Instagram Is Over • Hacker News Board

Re: Instagram Is Over

#71

Post by rndgermandude » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 6:02 PM UTC

barnabee wrote: post #16

Instagram as a social network sucks but I like sharing my photos with people who are already my friends (private account), and seeing their photos too.

In my German circles, that spot has been covered by whatsapp for a long while now. It never has been instagram or anything else really. For me it went from studivz (long defunct German "facebook" for university students, didn't last long), via facebook (for a short while, and due to lack of alternatives) straight to whatsapp, and has stayed there ever since, with the exception of some photography interested people sharing larger sets of photos on flickr at times, and some dating/sexting happening on snap (but most of that still was/is on whatsapp). Instagram was always understood as a place where you go if you want to see celebs, influencers and the "wannabes".

Granted, I am a bit older, a millennial (as much as it hurts me to admit) and an older one at that, but I regularly take the tram in my city at times when all the teenagers are going to school or coming from school, and you can see a damn lot of whatsapp on all those phone screens, a lot of tiktok, and a good amount of discord.

Re: Instagram Is Over

#72

Post by throwayyy479087 » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 6:04 PM UTC

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #65

impulser_ wrote: post #63

They moved on from Facebook being over to Instagram being over lol. Instagram isn't over. It's still the most popular social media app on both App Store and Google Play in the US. For the past couple of years you always see articles popping up about Facebook being dead, then you look at the actual data and people are using Facebook more than ever. Look at the last report from Meta, more people on a daily and monthly…

> Look at the last report from Meta, more people on a daily and monthly basis are using Facebook and Instagram than ever both. It's more nuanced than that. If you're losing traction where it matters - in younger generations & high-value markets like the US that have higher future cash flows - it doesn't matter if you're making up for it with usage from old people or people in poor countries without good advertising i…

I went on Instagram for the first time in a few years yesterday. None of my friends post anymore and it’s all ads or sponcon.

Group chats have been slowly growing for the last decade, and now have become completely dominant. I wonder how much of it is fear of cancellation leading to defaulting to private communication.

Re: Instagram Is Over

#73

Post by jmcgough » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 6:04 PM UTC

api wrote: post #61

chrischen wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tiktok is short addictive videos from randos. Youtube is long addictive videos. Instagram and facebook is still primarily focused on content from people you know, though they are also trying to copy some of TikTok’s randos content via the Reels feature. At the end of the day they just want to get attention by giving content, whether using friends or essentially crowdsourcing. I prefer Netflix, because I’m paying them…

The trend in social media for years has been away from social and toward just addictive content and finding the best way to crowdsource that content. The purpose is becoming simply to get you to spend as much time as possible staring at the phone to sell ads, and nothing more. I predict the next advancement will be pure AI generated content, just a continuous adversarial attack on the human brain programmed to maximi…

I think we're seeing a pendulum swing in some ways. The migration to Mastodon has been really exciting because servers are funded through Patreon, not eyeballs. Communities are smaller and content is higher quality, without pressuring you to post content you think will get the most likes. It's like an actual social media platform, not what so many others have become.

Re: Instagram Is Over

#74

Post by cainxinth » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 6:04 PM UTC

Instagram isn't over, but it is becoming passé, which is not a positive sign for an app built around making people look cool.

Re: Instagram Is Over

#75

Post by pwython » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 6:05 PM UTC

racked wrote: post #67

Honestly I never understood the appeal. A social network that forces you to wedge your content in images and short videos, while on Facebook you could share YouTube videos, music, interesting links, write-ups, you name it. How can anyone in their right mind prefer something as limiting as Instagram? Even its instant messenger is limited compared to Facebook's.

People said the same thing about Twitter with its original 140 character limit. Just easily-consumable content you can scroll through. I enjoy the artwork I find on there. If I want YouTube links, music videos, news articles, etc I'll hit up Reddit.

Re: Instagram Is Over

#76

Post by ajsnigrutin » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 6:05 PM UTC

When the percentage of ads (sponsored posts/stories) is higher than the content you want to see, it becomes a pain to actually use the app, and you slowly use it less and less until you stop using it alltogether.

Re: Instagram Is Over

#77

Post by denton-scratch » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 6:05 PM UTC

> 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 can't really mess with the brim; it's flipped up at the back and down at the front, and it stays that way.

A fedora is a soft felt hat with a wide brim. The hats worn by both the cops and the robbers in 30's gangster movies are all fedoras. Felt hats are not woven; they're felted, and that means they have to be made of wool or fur (I guess a panama fedora is an exception, but then I think a panama fedora is just a panama hat that is the same shape as a real fedora).

Where I come from, a trilby is associated with racecourse bookies and the criminal fraternity, as well as tacky seaside "kiss-me-quick" hats, made of something like cardboard. Fedoras, on the contrary, are stylish.

They're also very functional. They shed rain like an umbrella, without dumping it down your neck. The only thing wrong with them is that they make a good aerofoil - you have to "hold onto your hats" if it's windy.

Re: Instagram Is Over

#78

Post by achenet » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 6:06 PM UTC

purec wrote: post #64

Author points to data showing 300m active users in 2013, 2b active users now, yet claims that Instagram is over. What is the replacement? Where is the decline?

Author is in what some would call an NYC cool kid media bubble, and you know, those cool kids aren't using it anymore, which means no on who matters does (2billion active dorks notwithstanding)

Re: Instagram Is Over

#79

Post by mertd » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 6:09 PM UTC

racked wrote: post #67

Honestly I never understood the appeal. A social network that forces you to wedge your content in images and short videos, while on Facebook you could share YouTube videos, music, interesting links, write-ups, you name it. How can anyone in their right mind prefer something as limiting as Instagram? Even its instant messenger is limited compared to Facebook's.

Instagram's formats feel nicer for getting updates from friends and family. No rants, just happy photos against usually a nice background.

Performative or commercial accounts make the experience worse though, and from what I understand these are being prioritized in the timeline.

Re: Instagram Is Over

#80

Post by toastal » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 6:14 PM UTC

throwayyy479087 wrote: post #72

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Look at the last report from Meta, more people on a daily and monthly basis are using Facebook and Instagram than ever both. It's more nuanced than that. If you're losing traction where it matters - in younger generations & high-value markets like the US that have higher future cash flows - it doesn't matter if you're making up for it with usage from old people or people in poor countries without good advertising i…

I went on Instagram for the first time in a few years yesterday. None of my friends post anymore and it’s all ads or sponcon. Group chats have been slowly growing for the last decade, and now have become completely dominant. I wonder how much of it is fear of cancellation leading to defaulting to private communication.

I had my account banned this year after logging in for a long while and told I looked too much like a bot. The only way to try to get access again was to upload a 'video selfie' at multiple angles, but no way would I want to help that facial algorithm any more than necessary. Good riddance.