I think the single best change Instagram done in a decade is the "ad break" that happens once you've scrolled through enough posts, which stops you for N seconds to stare at some random ad. I think I can scroll through 2-3 posts before my scrolling gets locked, and I close the app, and now I barely scroll Instagram at all anymore. Thank you Instagram!
That's me with old.reddit .com, best change they ever made was starting to block that. I haven't been on reddit in over a month and have, this may or may not be related, felt a lot less depressed and stressed
Conveniently, Reddit has auto-banned the last three accounts I tried opening with them [1], which really enhances the impact of the old.reddit changes for me personally.
[1] I have no idea why this is the case, AFAICT it's just anti-bot autoimmune disorder deciding it doesn't like some signal or other.
Old reddit is still around but reddit's leadership made statements lately suggesting we should expect old reddit to start sunsetting. For me, old reddit constantly flips to the crappy new reddit and within the 10-20 minutes/2-3 days I spend looking at it I have to manually revert my preference back to see old reddit maybe twice a week - despite old reddit already being set as the preference. To me, that signals they want users on new reddit, which I dislike, so I'd actually just leave the site entirely without old reddit. It's already gone severely down hill in the last 5 or so years to the point I barely use it.
New Reddit is literally unusable for me. And I mean actually literal.
Anytime an image is opened in new Reddit I have a 50% chance of not being able to back out of the page without it immediately redirecting back to the image and then locking the whole tab. I’m not even able to enter a different site into the url bar, I have to kill the tab and open a new one.
Even logged in old.reddit is worse than logged out as it recalculates the post order after hitting back from a post instead of just giving me the same fucking page I was on.
I don’t know what Reddit plan is, or their business model going forward if users can’t actually use it.
Although I did notice today they’ve added games so I guess they might be going for ad revenue on that like news sites have done in recent years.
For math classes where the instructor requires you to upload the work I use OneNote on my desktop (copy in the homework problem) and tablet (do the work).
The couch tablet just had old.reddit.com/r/all
On my desktop I have thousands of bots on my ignore list as well as hundreds of subs.
The tablet gave me the true unfiltered garbage that I hardly see elsewhere.
The problem is that they measure this, and if it's true for many they will just change it until they find the right way to keep you there.
It's a giant machine dedicated to turn users into addicts. Regulation (sad) and most of all education is the only things that I believe can help here.
Tax them -> spend in education.... not that I think it will happen though! :)
Hmm, I think sometime in spring maybe. My wife tells me the same thing, she doesn't see those breaks. Not sure, I've had my Instagram account since 2010 I think, maybe like a reverse-grandfathering or just long-running A/B test?
I opened Instagram and scrolled now just to reproduce it again, and I saw one "normal" post before this "ad break" appeared for me: https://i.imgur.com/SS6kuKV.png
Well, in my case it seems like a win-win, less of a punishment and more of an extra feature I gained for making the right choice I guess. It's all the eyes of the beholder!
To add further humor on top of this, I think i.postimg.cc TLS certificate just now/yesterday expired??? Not sure if it's just me, but the certificate says it expired "Thu, 10 Sep 2026 20:49:55 GMT" although I did manage to upload the image, maybe different host...
Nope, cert expired so I'm not allowed to view it XD It's alright, other comments say that it's because of protecting your privacy, which I guess I haven't done
Plugging the thing that finally got me off IG. Now if I need to see something I use the browser and it’s so terrible that I get pissed trying to scroll after I saw what I opened the page for.
I don't really see people using Instagram anymore, it seems like it's mostly turned into a static photo album. For example, I've seen people use Instagram links on dating profiles. For more, see IG @...
You know it would happen if they could get away with it. It would start with a study about how cocaine microdosing prevents Alzheimer or heart attacks.
"Adam Mosseri has warned that users who switch off Instagram’s recommendation system end up with a worse experience, telling an Australian press briefing that engagement can fall by as much as 50% and that satisfaction scores fall off a cliff." - Well, isn't this just that we fear from technology... that the makers of their social media applications feel that their products are simply there to create our experiences?
Well, I have news for you. Social media creates nothing. It lives by getting us to not act... to sit in a mind-numbing silent purgatory, voyeuristically watching the fictitious 3rd-person accounts of the subjective experience of others... as the synchronisation of our genetic inner core with the paths we take in the social realm becoming less and less harmonious... since because of social media we take less paths... since you know... we don't act.
