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Honestly with all the changes to Instagram I find myself using the app less and less. The changes I'm thinking about are ads in the feed and random content to d

Honestly with all the changes to Instagram I find myself using the app less and less. The changes I'm thinking about are ads in the feed and random content to drive engagement. Both of these things are driving me to use the app less. I'm realizing that Facebook does two things builds a social network and then strip mines it off all value.

aaronblohowiak 9y ago
i hate having to scroll past content i have seen in order to see content that i havent, and the out-of-order shenanigans.
wanderr 9y ago
Non linear feed makes it crappy for me. Now I'm guaranteed to miss stuff from people I care about, just like on FB.
- wwweston 9y ago
  This. Why, why, why? I mean, I'm sure there's an ostensible reason. Maybe there's metrics that show it increases engagement (which I'd believe, since it kindof fits with the studies that say an uncertain reward is more addictive than completely predictable reward). Maybe adding a special sauce ML algorithm to the feed generation process lets a product manager add a bullet point to their resume and yearly review. But I kindof think the reason has to be something that is not going to be particularly user driven or otherwise reflect well on FB, because as far as I can tell most users who are conscious about it reaaaally would like to be able to at least set a setting that would give them a strict chronological feed. And yet, that's never an option, and FB never even seems to talk about reasons why they know their way is totally awesome.
  - justAnotherNET 9y ago
    If it was better for users they’d toot their own horn about it. It’s more likely Ad revenue is x% higher so they do it that way.
  - vanderZwan 9y ago
    > Maybe there's metrics that show it increases engagement (which I'd believe, since it kindof fits with the studies that say an uncertain reward is more addictive than completely predictable reward) I wonder how much of those metrics are false positives due to people scrolling more in frustration to find the user updates that they are missing
    - lou1306 9y ago
      You might be on to something. "Hey, did you see what $mutual_friend has posted on Facebook this morning?" Cue 15 minutes of scrolling past two-weeks-old posts
      - vanderZwan 9y ago
        Realises they could have searched for that friend and opened their profile Cue 15 more minutes of scrolling before realising they're two months back because they missed the actual post, because Facebook does not show every update by default
- trevor-e 9y ago
  Isn't it only non-linear on the first load? Whenever I open the app for the first time in a while it shows me "top content while I was gone", and after refreshing it appears to be linear again.
  - driverdan 9y ago
    Nope, it's always non-linear. It does appear to hold back some posts from your first load in some kind of idiotic attempt to give you additional things to look at later.
    - simooooo 9y ago
      Ohhh new stuff happened! ... Oh.. Wait
    - leroy_masochist 9y ago
      > It does appear to hold back some posts from your first load in some kind of idiotic attempt to give you additional things to look at later. I've noticed this as well, and it appears to have gotten more pronounced in the last month or so. I don't understand why this isn't a setting that users can toggle. "Show feed strict in linear order" or something like that.
      - vanderZwan 9y ago
        https://www.facebook.com/?sk=h_chr https://www.facebook.com/?sk=h_chr It's hidden under News -> Most Recent EDIT: Oh wait, Instagram. No idea what to do there, sorry.
zwily 9y ago
For some reason I have never seen an ad in Instagram. (And yes, I do use it...)
- eat_veggies 9y ago
  I see ads on Instagram all the time. Just scrolling through two days of my feed (but it's hard to tell, because it's not chronological anymore), I see some ads from therealcost, xbox, lovepop cards, kelloggs frosted flakes, m&m's chocolate, some music festival, instagram itself, and six posts from accounts I don't follow, as part of its new 'Recommended for You' (aka garbage I don't care to see) sections. Perhaps I fit their demographics, so I get more of them.
- graeme 9y ago
  I used to see them, but recently they have all vanished. No idea why. Maybe I was too low engagement. The addition of stories does make it feel busier though. I'm enjoying my time on it much less than I used to. Even after muting stories from people whose stories I wasn't interested in watching.
- tonypace 9y ago
  I'm a teacher in Asia. My students complain mightily about the sudden deluge of ads. They experience it as being much worse than Facebook.
- Renaud 9y ago
  That's strange, I get a sponsored content like every 5 to 6 pictures. It's annoying to the point that it's about to be the last straw for me. While there are talented photographers on Instagram, the app is really poor as a way to appreciate photography (can't zoom, no iPad app to better view content) and it's also poor as a community, favouring instead over-consumption and poor engagement (low quality comments, if any). Then there are the shenanigans that game user engagement, like delaying likes to force people to check the app more often or nagging me to enable notifications every single time I open the app. It has become little more than an ad-delivery platform.
ceejayoz 9y ago
Yeah, the magic feels gone. They just announced they're (after years of holding the line) opening up the API for publishing photos, so it'll be a spammy feed of corporate stuff very soon.
vanilla_nut 9y ago
I feel very similarly. It reminds me of facebook's transition to the News Feed -- even without ads, the introduction of a content algorithm ruined my main use case for the platform: following just my very central friend group and seeing everything they post. On the plus side, Facebook has now taught me (twice!) that they (or any other "social media" company) can't be trusted. Now I'm just deciding whether I should give up social media altogether. I already deleted my Facebook since it became completely useless over the past few years (friends don't post, I don't see their posts when they do, notifications are useless and diluted), I'm considering deleting my instagram (far, far, far too many ads; friends don't post as much)... is it worth it to try to build out a presence on Mastodon? Or is that doomed, too?
taylorexpander 9y ago
For some reason, the ads I’m seeing on Instagram are creepily relevant for me. I just checked and literally it just shows me advertisements for furniture (I like design…) and plants (I like plants…). I’ve actually bought a plant related thing from one of them, and the ads that show up actually do make me stop and look at them. On the other hand, it’s also showing me advertisements for watches. I have no idea why, because I hate wearing watches and I’ve definitely never googled for watches before.
- castle-bravo 9y ago
  Maybe it knows you're always late for meetings and appointments and is giving you a subtle hint that you need to up your game and get a watch. ;) That, or their model has found a correlation between liking chairs, plants, and watches but doesn't account for your unusual distaste for watches. Take heart, facebook doesn't know you well enough to convince you to hand over your wallet to their customers (yet).

