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Instagram Is Over

theatlantic.com

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Re: Instagram Is Over

#81

Post by TheAceOfHearts »

On the topic of social media in decline, TikTok also appears to have peaked in content already.

Following people isn't that interesting since most content creators that hit it big are One Hit Wonders. After they hit that big growth spike, they either follow the herd with the latest dance or trend, or they keep doing the same thing that made em famous with slight variations.

How long can you milk the same dance routine by switching out which celebrity does the silly little dance?

There were a few interesting educational channels for a while, but most people just don't have that many interesting things to keep posting about at the rate which is expected of a platform like TikTok. Quality content takes time to produce.

TikTok really only has a few buckets of content types. Some examples include thirst traps from sex workers that are looking to promote their OnlyFans and cute animals doing cute things.

Instagram isn't that different. I mostly use the app to see cute pictures of people's pets and the occasional human picture.

Re: Instagram Is Over

#82

Post by indymike »

Instagram was really nice until a few years ago. I could keep up visually with family and friends, and didn't have all advertorial, news and political garbage get in the way. Still good for talking to people, but a lot of that is moving to messenger apps not from Meta.

Re: Instagram Is Over

#83

Post by cardamomo »

syllablehq wrote: post #56

I think the key to a massively successful new social network will be a fallback API of just email/text. Why not let your shiny new social network UI parse any dumb input into a fancy thread format? Zero adoption friction. Federation baked in. Example: You run a mastodon-like service that can receive email. When it gets an email, it publishes a twirt with the contents. Truncates as needed. If it's a new email address,…

SMS is how I used to use Twitter, back in 2008 or so. You could text 40404 with your tweet, and you could receive Tweets from that number too. It was great in that era before I had a smartphone, and it felt like something halfway between a group chat and microblogging. I miss that mode of interaction.

Re: Instagram Is Over

#84

Post by phillipcarter »

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 comment is imperceptible from a parody of a hacker news comment.

Re: Instagram Is Over

#85

Post by denton-scratch »

phillipcarter wrote: post #84
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 comment is imperceptible from a parody of a hacker news comment.

Indistinguishable?

Re: Instagram Is Over

#86

Post by Animats »

"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 is called "pulling a Myspace".

Re: Instagram Is Over

#87

Post by standardUser »

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.

The simplification is (was) part of the appeal. It felt clean and refreshing to mostly look at pretty photos with minimal text. And it was a much more positive space. Photos of vacations, food, clothes, pets, friends. No political fighting or conspiracy theories or bitching about an ex. The comment space, a usual cesspool of unmitigated negativity and cruelty, was conveniently tucked away.

I miss the pre-pandemic Instagram. Now, it feels like it's transformed into a more general-purpose, Facebook-like social network. Which I guess should have been predictable!

Re: Instagram Is Over

#88

Post by the_only_law »

phillipcarter wrote: post #84
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 comment is imperceptible from a parody of a hacker news comment.

I think it’s a copypasta but I can’t quite recall.

Re: Instagram Is Over

#89

Post by nightski »

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…

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.

Re: Instagram Is Over

#90

Post by amelius »

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…

And even the non-advertisement posts are still self-promotional posts.
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