So if the addiction from the behavioural algorithms is all you have to engage with your users, why aren't you classed as drug suppliers?
I have often argued for it on here, but I want eg the EU to ban these kinds of recommender algorithm's. It’s all about weaponizing your nervous system against you just to show ads. If we ban it tomorrow society literally becomes better not worse. Why do American big tech companies have the “right” to cook our brains? It affects our politics, our relationships, etc
I honestly do not understand why we let it continue when we have been seeing the drastic negative effects for years now. The recommendation algorithm and the data it relies on must be opened up to to some kind of elected agency, and they need to be vetted for negative health effects just as we do now with drugs. Any algorithm that is addictive enough to keep users mindlessly scrolling for hours needs adjustment or needs to be banned. This would put a stop to infinite scrolling. Give the user more agency in deciding if they want to continue or stop there. We should no longer allow for-profit companies to hijack our attention for long periods and abuse our brains need for digital sugar.
Bluesky likely knows this problem well. The pro is that I never find myself stuck there. The con is that I just end up somewhere else (including this orange website). Time to ctrl-w.
Although Bluesky is tiny, they are the biggest and most stable proponent of letting users control their feed. Even if they don't grow big, being half the size of a toxic social media platform is a damn good business model. Somebody can win with that, and I hope a diverse group of startups try.
The question really is how to keep it in (or, at least, near) that sweet spot.
People would love to go back to something like Facebook circa 2012 or the Twitter (or even Reddit) of maybe a couple of years later. But if you were to somehow manage to do that, how would you prevent them from turning into what they ended up becoming in the past decade?
It seems to me that federation might have given us at least part of the answer, but only if there was some concrete reason to limit posts by default to being "local" (ie. unfederated) rather than global. Think of how FidoNet echoes tended to be limited to a specific net or region, or how IRC networks would inevitably split once they reached something like 100k users.
Google+'s circles might have evolved into something like that, but ATproto seems to prioritise the "big world" rather than "small world" view. I guess commercial considerations make that inevitable but, personally, I think it's a pity that there's not some sort of technical limitation that would force a smaller horizon.
I don't know what the right balance is, but there should be some sort of friction. Feeds shouldn't be infinitely scrollable, for instance, and users could be made explicitly aware of how much time they're spending.
Some people think this should all fall back on personal responsibility, but the way I see it, introducing highly addictive algorithms should've been regulated the same way adding addictive chemicals to food is.
Folks would just continue on page 2, like in the good old days! Pls take that with a pinch of salt.
There is just so much that can be banned and infinite scroll isn’t one of those things. After all, what kind of nanny state do we want and after how much content does the scroll stop?
The symptoms shouldn’t be addressed, the root cause of why folks feel they need to infinitely scroll through content that is probably providing them psychologically no benefits.
Monkeys and colourful marbles comes to mind, although I’m sure the monkeys lose interest after a while.
That's a feel good response, but there are also individuals who post a bit too much, but still fairly interesting stuff.
A middle ground would be to have a "reduced follow" mode where you still have a chronological timeline, except that at most N posts per day are shown from "reduced followees". The filtering can still be based on a popularity signal.
I have started to like the algorithms. What I do want is an option to switch to plain old feed which twitter now offers.
Only problem with algorithm is that it is prone to occasional slips where you open a random cat video (or any other bait) and your recommendations start showing that more often, you keep clicking those and before you know it your recommended feed is full of that.
But if you know how to tame the algorithm for only the content you are interested in, it is amazing. I like my twitter, youtube and insta recommendations and have discovered many new creators who I wouldn't have otherwise.
Unlikely; your brain has been trained to enjoy it because it's a psychological hit inherent with the way the app + algorithm work together to be addictive and keep you 'engaged' instead of doing something else altogether.
Engagement dropping is bad for a corporations ad revenue -> shareholders; it's great for individuals and their physical and mental wellbeing.
I'm pretty sure I've only had a plain (chronological) feed since I started using Twitter a few years ago... There's a few times I had to switch back/reenable it, but it's not new. Though I've always hated Twitter's algo so I would have stopped using the site if the chronological feed went missing.
Snarky reaction aside, and actually reading the article, it says that the problem is something along the lines of "we incentivized and rewarded business accounts to post large volumes, so now if you switch to chronological order you will see more of these posts which reduces user satisfaction".
