Instagram is shifting to videos – users aren't happy

#127

Theory on facebook failure/Google failure to innovate: They have the highest leetcode standards out of FAANG. As does Snap. They hire people that basically memorized computer science algorithms. And so their employees are bookish, not innovative people. Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon do not have the same issues with creating new products. Keith Rabois (top VC), mentioned that FB has always prioritized optimization over…

> Theory on facebook failure/Google failure to innovate: > They have the highest leetcode standards out of FAANG. As does Snap. They hire people that basically memorized computer science algorithms. These are mature Big Tech companies. While they do empower engineers to innovate, they still task Product Managers with managing product, just like every other big company. The product direction isn’t very related to the…

I have commonly seen Senior engineers drive completely new product innovations at big tech. This hard split between product and engineering is commonly not real. Especially when the innovation requires understanding large scale systems deeply.

Re: Instagram is shifting to videos – users aren't happy

#128
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They have the highest leetcode standards out of FAANG. As does Snap. They hire people that basically memorized computer science algorithms. And so their employees are bookish, not innovative people. Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon do not have the same issues with creating new products. I don't think this is necessarily true because the people designing products are not the same people creating/implementing them. Even…

>there's some code out there that is a work of art and can inspire awe in everyone. and the people who wrote it didn't spend thousands of hours memorizing the same stupid leetcode exercises to pass lame interviews for 6 figures job, they worked on real projects tell me the fast inverse square root from Carmack would have been praised in an interview...

bless his comment in code for a magic number in >Q3 engine// don't change this number, not sure why it works...

not an exact quote but something like that

Re: Instagram is shifting to videos – users aren't happy

#129
post #49
post #22

“I guarantee that every single person who liked and shared that post about bringing Instagram back to what it was, would spend way less time on Instagram if it reverted back to how it used to be” Sure, because they could get the information they want without having to wade through the mountains of crap you’re pumping out of the septic tank into your users faces. You’re optimising the wrong metric you fucking clown.

You have a good point that would stand even stronger without the name calling.

I'm not sure it would have

Re: Instagram is shifting to videos – users aren't happy

#130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What creative culture? A billion user beast does not know, need or want creative or culture. It wants profits and more of them, every quarter. TikTok's only 'innovation' is paying billions of dollars to teenagers to create meme videos. Instagram isn't losing to TikTok's 'creative culture', it's losing to American elite's favorite move - throwing money at a problem until everyone else quits, at which point you give ta…

>TikTok's only 'innovation' is paying billions of dollars to teenagers to create meme videos TikTok has at least done three innovative things. One is the frictionless sign in that doesn't require an account, secondly the well done video editing tools and most importantly abstracting away the social graph. And on the finance site this doesn't check out either. TikTok is on track to triple revenue this year alone and t…

> Of all the social media site TikTok arguably chips in the least amount of money themselves.

How do you know that?

Post reply on HN