aaronblohowiak 9y ago

i hate having to scroll past content i have seen in order to see content that i havent, and the out-of-order shenanigans.

wanderr 9y ago

Non linear feed makes it crappy for me. Now I'm guaranteed to miss stuff from people I care about, just like on FB.

wwweston 9y ago
This. Why, why, why? I mean, I'm sure there's an ostensible reason. Maybe there's metrics that show it increases engagement (which I'd believe, since it kindof fits with the studies that say an uncertain reward is more addictive than completely predictable reward). Maybe adding a special sauce ML algorithm to the feed generation process lets a product manager add a bullet point to their resume and yearly review. But I kindof think the reason has to be something that is not going to be particularly user driven or otherwise reflect well on FB, because as far as I can tell most users who are conscious about it reaaaally would like to be able to at least set a setting that would give them a strict chronological feed. And yet, that's never an option, and FB never even seems to talk about reasons why they know their way is totally awesome.
- justAnotherNET 9y ago
  If it was better for users they’d toot their own horn about it. It’s more likely Ad revenue is x% higher so they do it that way.
- vanderZwan 9y ago
  > Maybe there's metrics that show it increases engagement (which I'd believe, since it kindof fits with the studies that say an uncertain reward is more addictive than completely predictable reward) I wonder how much of those metrics are false positives due to people scrolling more in frustration to find the user updates that they are missing
  - lou1306 9y ago
    You might be on to something. "Hey, did you see what $mutual_friend has posted on Facebook this morning?" Cue 15 minutes of scrolling past two-weeks-old posts
    - vanderZwan 9y ago
      Realises they could have searched for that friend and opened their profile Cue 15 more minutes of scrolling before realising they're two months back because they missed the actual post, because Facebook does not show every update by default
trevor-e 9y ago
Isn't it only non-linear on the first load? Whenever I open the app for the first time in a while it shows me "top content while I was gone", and after refreshing it appears to be linear again.
- driverdan 9y ago
  Nope, it's always non-linear. It does appear to hold back some posts from your first load in some kind of idiotic attempt to give you additional things to look at later.
  - simooooo 9y ago
    Ohhh new stuff happened! ... Oh.. Wait
  - leroy_masochist 9y ago
    > It does appear to hold back some posts from your first load in some kind of idiotic attempt to give you additional things to look at later. I've noticed this as well, and it appears to have gotten more pronounced in the last month or so. I don't understand why this isn't a setting that users can toggle. "Show feed strict in linear order" or something like that.
    - vanderZwan 9y ago
      https://www.facebook.com/?sk=h_chr https://www.facebook.com/?sk=h_chr It's hidden under News -> Most Recent EDIT: Oh wait, Instagram. No idea what to do there, sorry.

