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Instagram Is Over

theatlantic.com

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Re: Instagram Is Over

#191

Post by pixelrevision »

arnvald wrote: post #93
onetimeusename wrote: post #40

I am surprised people expect these apps to remain popular for a long time. The internet has changed so much. I've watched social media apps come and go every few years and I personally think they are all short lived trends with maybe a few exceptions. They capture a young market first, who provide the value (photos, videos, memes) and then older generations start joining after the young market is captured. Then after…

I'd actually keep using social apps more if they stayed closer to their original versions. My Facebook feed turned from updates from my friends and family to garbage filled with politics, ads, suggested pages, and I stopped using it. My Instagram feed turned from photos of my family and friends to garbage: again ads, recommended pages, later videos. Eventually I deleted it. Twitter was close to that when they introdu…

I’m surprised Reddit is even considered social media. The anonymity of the users and focus on subjects over people make it a very different experience. With Facebook and instagram you have a limited pool of people that interest each other and if they stop posting they have to figure out what to show you. That’s… really hard, especially if you signed up with these people in mind.

With Reddit meanwhile you can easily select the subjects you are interested in and there’s a bottomless pit of people who can post and comment on that. While it being mostly text based will probably limit how big it can get compared to something like TikTok I suspect there’s a better slow and steady business model with less churn.

I also really like that they offer a monthly sub at a fair price that removes the ad problem. I really wish more companies would take this sort of approach.

Re: Instagram Is Over

#192

Post by Gigacore »

I stopped posting photos on Instagram. It takes a lot of effort to compose a good shot, process the RAWs and upload them. The interaction rate has gone down considerably. A decade ago, people genuinely commented on photos and provided feedbacks. Like counts has gone down as well. It feels discouraging to post photos with such less of a interaction and feedback. I don't care about the likes, but the platform that originally built to share photos no longer values them. Photos are replaced with stories, reels and ads. The influencers are pushing all sort of crap that gets boosted by the algorithm.

Re: Instagram Is Over

#193

Post by danrocks »

denton-scratch wrote: post #77

> something small but noticeable—like wearing a fedora—that immediately turns you off forever. There seems to be a thing that some people hate "fedoras". I think it's to do with the "Fedora guy" meme. The hat Jerry Messing appears in is not a fedora; it's a trilby. A trilby is a hat with a quite narrow brim, and stiffened; it's often woven and patterned. It can be made of just about anything (such as leather). You ca…

This looks like it has been written by ChatGPT.

Re: Instagram Is Over

#194

Post by dopeboy »

nowherebeen wrote: post #186
dopeboy wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a lazy conclusion and needs more depth. What’s huge - seismic really - is that people actually prefer to know more about strangers than friends. On average, these strangers tend to be personalities and as a result are more entertaining / interesting / provocative than my typical friend. Combine this with the average person posting less about their life and you end up with a serious problem. Twitter fi…

What you are describing is the broadcast model. Instagram is moving towards that model to compete with TikTok but that is exactly why people stopped using it because it’s no longer the Instagram they were using. Influencers (aka personalities) are only entertaining for a short period of time. They have constantly churn out new content to keep engaging users. It is because user don’t know them and are less attached. T…

I take that back the "lazy" comment - my mistake. In my defense, I haven't read those articles and came up with these ideas on my own.

Agreed re broadcast model - that's an important distinction too vs the classic follower model. This is why, despite my best efforts, I still see content from strangers on my twitter feed. They know it drives engagement.

> People, both influencers and users, will get burned out eventually.

I disagree - because the space here is endless. Influencers will churn out and users will move on to the next one. I don't think users will get burned out - their tastes will evolve. Each phase of life has its own content pool. I'll describe my own journey here: I got married this past year. In the lead up to that, there were tons of wedding planning videos. Now I get served a lot of married couple w/no kids content. That'll probably keep changing as I move through life.

Re: Instagram Is Over

#195

Post by dopeboy »

throwaway82388 wrote: post #15

I’m far from bullish on meta long-term, but reporting like this would have you believe that nobody uses Facebook, and that Instagram is soon to share its fate. Optimists that they are, tech reporters overweight growth to absurd extremes. Maybe reporting on youth trends brings out the insecurities in all of us—you’d rather not look clueless in front of your two cool friends in their early 20s than the 2 billion or so…

Disagree on Facebook being enduring; agreed on TikTok.

The underlying thesis behind FB - that people want to connect with people that they know - is eroding.