Well, that just means that the company will have to adapt before their users start unfollowing spammy accounts and the whole "influencer" business takes a hit. Though tbh, not sure how much of a hit it could take but hey, when instagram says engagement falls, I allow myself to feel optimistic for a brief moment.
It can be good in the way that meals with green vegetables aren't consumed as voraciously as cheeseburgers and fries. It depends on the quality of what's in the feed.
On reflection I wonder if it doesn't drop more because it's a learned habit and it doesn't unlearn in the time of the study.
However, I suspect the other complaint — that chronological feeds get overwhelmed by corporate spam — is fully true.
It's one more regular reminder that none of these companies want to charge a couple of billion users a couple of dollars a month to give them exactly what they are asking for — a way to keep in contact with friends and meet new ones — because that's just not enough revenue for them, even if they charge for optional features.
We're all worth so much more to them if we are addicted.
I honestly only have these apps to see what my friends posted. I know they aren't likely to do it, but it would be lovely to have the friends-only view back by default in every meta app
Their lack of self-awareness is striking. Very often an insurgent would love to make half the revenue of the incumbent. He's not pointing out a problem with improving social media, he's pointing out the problem of being the incumbent that's dependent on toxic ingredients to their product.
This shows us that Instagram still has a viable business without the algorithm.
Falling by half sounds like a lot, but the glass-half-full read of that is that it means "Instagram would still be incredibly popular without its algorithm."
So not having an algorithm cuts engagement by ONLY half? How can that not be a good thing? Just remove it and save all the headaches for your service, ranging from user addiction to regulatory pressure. Let people engage however much they want.
Governments should start taxing short form video. If the companies want to make money off of people's time and engagement, it is only fair that governments get a cut. I propose 2 cents per short video.
Same probably goes for slot machines if you strip them of all the bright, flashy colours and comforting sounds and make it a black metal box, with only a number display.
Its almost like... it was inherently designed to be as addictive as possible?
I hope the point is bigger than a nit to pick, but a plain slot machine is still bad. Social media used to be good or at least interesting in a good way. Maybe it can be again.
I don't get how instagram is as popular as it is. I made an account last week to try to look for pictures from an event I recently attended.
First I was incredibly surprised and frustrated that their search functionality is effectively nonexistent, then, when I gave up and scrolled, if I tapped on a post to look closer, I had to deal with it interrupting whatever I was listening to.
Then, cherry on top of the shit cake, they suspended my account unless I did some video ID process. Nope, not happening.
Instagram felt like a more invasive and hostile user experience than any social media I've used before.
Everytime I stumble upon search on ANY meta made platform I'm dazzled by how anyone can make simple search such a shit feature. Messanger search is ridiculously not working for ten years now.
I think Instagram has gotten quite a bit worse over the past few years. I really only want to see posts from people I follow and they've made that more difficult.
The service that totally baffles me is Tik Tok. I know it's supposed to learn what you like, but it has never really surfaced anything of interest to me. It might even be worse than YouTube for me.
My ideal Instagram algorithm would be to show me only the people I follow, in chronological order. Then show me a marker that I'm at the end of my feed and at that point they can offer me their feed.
> My ideal Instagram algorithm would be to show me only the people I follow, in chronological order. Then show me a marker that I'm at the end of my feed and at that point they can offer me their feed.
I am working on a new social media. I am curious about this point. How would you discover new people to follow initially?
And, is a separate explore page of people you don't follow okay?
The people I follow are mostly people I actually know along with a couple of musicians whose work I'm interested in.
Discovery isn't something that I've ever really thought about because it's not a problem I have. The initial person I followed was a relative. By the end of the first year I probably was only following four or five people. Today (15 years later) I think the number is less than twenty.
A separate explore page is fine. I'd probably open it once to see what it was and then close it. Those types of things are generally made to serve the interests of the service and not the user.
I think social media is generally a terrible idea. I am a fan though of a social network.
Plenty of comments here saying what we're all thinking, so I THINK this is an appropriate thread to share my app which specifically removes the ads and algorithm and only shows posts from the profiles you follow.
And purchases fall by half if you put milk at the entrance of the grocery store. Nothing of value is lost by letting people go through less slop to get to what they want to see.
This guy thinks feeds will be dominated by brands posting multiple times per day. People will unsubscribe from brands that post what they don't want to see. It's a self correcting problem.
