Has Instagram gotten worse?

[Dary]

I though it went to shit a long time ago! The death of organic reach - posts only reaching 10-15% of followers - has been a problem for years. It's another classic example of Accumulated Advantage - if you want to be successful, you already need to be successful.

 

[Megabreath]

Ive noticed most normal people are posting less and less on it, people seem to be moving back to Facebook where im from

 

[Dodongo]

Fucking ads and bots as far as the eye can see.

Meta never does anything about the bot problem, because they like that it inflates their user count.

 

[atomsk]

Organic reach has gone to shit.

A year ago any decent photo I would post would get 300 to 800 likes (20k followers), now I'm lucky to get 150 max.

A year before that it was 500 to 1000 likes organically.

I don't know how to compete as a small business on there anymore without the money to boost every single fucking post.

Something needs to replace it, it has lost its usefulness for small businesses / creators, and for general users as well.

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as just some random dude with a small youtube following who rarely even posts (pictures only), I def noticed a massive reduction in likes the more time passes.

why even bother

 

[Ryuelli]

As someone who is into photography, I just want to know what the current IG/Flickr is because it seems like IG is absolutely prioritizing video and trying to compete with Tik Tok right now. The algorithm wants to throw me random videos (many of them having to do with stuff I've shown no interest in, like child care stuff for moms) despite me following and engaging with travel photography pages the most (which I seemingly have to actively search for now because it doesn't want to show me the content of pages that I follow).

I never had a ton of followers, but throw me into the "noticing a hell of a lot less likes/engagement" bucket like many others in this thread.

 

[onpoint]

All the changes ruined my carefully crafted feed so much that I deleted my profile. I get the need for ads but I just can't deal with how they ramped things up. And this was shortly after Reels became a thing — I can't imagine how much worse it has become.

 

[MoonsaultSlayer]

I was surprised when I downloaded the app so I could use more features to see all of the ads and suggestions. Felt fucking alien and obtrusive. I just use the browser version. None of that, just posts and stories from who you follow.

 

[DrScruffleton]

My biggest problem is notifications just dont work for certain pages. Ive made sure ive had them on several times, even uninstalled the app and reinstalled. Notifications just do NOT work on ios for certain pages. Ill be scrolling and see important info was posted by a page I follow hours earlier and I never got notification. Its so fucking annoying.

 

[Sir Hound]

As soon as it did that one piece of content per swipe shit a couple months ago I deleted it

 

[Lobster Roll]

I'm not saying this in a Boomer-ass "the youths are wrong!" way, but Instagram should've kept doing its own thing instead of trying to copy TikTok with Reels. Let TikTok be TikTok and let Instagram be Instagram. It made its own product worse and at best, made a knockoff version of TikTok. In fact, sooooooooo many Reels are just ripped or reposted straight from TikTok.

 

[AlexBasch]

I rarely see my feed from following list, I keep getting suggested posts from people and stuff I don't even know about. I have to enter the profiles manually.

 

[Slacker247]

It's a craptastic mess of an app, I've slowly started to move away from it.

Too many; Shit ads, suggested followers (I don't like suggestions at all), too many ads, too many random-ass tiktok style videos, too many freakin' ads!

I just want to see the shit I used to use i.e. only people/accounts I follow - that is _all_ I ever want to see, but they're all buried in this crap content they push, so I miss what I actually signed up for.

Pretty crap app in the last few months alone.

 

[Alfman]

Instagram follows the trend of short format videos. And is also very buggy. I cannot see my Insights anymore -without any reasonable explanation.

 

[roguesquirrel]

I stopped using it when it started being me opening the app up to like 5 posts from friends & family and then an endless sea of randomly plucked posts & ads. Wasnt really even a conscious decision, the app just became 90% shit i didnt want to look at so even if I was tapping at apps to go lizard mode & mindlessly scroll for a bit why would I even bother?

As someone who is into photography, I just want to know what the current IG/Flickr is because it seems like IG is absolutely prioritizing video and trying to compete with Tik Tok right now. The algorithm wants to throw me random videos (many of them having to do with stuff I've shown no interest in, like child care stuff for moms) despite me following and engaging with travel photography pages the most (which I seemingly have to actively search for now because it doesn't want to show me the content of pages that I follow).

I never had a ton of followers, but throw me into the "noticing a hell of a lot less likes/engagement" bucket like many others in this thread.

