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Instagram is shifting to videos – users aren't happy

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

#281

Post by bravetraveler »

FredPret wrote: post #267
asdff wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't blame them tbh. On a whole species level, why are we inventing the wheel hundreds of separate times just to satisfy pedantic legalese? Any alien observing earth would think we are idiots and clearly nothing to be worried about because we do stuff like this, in the name of profits usually, instead of just sharing ideas openly with each other.

Actually it's pretty smart to reward the inventive ones and punish the freeloaders, or else there'd be a rush to become a freeloader and stop the hard work of inventing - leading to species-wide collapse.

What have these rewards truly given us?

The open/free scientific communities are responsible for most tangible benefit - meanwhile, those reaping the biggest rewards give us... planned obsolescence

I understand the sentiment and even agree to an extent, but the reality is things are abused and wasted as well - to a shocking degree, in pursuit of 'mine'

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

#282

Post by asdff »

not-my-account wrote: post #277
asdff wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't blame them tbh. On a whole species level, why are we inventing the wheel hundreds of separate times just to satisfy pedantic legalese? Any alien observing earth would think we are idiots and clearly nothing to be worried about because we do stuff like this, in the name of profits usually, instead of just sharing ideas openly with each other.

Profits matter, though! We need them to pay people to do the research and development, which people will not do for nothing - our dependence on food and shelter makes this necessary. If an American firm absorbs all the costs, but gains none of the benefit, it will not survive as long, meaning the research will also disappear alongside it. China, on the other hand, can spend those funds elsewhere while also poaching t…

Profits aren't necessary for R&D, that's just one model where R&D is funded by consumers through direct purchases. Another model is where R&D is simply funded through taxation and grants. That is the model that medical research is often funded through, and it works well because it allows researchers around the world to help our species overcome disease.

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

#283

Post by igorkraw »

LionTamer wrote: post #272
asdff wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't blame them tbh. On a whole species level, why are we inventing the wheel hundreds of separate times just to satisfy pedantic legalese? Any alien observing earth would think we are idiots and clearly nothing to be worried about because we do stuff like this, in the name of profits usually, instead of just sharing ideas openly with each other.

How do you think humans should incentivize R&D without allowing for those who successfully deployed R&D to protect their ability to reap the fruits of their efforts? I’m sympathetic and am very interested in the idea of the government creating public goods out of intellectual property on a national level (ie instead of rewarding copyrights/parents the government would buy out the creator and make it free for citizens…

For the research part (figuring out something previously impossible)? No need to incentivise, the kick of figuring it out is enough to motivate people, just provide UBI so the nerds can tinker.

For the development/application part? Let people race to figure out the best way to deploy things before someone else does, the way the swiss and Germans and Chinese did in the free for all time. I've heard competition be called something that incentivises people to find edges that aren't easily copied, and trade secrets can still exist

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

#284

Post by WalterBright »

dagw wrote: post #204
WalterBright wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't see math professors doing startups because they have tenure and are financially risk-averse. They also simply like being professors. There may be another factor - universities are dominated by anti-capitalist sentiment. Doing a business startup means exiting that belief system.

Admittedly I'm over a decade out of university so things might have changed, but when I was getting my masters in mathematics several of the math professors had various 'side hustles' doing cool and advanced stuff at startups and in industry or finance. universities are dominated by anti-capitalist sentiment I know this is trendy to say and I'm sure there are individual universities where it is true, but I see little…

University graduates are not the same as professors.

The econ class I took at Caltech was taught by an award-winning leftist anti-capitalist professor, and if you didn't regurgitate his ideology on the tests, you got a bad grade.

Hedge funds only hire a particular subset of graduates. A lot of left-wingers set aside their ideology to get those high salaries.

My father was a finance professor at two colleges. He was the only faculty member who believed in free markets. He was constantly challenged in this by students and faculty. One time the faculty even challenged him to an open debate - the faculty against him. He took them apart. Faculty and students came up to him later saying they had no idea there was even a case for the free market, and thanked him for opening their eyes.

I wonder where you suppose Sanders' constituency comes from?

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

#285

Post by winternett »

jacquesc wrote: post #4

Maybe it'll show up in their usage numbers. I stopped using IG because it's near impossible not to prevent the sound from blasting from accidentally scrolling or clicking on a reel. I feel like a product team that gave any shit whatsoever would give people a mute button that stays put. People use their phones in lots of different locations (with other people around). And phones are constantly blasting music at random…

The volume control issues on IG are crazy. Having to mute and unmute everything is painful, I think TikTok wins a bit for just playing everything at whatever device volume is set at, but some content is manipulated to be loud, and some is low volume, it may even be an engagement algorithm driving that to keep people focused on the app.