I think the single best change Instagram done in a decade is the "ad break" that happens once you've scrolled through enough posts, which stops you for N seconds to stare at some random ad. I think I can scroll through 2-3 posts before my scrolling gets locked, and I close the app, and now I barely scroll Instagram at all anymore. Thank you Instagram!
That's me with old.reddit .com, best change they ever made was starting to block that. I haven't been on reddit in over a month and have, this may or may not be related, felt a lot less depressed and stressed
old reddit isn't really blocked, you just have to be logged in
Conveniently, Reddit has auto-banned the last three accounts I tried opening with them [1], which really enhances the impact of the old.reddit changes for me personally.
[1] I have no idea why this is the case, AFAICT it's just anti-bot autoimmune disorder deciding it doesn't like some signal or other.
Old reddit is still around but reddit's leadership made statements lately suggesting we should expect old reddit to start sunsetting. For me, old reddit constantly flips to the crappy new reddit and within the 10-20 minutes/2-3 days I spend looking at it I have to manually revert my preference back to see old reddit maybe twice a week - despite old reddit already being set as the preference. To me, that signals they want users on new reddit, which I dislike, so I'd actually just leave the site entirely without old reddit. It's already gone severely down hill in the last 5 or so years to the point I barely use it.
New Reddit is literally unusable for me. And I mean actually literal.
Anytime an image is opened in new Reddit I have a 50% chance of not being able to back out of the page without it immediately redirecting back to the image and then locking the whole tab. I’m not even able to enter a different site into the url bar, I have to kill the tab and open a new one.
Even logged in old.reddit is worse than logged out as it recalculates the post order after hitting back from a post instead of just giving me the same fucking page I was on.
I don’t know what Reddit plan is, or their business model going forward if users can’t actually use it.
Although I did notice today they’ve added games so I guess they might be going for ad revenue on that like news sites have done in recent years.
I'll not login on the couch tablet so no more reddit for me on it.
If you're worried about addictive scrolling perhaps your "couch tablet" is worth side-eyeing.
I've yet to find a more suitable use for a tablet. Maybe the whole device class is cooked.
They're not bad for note-taking in STEM courses.
For math classes where the instructor requires you to upload the work I use OneNote on my desktop (copy in the homework problem) and tablet (do the work).
The couch tablet just had old.reddit.com/r/all On my desktop I have thousands of bots on my ignore list as well as hundreds of subs. The tablet gave me the true unfiltered garbage that I hardly see elsewhere.
The problem is that they measure this, and if it's true for many they will just change it until they find the right way to keep you there. It's a giant machine dedicated to turn users into addicts. Regulation (sad) and most of all education is the only things that I believe can help here.
Tax them -> spend in education.... not that I think it will happen though! :)
When did that start for you? I've never seen that myself, I can keep scrolling as long as I want
Hmm, I think sometime in spring maybe. My wife tells me the same thing, she doesn't see those breaks. Not sure, I've had my Instagram account since 2010 I think, maybe like a reverse-grandfathering or just long-running A/B test?
I opened Instagram and scrolled now just to reproduce it again, and I saw one "normal" post before this "ad break" appeared for me: https://i.imgur.com/SS6kuKV.png
Those ad breaks only appear if you opt out of personalized tracking.
They're a punishment for you because you won't let them collect data.
FB app does that too.
Well, in my case it seems like a win-win, less of a punishment and more of an extra feature I gained for making the right choice I guess. It's all the eyes of the beholder!
Yeah, same here, but that's the reason why others aren't seeing it :)
Content not viewable in my region :P
Ay, I'm glad we now have country-specific internets, very fun :)
I uploaded the image to https://i.postimg.cc/Cx6fYh8p/image.png instead, hopefully you're not on corporate network blocking the (used to be) shady .cc tld.
To add further humor on top of this, I think i.postimg.cc TLS certificate just now/yesterday expired??? Not sure if it's just me, but the certificate says it expired "Thu, 10 Sep 2026 20:49:55 GMT" although I did manage to upload the image, maybe different host...
Nope, cert expired so I'm not allowed to view it XD It's alright, other comments say that it's because of protecting your privacy, which I guess I haven't done
You get that when you refuse personalised ads.
https://one-sec.app
Plugging the thing that finally got me off IG. Now if I need to see something I use the browser and it’s so terrible that I get pissed trying to scroll after I saw what I opened the page for.