zwily 9y ago

For some reason I have never seen an ad in Instagram. (And yes, I do use it...)

eat_veggies 9y ago
I see ads on Instagram all the time. Just scrolling through two days of my feed (but it's hard to tell, because it's not chronological anymore), I see some ads from therealcost, xbox, lovepop cards, kelloggs frosted flakes, m&m's chocolate, some music festival, instagram itself, and six posts from accounts I don't follow, as part of its new 'Recommended for You' (aka garbage I don't care to see) sections. Perhaps I fit their demographics, so I get more of them.
graeme 9y ago
I used to see them, but recently they have all vanished. No idea why. Maybe I was too low engagement. The addition of stories does make it feel busier though. I'm enjoying my time on it much less than I used to. Even after muting stories from people whose stories I wasn't interested in watching.
tonypace 9y ago
I'm a teacher in Asia. My students complain mightily about the sudden deluge of ads. They experience it as being much worse than Facebook.
Renaud 9y ago
That's strange, I get a sponsored content like every 5 to 6 pictures. It's annoying to the point that it's about to be the last straw for me. While there are talented photographers on Instagram, the app is really poor as a way to appreciate photography (can't zoom, no iPad app to better view content) and it's also poor as a community, favouring instead over-consumption and poor engagement (low quality comments, if any). Then there are the shenanigans that game user engagement, like delaying likes to force people to check the app more often or nagging me to enable notifications every single time I open the app. It has become little more than an ad-delivery platform.

ceejayoz 9y ago

Yeah, the magic feels gone. They just announced they're (after years of holding the line) opening up the API for publishing photos, so it'll be a spammy feed of corporate stuff very soon.

vanilla_nut 9y ago

I feel very similarly. It reminds me of facebook's transition to the News Feed -- even without ads, the introduction of a content algorithm ruined my main use case for the platform: following just my very central friend group and seeing everything they post. On the plus side, Facebook has now taught me (twice!) that they (or any other "social media" company) can't be trusted. Now I'm just deciding whether I should give up social media altogether. I already deleted my Facebook since it became completely useless over the past few years (friends don't post, I don't see their posts when they do, notifications are useless and diluted), I'm considering deleting my instagram (far, far, far too many ads; friends don't post as much)... is it worth it to try to build out a presence on Mastodon? Or is that doomed, too?

taylorexpander 9y ago

For some reason, the ads I’m seeing on Instagram are creepily relevant for me. I just checked and literally it just shows me advertisements for furniture (I like design…) and plants (I like plants…). I’ve actually bought a plant related thing from one of them, and the ads that show up actually do make me stop and look at them. On the other hand, it’s also showing me advertisements for watches. I have no idea why, because I hate wearing watches and I’ve definitely never googled for watches before.

castle-bravo 9y ago
Maybe it knows you're always late for meetings and appointments and is giving you a subtle hint that you need to up your game and get a watch. ;) That, or their model has found a correlation between liking chairs, plants, and watches but doesn't account for your unusual distaste for watches. Take heart, facebook doesn't know you well enough to convince you to hand over your wallet to their customers (yet).