Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Instagram is shifting to videos – users aren't happy

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

371–380 of 484 posts

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

#371

Post by grishka »

MikusR wrote: post #145
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…

Youtube has a whole section with all the people you follow. https://www.youtube.com/feed/subscriptions all the videos are in reverse chronological order. Twitter has a button with stars where you can select to show only the tweets of people you follow in reverse chronological order. Called Latest Tweets.

Wait, people use something else to see the videos from their subscribed channels? I'm genuinely curious.

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

#372

Post by zizee »

polio wrote: post #341
LionTamer wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'd just make the individuals involved rich with a lump-sum payment ($10m, say) and a lot of good press. Then make it public domain.

What if they spent $20m to create the innovation? Who judges when an innovation is appropriate to convert in the manner? What happens to the innovations that aren't deemed worthy of conversion?

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

#373

Post by zizee »

asdff wrote: post #282
not-my-account wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This still has the free rider problem at a nation state level. Let's say China invests 100 billion a year in innovation, and makes it all open. France then comes along and says "I don't need to bother with spending on innovation, I'll just use China's legwork, and spend my billion on out marketing china". China would eventually run out of cash for research.

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

#374

Post by joshu »

babypuncher wrote: post #354
solarmist wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they just never found a way to make money that didn’t destroy the experience.

I think Reddit also kind of replaced it. Back then, Reddit was more of a social bookmarking site like del.ic.ious but with expanded community features. You would go to the front page, and see a pretty similar selection of links to what you would get smashing the Stumble button that day, only it's been curated and sorted by the community through the karma system. Each link also came with a very well designed comment s…

reddit was never social bookmarking.

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

#375

Post by tayo42 »

labrador wrote: post #315
harrisonjackson wrote: post #308

Instagram's biggest failing in trying to copy Tiktok is their feed algorithm. Tiktok has nailed the delightful "stumble upon" effect of getting users of all ages to keep going to the next and the next video. I don't mind how each new piece of content is paged because the content is better for the format and it doesn't feel clunky when I do want to skip to the next one. Instagram couldn't switch their algorithm becaus…

> Tiktok has nailed the delightful "stumble upon" I didn't understand the appeal of Tiktok until just now when I read your comment. I was a StumbleUpon.com addict in 2006-07. I spent hours a day on it, saw really interesting content and even made some IRL friends. I have no idea why they killed that site. I'll give Tiktok another try.

I don't get how that description sounds like a good way to spend your time. Why do you need hours of throway content in your life from people you don't have any connection to? Why not like go to the gym or hike or cook your self a healthy meal.

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

#376

Post by idrios »

harrisonjackson wrote: post #308

Instagram's biggest failing in trying to copy Tiktok is their feed algorithm. Tiktok has nailed the delightful "stumble upon" effect of getting users of all ages to keep going to the next and the next video. I don't mind how each new piece of content is paged because the content is better for the format and it doesn't feel clunky when I do want to skip to the next one. Instagram couldn't switch their algorithm becaus…

> Tiktok has nailed the delightful "stumble upon" effect

Am I the only one who hates this usage of the word "delightful"? I think of delightful as nearly a synonym to the word "serendipitous", in that there's a rare joy to it -- difference between those two words that serendipitous is unexpected while delightful could be expected. I associate this with events like running into close friends or family, or just having a beautiful day and being able to have fun outside. It needs an element of rarity, whereas TikTok and Instagram are novelty on demand, and so that serendipitous joy fades into habit-forming addiction.

I am probably making an old-man-yells-at-cloud argument here, but I recently read an article that described the Android Compose toolkit as a way to make developing Android apps a "delightful experience" and it made me realize how much I despise that usage of the word for fairly mundane things.

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

#377

Post by rpdillon »

ravenstine wrote: post #304
Animats wrote: 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…

I won't be surprised the day that Silicon Valley finally sees a real correction. We are due for one, big time. Just look at what Google and Meta have been doing compared to the ability of newcomers like TikTok. China will win, and when reality comes knocking, it will be too late and suddenly that easy money is going to vanish.

TikTok feels radically less innovative to me than Quest VR, but if you're focused on MAU, I see how it TikTok feels more impactful.

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

#378

Post by harrisonjackson »

idrios wrote: post #376
harrisonjackson wrote: post #308

Instagram's biggest failing in trying to copy Tiktok is their feed algorithm. Tiktok has nailed the delightful "stumble upon" effect of getting users of all ages to keep going to the next and the next video. I don't mind how each new piece of content is paged because the content is better for the format and it doesn't feel clunky when I do want to skip to the next one. Instagram couldn't switch their algorithm becaus…

> Tiktok has nailed the delightful "stumble upon" effect Am I the only one who hates this usage of the word "delightful"? I think of delightful as nearly a synonym to the word "serendipitous", in that there's a rare joy to it -- difference between those two words that serendipitous is unexpected while delightful could be expected. I associate this with events like running into close friends or family, or just having…

Yes, delight has been overused and dumbed down to industry vernacular for any positive user emotion.

It has a connotation that includes rarity or almost... (and I am putting on my over the top sales person hat) "something to be treasured". But I chose the word intentionally to reference stumble upon which I think a lot of folks on HN feel nostalgia for.

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

#379

Post by Ensorceled »

lovehashbrowns wrote: post #326
Ensorceled wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop blaming users for problems introduced by massive tech companies. Yes, I know how to find my subscriptions, that's how I know the channels I like are dying; they are posting "my channel is dying videos" and only a subset of their users are finding them.

Your other comment said: > The content creators I've subscribed to are now rarely in my feed which is full of "recommended for you" videos and movies for rent. The solution is to go to your subscription feed. This also wasn't a few months ago. This changed many years ago. I remember hating having to put the subscriptions page in my list of URLs because it was harder to go there. Previously there was a section of the…

> Your other comment said:

>> The content creators I've subscribed to are now rarely in my feed which is full of "recommended for you" videos and movies for rent.

It is, and I presume so is everyone's. I wasn't asking for help, I was explaining a bunch of problems I'm seeing.

> This also wasn't a few months ago.

No, something seriously changed a few months ago. 5 different channels are all suddenly have the same problem where their views are all down to 50% or less without explanation.

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

#380

Post by dharma1 »

aquova wrote: post #141
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…

Using Twitter as an example, it ran into the problem around 2010 or so where it, in my opinion, had found the perfect set of features. All of the tweets from the people you follow would be shown in chronological order for you. Liking a tweet simply showed support for that tweet, while retweeting it would repost it for all of your own followers. It was simple and clean. However they then ran into the problem where the…

You can click on the little star top right on Twitter and choose “Latest tweets” to get a mostly chronological feed
Post reply on HN