I'm not a big application design junkey, but it's behavior like this that makes me appreciate the simplicity of hacker news. A few standard concepts implemented in their most basic form. No changes in the name of more user engagement.
I understand that Reddit and Instagram's primary motive is to make money, but these sorts of "features" remove me from their pool of potential customers.
I'd like to see a move towards a purely data based web where I get to choose how the data is displayed. I know a semantic web paired with a standard set of user interface components chosen by the user wouldn't be as profitable as the current internet, but I would prefer it.