I don't really see people using Instagram anymore, it seems like it's mostly turned into a static photo album. For example, I've seen people use Instagram links on dating profiles. For more, see IG @...
> I don't really see people using Instagram anymore
> I've seen people use Instagram links on dating profiles
Does that not count as using Instagram or?
Same! It's a great reminder to stop scrolling and close the app.
Tobacco exec says smoking falls by half with low-nicotine cigs.
"From today forward we will reduce our cigs nicotine by half!"
2 weeks later
"We are please to announce the acquisition of triple nicotine packets that show incredible product innovation."
Nobody says bring back cocaine-cola because sales.
You know it would happen if they could get away with it. It would start with a study about how cocaine microdosing prevents Alzheimer or heart attacks.
Probably because there are strict laws outlawing cocaine sales, unlike nicotine
Be ready for "Nico-Cola"
i guarantee you there is an R&D attempt at this that failed to make it to market
"Adam Mosseri has warned that users who switch off Instagram’s recommendation system end up with a worse experience, telling an Australian press briefing that engagement can fall by as much as 50% and that satisfaction scores fall off a cliff." - Well, isn't this just that we fear from technology... that the makers of their social media applications feel that their products are simply there to create our experiences?
Well, I have news for you. Social media creates nothing. It lives by getting us to not act... to sit in a mind-numbing silent purgatory, voyeuristically watching the fictitious 3rd-person accounts of the subjective experience of others... as the synchronisation of our genetic inner core with the paths we take in the social realm becoming less and less harmonious... since because of social media we take less paths... since you know... we don't act.
So if the addiction from the behavioural algorithms is all you have to engage with your users, why aren't you classed as drug suppliers?
I have often argued for it on here, but I want eg the EU to ban these kinds of recommender algorithm's. It’s all about weaponizing your nervous system against you just to show ads. If we ban it tomorrow society literally becomes better not worse. Why do American big tech companies have the “right” to cook our brains? It affects our politics, our relationships, etc
I honestly do not understand why we let it continue when we have been seeing the drastic negative effects for years now. The recommendation algorithm and the data it relies on must be opened up to to some kind of elected agency, and they need to be vetted for negative health effects just as we do now with drugs. Any algorithm that is addictive enough to keep users mindlessly scrolling for hours needs adjustment or needs to be banned. This would put a stop to infinite scrolling. Give the user more agency in deciding if they want to continue or stop there. We should no longer allow for-profit companies to hijack our attention for long periods and abuse our brains need for digital sugar.
The idea of the free market always boils down to: no regulation until we decide otherwise.
Bluesky likely knows this problem well. The pro is that I never find myself stuck there. The con is that I just end up somewhere else (including this orange website). Time to ctrl-w.
It's not like this website has some nefarious algorithm to keep you engaged.
I also find myself here and keep bouncing off bluesky and I think it's just because I find the info and conversation here more interesting.
Although Bluesky is tiny, they are the biggest and most stable proponent of letting users control their feed. Even if they don't grow big, being half the size of a toxic social media platform is a damn good business model. Somebody can win with that, and I hope a diverse group of startups try.
The question really is how to keep it in (or, at least, near) that sweet spot.
People would love to go back to something like Facebook circa 2012 or the Twitter (or even Reddit) of maybe a couple of years later. But if you were to somehow manage to do that, how would you prevent them from turning into what they ended up becoming in the past decade?
It seems to me that federation might have given us at least part of the answer, but only if there was some concrete reason to limit posts by default to being "local" (ie. unfederated) rather than global. Think of how FidoNet echoes tended to be limited to a specific net or region, or how IRC networks would inevitably split once they reached something like 100k users.
Google+'s circles might have evolved into something like that, but ATproto seems to prioritise the "big world" rather than "small world" view. I guess commercial considerations make that inevitable but, personally, I think it's a pity that there's not some sort of technical limitation that would force a smaller horizon.
I don't know what the right balance is, but there should be some sort of friction. Feeds shouldn't be infinitely scrollable, for instance, and users could be made explicitly aware of how much time they're spending.
Some people think this should all fall back on personal responsibility, but the way I see it, introducing highly addictive algorithms should've been regulated the same way adding addictive chemicals to food is.
> Feeds shouldn't be infinitely scrollable
Folks would just continue on page 2, like in the good old days! Pls take that with a pinch of salt.
There is just so much that can be banned and infinite scroll isn’t one of those things. After all, what kind of nanny state do we want and after how much content does the scroll stop?