Re: Instagram Is Over

#196

Post by HWR_14 »

Animats wrote: post #86

"To scroll through Instagram today is to parse a series of sponsored posts from brands, recommended Reels from people you don’t follow, and the occasional picture from a friend that’s finally surfaced after being posted several days ago. It’s not what it used to be." That seems to be how social media services die. Too many ads, fewer users, revenue drop, more ads to boost revenue, still fewer users, irrelevance. This…

I thought "pulling a MySpace" was selling out for an over $1 billion (inflation adjusted) payday and deciding to enjoy life.

Maybe that's "pulling a Tom from MySpace"

Re: Instagram Is Over

#197

Post by 63 »

iLoveOncall wrote: post #132
63 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't my experience with Instagram at all. I only follow people I know personally, check in once or twice a day and see posts and stories from them and really nothing else. No sponsored posts, no reels, etc. Maybe some ads. I don't use the discover page and stop scrolling my feed once I get through all the new posts so maybe that's it.

I am in the same situation as you but as soon as you have caught up with the posts from friends (which if you only have a few hundreds and check everyday goes very quickly), it's literally only sponsored posts. I just checked right now, I scrolled through 10 posts of accounts that I follow, which took 30 seconds, before getting "You're all caught up" and having literally only spam posts. And I don't even go on Instag…

That's true, but I consider "you're all caught up" to mean "it's time to close the tab and do something else." Honestly it's really great of Instagram to provide a convenient stopping point like that instead of an infinite scroll.

Re: Instagram Is Over

#198

Post by HWR_14 »

throwaway82388 wrote: post #94
nightski wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It takes a second to open an app, become a MAU, and then close it in disinterest. I'll admit this is my relationship with Facebook. I never see anything on there I am remotely interested in. Just old relatives spewing nonsense. But I guess I count as one of those 2 billion MAUs. I wonder how many are in the same spot.

I’d bet a solid majority, like it is on any social platform. Most users don’t post or engage. Biggest predictor for Facebook and IG use among my sample of friends is whether they’re married and have families, or in many cases, pets. In my sample, many own homes or property. Not where the growth is, but not worthless from a revenue standpoint.

> Biggest predictor for Facebook and IG use among my sample of friends is whether they’re married and have families, or in many cases, pets.

Which way does the correlation go?

Re: Instagram Is Over

#199

Post by Gazoche »

Today I did an experiment.

I opened up Facebook (the desktop version), scrolled down 40 times, and categorized every post I saw in my timeline. The result was roughly 30% ads, 30% "suggested" posts of random memes, 30% updates to pages I'm subscribed to by necessity (local clubs and such), and only 10% "real" content published by friends. An that last 10% was mostly people sharing or commenting on random pages I don't care about, not anything about their life.

So Facebook, which is still marketed a social network and a way to stay in touch with friends, is now to me 90% irrelevant (or mostly irrelevant) garbage. I'm only using it as a mailing list for the few communities I'm still subscribed to, and despite having close to 200 "friends" I have not interacted with any of them through Facebook in years, save for the occasional birthday wish. Maybe I would if my timeline had some of their content, but either it's being pushed at the bottom of the algorithm or maybe like me they just don't bother posting anything at all anymore.

It wasn't always like this. I'm old enough to remember Facebook's rise but young enough to have joined it when it was "hype", in my final years of high school. It looked nothing like today, your home feed was a constant buzzing of people sharing updates about their life and interacting organically. Yes, there were privacy concerns already, but it also tremendously helped me broaden my social circle and feel part of a community. It was very effective at the "social" part of "social network".

But then came the engagement maximization algorithms, the ads, the brands, the sponsored content, the atrocious UI updates...and slowly but surely people started leaving, because it was becoming harder and harder to parse signal from noise. I'm sure there's a generational rift element too (teenagers pretty much ignored Facebook after their parents started to join), but even people who grew up with it are leaving because it's a fundamentally different platform than it was back in 2010.

Seems like Instagram is taking a similar route. Makes you wonder if it's the fate of every social network to eventually decrepit and die.

Re: Instagram Is Over

#200

Post by aprdm »

Animats wrote: post #86

"To scroll through Instagram today is to parse a series of sponsored posts from brands, recommended Reels from people you don’t follow, and the occasional picture from a friend that’s finally surfaced after being posted several days ago. It’s not what it used to be." That seems to be how social media services die. Too many ads, fewer users, revenue drop, more ads to boost revenue, still fewer users, irrelevance. This…

That summary nails down my experience to a T. I don't know how anyone can use it.
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