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In my experience the algorithm is dictated by what the people you follow are interacting with almost as much if not more than what you're interacting with. My recommended would change completely overnight whenever I followed a few new accounts

 

[Ether_Snake]

I don't look at my following feed anymore because I lost interest in it for whatever reason. I watch only a few stories. I used to watch my whole feed and all stories every day. I just view the explore feed for a bit, more time spent on Twitter instead.

 

[jmood88]

It's definitely gotten worse. I see more ads and posts from people I don't follow than people I do. I wasn't sure if it was just me until I also saw a bunch of photographers and other artists I follow on Twitter who were talking about how their engagement has fallen off a cliff over the last month or so.

 

[Delicious Waffles]

Ugh. It's horrible now. If I'm not seeing ads, I'm seeing random videos of people I don't know nor care to know. I love seeing a friend's post followed by five or six suggested posts in a row before seeing something I'm familiar with. I don't know what they did but it sucks now.

 

[Mr_Zombie]

It's quite funny that the app pushes you to explore and constantly follow new accounts, but when you do, it limits showing you content from those accounts and instead prioritizes some new content "you might like". Like, why even bother then? Why put "suggested" content in the feed or hide stuff from your friends that "you'be already seen" only to give me some random shit instead. If I wanted to see some new stuff I would go to the "explore" tab, that's what it is for!

Also, the "shop" button must be the most useless button in the app, despite being put in the always visible bottom row.

 

[Lys Skygge]

I used to regularly gets 100's of "likes", but now I'm lucky if I break 100. My posting habits haven't changed much either.

Some of my photographer friends tell me that I need to post daily, and if possible post reels, but I have a full-time job and can't create enough for the kind of output required to get back to the engagement I had previously.

Instagram has gotten much worse.

 

[Replicant]

Instagram just turned into a regurgitation of Tik Tok content

 

[DarthSpider]

Facebook is pretty bad too. Every other post is Sponsored, Suggested, or whatever.

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Yes, both Instagram and Facebook have gotten really bad. I feel myself getting stupider every time I watch one of those reels that they insist on shoving down my throat.

 

[DazzlerIE]

It stinks as a platform and is getting worse. My main gripes:

The ads have doubled in the last few months. I watch someone's story and I get two ads before it jumps to the next story.

I hate that it shows me IG posts sometimes days after the post. I have some friends who don't post often and I love seeing their updates, just not three days later.

The bot situation is out of hand. I get follow requests by two or three bots a day. They always have a Canadian and a German flag and the word single as their bio.

They made a massive update a few months ago to prioritize shopping and reels. I don't think I've clicked on either tab once, despite them being a massive part of the UI. They're forcing shit features on to users to drum up more business

 

[jokkir]

My feed is now two posts from people you follow then two from promoted ones/ads. So yeah, it's gotten bad. And the fact that they don't allow other aspect ratios than the default one is stupid especially since they're trying to focus more on video.

 

[Royalan]

For photographers, Instagram has gotten a lot worse. Pure photo content is just not prioritized at all anymore. A total mistake in my book: they're clearly trying to position themselves against TikTok, but they're not going to be able to eat TikTok's lunch on video content like they did Snapchat. TikTok reigns and, ironically, the thing Instagram had against TikTok was being the premiere place to share photos, and video will never complete supplant photos.

My Instagram feed over the last year has just become a steady stream of videos, recommendations and ads that I didn't ask for. It's starting to feel like Facebook which... Oof.

Speaking of Photography platforms... What happened to Flickr? Why did we let that platform wither?

 

[Parthenios]

I signed up for Instagram because I liked their photo map feature, which they don't have anymore so purely feature wise it's worse.

Also I liked it for being photos, now that it's Kroger house brand Tiktok and full of videos I don't browse it anymore.

 

[RadzPrower]

Never even bothered creating an Instagram account. I don't take pictures.

 

[jokkir]

Speaking of Photography platforms... What happened to Flickr? Why did we let that platform wither?

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Instagram killed it and Yahoo didn't help innovate it to really compete with Instagram. SmugMug brought it back and there have been changes to it though they got rid of their 1TB free tier and replaced it with 1000 free photos

 

[julia crawford]

It's ok for me 🤷‍♂️ but I follow very few people and it's always a friends thing so I don't really "use" it I guess.

 

[Dary]

It gave me the option to "favourite" people recently, along with a choice to look at following-only and favourite-only feeds (in chronological order!).

All this has done, however, is highlight how little people use the damned thing.

 

[Tfritz]

It gave me the option to "favourite" people recently, along with a choice to look at following-only and favourite-only feeds (in chronological order!).