I also think with a lot of people on anti-work time these days, within these companies they may be having a hard time finding staff to manage the development issues, bugs and features may not get fixed any time soon simply because of that alone.

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

#286

Post by simonbarker87 »

Creators aren’t happy either. I have 107K followers for dev and learn to code content and the last few months have been a roller coaster.

There’s about 50 to 100 of us devs with that size of following on IG and we all see the same thing time and time again which is that the algorithm moves and you have to change your content style to see what it wants. The messaging and content stays the same but it needs to be packaged in whatever way the IG algorithm wants to push at that moment.

IG is scared of TikTok but rather than accepting that platforms can be different and that’s ok they’ve decided to force a move to basically copy them but without a guiding strategy - it’s baffling.

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

#287

Post by winternett »

mrtksn wrote: post #219
shmatt wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have TikTok, but for 2 years this is what I've been hearing from people who love it. They figured out a way to show you exactly what you're interested in, without you giving them any specific input There have been many articles about the phenomenon of the "For You Page"[1][2]. But the funny part is Meta sees this and figures - people are looking at videos, we'll do videos. And not - people are seeing what the…

TikTok quickly learns what you don't like and the homepage becomes a mix of your subscriptions, new content that you might like and very new kind of content that you haven't been exposed or stuff that you outgrew but you might like to revisit. Learning the things you don't like is important. It's much more pleasant experience when you are not exposed to the stuff you don't like. Unlike Twitter, the stuff you don't li…

Most political things don't generate huge amounts of platform advertising money probably on TikTok... The autopilot ad revenue is easy for them to make on political content as well because right now, there's only a few different aspects competing with each other... It's likely that a lot of users don't primarily go to TikTok for political content, it's primarily music and social influencer based as well... This is why TikTok allows users to avoid political content, it's not a "cash cow" niche for them.

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

#288

Post by WalterBright »

1980phipsi wrote: post #220
WalterBright wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had a couple young people complain to me about leetcode interviews at Google. I replied that they could spend a couple weeks going over the leetcode books, and if that was what it took to get a $250,000 job, then that will be the best investment of time they'd ever make. Besides, one cannot help but learn programming things from examining leetcode solutions. Google probably also wants to hire motivated people, a…

Nevertheless, it's an empirical question as to whether this method of recruiting produces the employees that maximize long-term profits for the company. I don't doubt that a major reason for asking these types of questions, as opposed to an IQ test or something, is that it is basically illegal in the US to do so.

It's an empirical question about every method of recruiting. Making a bad hire can cost a company dearly. If there was some obviously better way of doing it, wouldn't companies do that?

Avoiding expensive lawsuits is likely another reason for leetcode gates.

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

#289

Post by shriphani »

alexpotato wrote: post #280

As a casual user of both Facebook and TikTok, I would share my impression of how they share videos: TikTok - Their algorithm seems to very quickly hone in on things I actually want to see. - e.g. if figured out that I like to see comedy clips, some woodworking videos etc - I suspect that they do this by a combination of showing you some "test" videos that quickly bucket your interests and then using additional data b…

It could be that the deep bench of high quality content is not there on reels yet. Most of the power user base of ig (horology, woodworking, crafts, fine arts etc) knows how to take high quality pictures and need to adapt to making videos (i don't think it is that easy to do - totally different medium + style + maybe your current followers wont like it).

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

#290

Post by slowmovintarget »

loudandskittish wrote: post #223
Ensorceled wrote: post #97

All of social media is broken right now. Instagram actively hides pics from my step kids, nephew and niece to show me "reels" from people I don't follow. Last night a photo from my step daughter flickered briefly and then was lost. I couldn't find it again until this morning. I literally can't find their content anymore without scrolling and dodging videos that keep popping up. Youtube broke entirely a few months ago…

> Instagram actively hides pics from my step kids, nephew and niece to show me "reels" from people I don't follow. I find it all that for all the data these companies have, they don't seem to be using it well...or stopped using it. Facebook has suddenly started flooding me with posts from political meme groups I never joined and have never even looked at. Twitch's recommended section used to be spot-on. Now they're t…

> I find it all that for all the data these companies have, they don't seem to be using it well...or stopped using it.

They've stopped using it to serve their users. They use it to serve their customers. The content they show you is what they want you to see so they can sell to advertisers, not what you want to see.

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