4 ms·

I've stopped using Insta for the most part. I'm an old and I feel like Snaps are just more fun for me. The major issue with that is a lot of my friends haven't

by Yhippa 10y ago

I've stopped using Insta for the most part. I'm an old and I feel like Snaps are just more fun for me. The major issue with that is a lot of my friends haven't caught on yet. Insta just feels like it has too many buttons and notifications from spammers flying at me. They lost the plot from the simple app they used to be a long time ago. Plus the new algorithm change is terrible for me. Every time I open the app I see the same pictures over and over again and lots of advertisements in there now.

AJ007 10y ago
Yeah anecdotally, my in app time for Snapchat vs Instagram flipped once they changed the feed. Twitter was even worse, I don't use it anymore. How insane would it be if your email inbox didn't sort chronologically? I don't know what cohorts Facebook is looking at. Are they seeing a drop in engagement but balance it doesn't matter because of the revenue stream from advertisers? Or may be the bulk of users have increased engagement with a non-chronological feed? Perhaps more users than I realized follow over 1,000 users and the chronology value was lost a very long time ago. Oddly enough I'm finding myself returning back to RSS feeds. Lots of excellent independent bloggers still out there who actually write useful things. edit: and photographers.
- sbarre 10y ago
  I never understood why they couldn't just give people the option to retain the chronological sorting.. It can't possibly be that difficult to give users the choice.
  - niftich 10y ago
    Moving the feed from 'chronological' to 'algorithmic' obfuscates the true quantity of actual content on the your timeline, thereby allowing a higher density of ads and other sponsored content without you necessarily being able to tell or prove. I hypothesized about other benefits and drawbacks here [1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12190724 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12190724
  - tedmiston 10y ago
    This lets them experiment with showing ads at the most optimal times. I don't believe the new feed is about anything other than ad money.
    - madeofpalk 10y ago
      I don't understand this. I already see ads every n posts - why would non-chronological timeline change this?
spike021 10y ago
Snapchats are surprisingly better than alternatives nowadays. I personally really dislike the new feeds by popularity route that services are adopting, and Snapchat's Stories are great because I can find a friend's feed for the day and just catch up immediately, rather than having to either dig and dig until a feed thinks a particular post is important, etc.
- tedmiston 10y ago
  I also find it much easier to ignore the uninteresting people, or rather, people that tend to post 5+ times per day than it is on Facebook.
  - spike021 10y ago
    Yeah. Just because a plethora of people like someone's post doesn't mean that I will, but with many new feeds that kind of post would be prioritized over something with fewer likes/comments that I would actually want to see.
- quotemstr 10y ago
  > dig and dig until a feed thinks a particular post is important, etc. Can't you just go directly to that friend's timeline?
  - spike021 10y ago
    Sure, if you want to. But I'd rather just see how things are going with people in general through the day, not one or two in particular. Right now there are feeds I've seen where I don't even see today's updates at all because their algorithms deem previous days' posts more important.
    - quotemstr 10y ago
      Sometimes older posts are more important though. What if your friend got married yesterday and posted a toilet paper joke today? I've honestly never understood the anti algorithmic feed position.
shurane 10y ago
It's funny you mention that, because I know more people who use Instagram than Snapchat. Could be an age demographic? What I do know is my friends who use Snapchat don't use the stories mode, relying on sending direct snaps to the people they want to send it to. Not the case with Instagram.

by Yhippa 10y ago

AJ007 10y ago

Yeah anecdotally, my in app time for Snapchat vs Instagram flipped once they changed the feed. Twitter was even worse, I don't use it anymore. How insane would it be if your email inbox didn't sort chronologically? I don't know what cohorts Facebook is looking at. Are they seeing a drop in engagement but balance it doesn't matter because of the revenue stream from advertisers? Or may be the bulk of users have increased engagement with a non-chronological feed? Perhaps more users than I realized follow over 1,000 users and the chronology value was lost a very long time ago. Oddly enough I'm finding myself returning back to RSS feeds. Lots of excellent independent bloggers still out there who actually write useful things. edit: and photographers.

sbarre 10y ago
I never understood why they couldn't just give people the option to retain the chronological sorting.. It can't possibly be that difficult to give users the choice.
- niftich 10y ago
  Moving the feed from 'chronological' to 'algorithmic' obfuscates the true quantity of actual content on the your timeline, thereby allowing a higher density of ads and other sponsored content without you necessarily being able to tell or prove. I hypothesized about other benefits and drawbacks here [1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12190724 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12190724
- tedmiston 10y ago
  This lets them experiment with showing ads at the most optimal times. I don't believe the new feed is about anything other than ad money.
  - madeofpalk 10y ago
    I don't understand this. I already see ads every n posts - why would non-chronological timeline change this?

spike021 10y ago

Snapchats are surprisingly better than alternatives nowadays. I personally really dislike the new feeds by popularity route that services are adopting, and Snapchat's Stories are great because I can find a friend's feed for the day and just catch up immediately, rather than having to either dig and dig until a feed thinks a particular post is important, etc.

tedmiston 10y ago
I also find it much easier to ignore the uninteresting people, or rather, people that tend to post 5+ times per day than it is on Facebook.
- spike021 10y ago
  Yeah. Just because a plethora of people like someone's post doesn't mean that I will, but with many new feeds that kind of post would be prioritized over something with fewer likes/comments that I would actually want to see.
quotemstr 10y ago
> dig and dig until a feed thinks a particular post is important, etc. Can't you just go directly to that friend's timeline?
- spike021 10y ago
  Sure, if you want to. But I'd rather just see how things are going with people in general through the day, not one or two in particular. Right now there are feeds I've seen where I don't even see today's updates at all because their algorithms deem previous days' posts more important.
  - quotemstr 10y ago
    Sometimes older posts are more important though. What if your friend got married yesterday and posted a toilet paper joke today? I've honestly never understood the anti algorithmic feed position.

shurane 10y ago

It's funny you mention that, because I know more people who use Instagram than Snapchat. Could be an age demographic? What I do know is my friends who use Snapchat don't use the stories mode, relying on sending direct snaps to the people they want to send it to. Not the case with Instagram.