The symptoms shouldn’t be addressed, the root cause of why folks feel they need to infinitely scroll through content that is probably providing them psychologically no benefits.
Monkeys and colourful marbles comes to mind, although I’m sure the monkeys lose interest after a while.
The middle ground is to mandate that there must be an option to toggle infinite scroll in the settings, preferably with it set off by default.
They should tax Instagram for continuous scrolling. The longer one session gets the more it costs :D
>> If you go to a chronological feed, it ends up getting overwhelmed with content from companies, brands, and publishers
Not if you unsubscribe from companies, brands, and publishers. You're welcome.
That's a feel good response, but there are also individuals who post a bit too much, but still fairly interesting stuff.
A middle ground would be to have a "reduced follow" mode where you still have a chronological timeline, except that at most N posts per day are shown from "reduced followees". The filtering can still be based on a popularity signal.
Agreed! Reduced follow mode and the publisher needs to decide which 3 posts a day are marked 'priority'. If < 3 posts, then all are 'priority'.
For a lot of people that's a good thing
> Users miss more content and spend less time on the platform.
And what is the effect of this on the user?
Oh right, you don't care.
For me this guy is directly repsonsible of all the negative side effects of this attention grabbing engangement BS and he should go to jail for that.
This is simply 21. century Tabbaco industry with all it had. The glamour, controversy and now the fall.
I have started to like the algorithms. What I do want is an option to switch to plain old feed which twitter now offers.
Only problem with algorithm is that it is prone to occasional slips where you open a random cat video (or any other bait) and your recommendations start showing that more often, you keep clicking those and before you know it your recommended feed is full of that.
But if you know how to tame the algorithm for only the content you are interested in, it is amazing. I like my twitter, youtube and insta recommendations and have discovered many new creators who I wouldn't have otherwise.
> I have started to like the algorithms.
Unlikely; your brain has been trained to enjoy it because it's a psychological hit inherent with the way the app + algorithm work together to be addictive and keep you 'engaged' instead of doing something else altogether.
Engagement dropping is bad for a corporations ad revenue -> shareholders; it's great for individuals and their physical and mental wellbeing.
This can be true as well because I have been spending lot more time on twitter etc as well.
> plain old feed which twitter now offers
I'm pretty sure I've only had a plain (chronological) feed since I started using Twitter a few years ago... There's a few times I had to switch back/reenable it, but it's not new. Though I've always hated Twitter's algo so I would have stopped using the site if the chronological feed went missing.
cue the smallest sad violin
Snarky reaction aside, and actually reading the article, it says that the problem is something along the lines of "we incentivized and rewarded business accounts to post large volumes, so now if you switch to chronological order you will see more of these posts which reduces user satisfaction".
Well, that just means that the company will have to adapt before their users start unfollowing spammy accounts and the whole "influencer" business takes a hit. Though tbh, not sure how much of a hit it could take but hey, when instagram says engagement falls, I allow myself to feel optimistic for a brief moment.
Only half? That's sort of depressing.
Will fry all the brains of humanity for double the engagement (and a promotion to L5).
Doesn't sound worth it to me.
So this is the result of "move fast and break things (humans in this case)".
It can be good in the way that meals with green vegetables aren't consumed as voraciously as cheeseburgers and fries. It depends on the quality of what's in the feed.
It's a good start.
On reflection I wonder if it doesn't drop more because it's a learned habit and it doesn't unlearn in the time of the study.
However, I suspect the other complaint — that chronological feeds get overwhelmed by corporate spam — is fully true.
It's one more regular reminder that none of these companies want to charge a couple of billion users a couple of dollars a month to give them exactly what they are asking for — a way to keep in contact with friends and meet new ones — because that's just not enough revenue for them, even if they charge for optional features.
We're all worth so much more to them if we are addicted.
Monetization is down when content isn't force-fed to users. Give this guy a raise.
Nobel prize for economics perhaps?
> engagement falls by half without the algorithm
Good?
I honestly only have these apps to see what my friends posted. I know they aren't likely to do it, but it would be lovely to have the friends-only view back by default in every meta app
>Children will be smoking less if you don't offer them cigarettes
Because looking at pictures is the same as smoking cigarettes.
Both are proven to be addictive and harmful.
"Mosseri is not arguing that a chronological feed harms users. He is arguing that it produces less engagement and less time on the platform."
Seems like a great outcome, right?
Their lack of self-awareness is striking. Very often an insurgent would love to make half the revenue of the incumbent. He's not pointing out a problem with improving social media, he's pointing out the problem of being the incumbent that's dependent on toxic ingredients to their product.
This shows us that Instagram still has a viable business without the algorithm.
Falling by half sounds like a lot, but the glass-half-full read of that is that it means "Instagram would still be incredibly popular without its algorithm."
So not having an algorithm cuts engagement by ONLY half? How can that not be a good thing? Just remove it and save all the headaches for your service, ranging from user addiction to regulatory pressure. Let people engage however much they want.
Governments should start taxing short form video. If the companies want to make money off of people's time and engagement, it is only fair that governments get a cut. I propose 2 cents per short video.
A great start and a major win for humanity. Halfway there!
What’s the other half? ;)
Just charge double per view, there will be pressure for competition which is sorely needed in the ads business
Same probably goes for slot machines if you strip them of all the bright, flashy colours and comforting sounds and make it a black metal box, with only a number display.
Its almost like... it was inherently designed to be as addictive as possible?
I hope the point is bigger than a nit to pick, but a plain slot machine is still bad. Social media used to be good or at least interesting in a good way. Maybe it can be again.
I don't get how instagram is as popular as it is. I made an account last week to try to look for pictures from an event I recently attended.
First I was incredibly surprised and frustrated that their search functionality is effectively nonexistent, then, when I gave up and scrolled, if I tapped on a post to look closer, I had to deal with it interrupting whatever I was listening to.
Then, cherry on top of the shit cake, they suspended my account unless I did some video ID process. Nope, not happening.
Instagram felt like a more invasive and hostile user experience than any social media I've used before.
Everytime I stumble upon search on ANY meta made platform I'm dazzled by how anyone can make simple search such a shit feature. Messanger search is ridiculously not working for ten years now.
I think Instagram has gotten quite a bit worse over the past few years. I really only want to see posts from people I follow and they've made that more difficult.
The service that totally baffles me is Tik Tok. I know it's supposed to learn what you like, but it has never really surfaced anything of interest to me. It might even be worse than YouTube for me.
My ideal Instagram algorithm would be to show me only the people I follow, in chronological order. Then show me a marker that I'm at the end of my feed and at that point they can offer me their feed.
> My ideal Instagram algorithm would be to show me only the people I follow, in chronological order. Then show me a marker that I'm at the end of my feed and at that point they can offer me their feed.
I am working on a new social media. I am curious about this point. How would you discover new people to follow initially?
And, is a separate explore page of people you don't follow okay?
The people I follow are mostly people I actually know along with a couple of musicians whose work I'm interested in.
Discovery isn't something that I've ever really thought about because it's not a problem I have. The initial person I followed was a relative. By the end of the first year I probably was only following four or five people. Today (15 years later) I think the number is less than twenty.
A separate explore page is fine. I'd probably open it once to see what it was and then close it. Those types of things are generally made to serve the interests of the service and not the user.
I think social media is generally a terrible idea. I am a fan though of a social network.
You're late to it and that's not how people are using Instagram
> I don't get how instagram is as popular as it is.
Stockholm syndrome.
Yeah, we know! That’s the problem!
Plenty of comments here saying what we're all thinking, so I THINK this is an appropriate thread to share my app which specifically removes the ads and algorithm and only shows posts from the profiles you follow.
https://narro.info
That's the point.
Engagement ~= addiction. Just a more euphemistic framing.
That's great, does he have any other good news to share with us?
Everyone loves to hate the algorithm but this is obvious
Because people are lazy, they feed on feed.
Good stuff ! When’s it going to prod ?
Is that supposed to be bad?
And purchases fall by half if you put milk at the entrance of the grocery store. Nothing of value is lost by letting people go through less slop to get to what they want to see.
This guy thinks feeds will be dominated by brands posting multiple times per day. People will unsubscribe from brands that post what they don't want to see. It's a self correcting problem.
They don't know that.
You can't currently turn off the algorithm in Instagram.
This person is talking nonsense.
"The brands and publishers’ point is the stronger half, and it deserves engaging with. "
Just one example. It's odd to me that people are willing to put their own byline on obvious slop.
Good!
Good?
Good!
Good
good. let it fall.
[dead]
Same with HN and its LLM powered comments script they run internally
Cry me a river, seriously.