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absolutely shaken to the core because i basically assumed that instagram was very "i would detonate an emp to destroy every electronic device on earth before i let anyone view things in chronological order")

 

[Jaymageck]

The amount of sponsored content is a bit annoying but otherwise it's broadly the same user experience it's always been.

 

[Dary]

absolutely shaken to the core because i basically assumed that instagram was very "i would detonate an emp to destroy every electronic device on earth before i let anyone view things in chronological order")

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No ads or suggested accounts, either! I assume it's some kind of trial...

 

[Atlas_XIX]

On the mobile app if you click up top left where it says Instagram it will bring up following and favorites this makes it a lot better.

 

[Lentic]

The algorithm has gotten noticeably worse. I used to get lots of cool stuff in the discover tab and now it's random stuff I'm not into.

 

[Stencil]

Yeah it sucks. Tons of ads and sponsored posts, "Suggested Posts" showing more than who I'm following. At least those you can mute for 30 days but even still, after I mute them I just kind of sit there thinking "This is just boring with or without those..."

I mainly use it to look at my close friends stories, and post stories occasionally to prove I'm not dead.

Also, I'm starting to see a lot of content that just makes me feel uncomfortable. Not like pimple stuff, I eradicated that a while ago, but things that just feel uncanny. Sped up demonstrations of stupid products with a robot voice overlay. Or "lifehacks" and "5 minute crafts" that I can't tell are jokes or not. I work in marketing and my Gen Z coworker suggested we start producing ads that emulate the robot-voice explainer videos and I just about lost my shit. I can't imagine the effect this weird content will have on the children consuming it from birth.

 

[Royalan]

Instagram killed it and Yahoo didn't help innovate it to really compete with Instagram. SmugMug brought it back and there have been changes to it though they got rid of their 1TB free tier and replaced it with 1000 free photos

Click to shrink...

That's a shame. I recently redownloaded the app after being away from Flickr for a few years and, after I was assaulted by my old photography work (which...talk about oof), I actually came to really appreciate what the app has turned into. It's pure photography. They don't seem to share posting photo groups in a single post, but that's it.

I wouldn't mind bringing my photography work back to Flickr; the 1000 photo limit is kind of a bummer, but the amount of pruning I do of my photos on Instagram means I'm never above 500 photos at one time anyway. Sad thing most photographers I know who are calling it quits on Insta aren't going back to Flickr. They're going to Twitter.

 

[Bold One]

As someone who is into photography, I just want to know what the current IG/Flickr is because it seems like IG is absolutely prioritizing video and trying to compete with Tik Tok right now. The algorithm wants to throw me random videos (many of them having to do with stuff I've shown no interest in, like child care stuff for moms) despite me following and engaging with travel photography pages the most (which I seemingly have to actively search for now because it doesn't want to show me the content of pages that I follow).

I never had a ton of followers, but throw me into the "noticing a hell of a lot less likes/engagement" bucket like many others in this thread.

Click to shrink...

yh, the photography community got royally fucked

 

[Galaxea]

As someone who is into photography, I just want to know what the current IG/Flickr is because it seems like IG is absolutely prioritizing video and trying to compete with Tik Tok right now. The algorithm wants to throw me random videos (many of them having to do with stuff I've shown no interest in, like child care stuff for moms) despite me following and engaging with travel photography pages the most (which I seemingly have to actively search for now because it doesn't want to show me the content of pages that I follow).

I never had a ton of followers, but throw me into the "noticing a hell of a lot less likes/engagement" bucket like many others in this thread.

Click to shrink...

It's awful. A lot of the bigger photographers I talk to who have way more followers than me also loathe it. The engagement is terrible on both my toy photography account and portrait. If I didn't create for my own personal sanity, I would not be motivated to post anything. I'd rather have a clone with organic reach I threw a couple bucks a month at if it worked like the original Instagram.

 

[TheGameshark]

It's absolutely horrendous right now. As a painter who likes to follow a bunch of artists I find myself just going through stories more now than actually scrolling my feed. Honestly prefer Twitter for viewing or posting art now even though I have like a thousand less followers on there.

 

[Kyrios]

Facebook is pretty bad too. Every other post is Sponsored, Suggested, or whatever.

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Yup, I check my FB every so often but the experience is always horrible because every other post is an ad.

 

[jokkir]

That's a shame. I recently redownloaded the app after being away from Flickr for a few years and, after I was assaulted by my old photography work (which...talk about oof), I actually came to really appreciate what the app has turned into. It's pure photography. They don't seem to share posting photo groups in a single post, but that's it.

I wouldn't mind bringing my photography work back to Flickr; the 1000 photo limit is kind of a bummer, but the amount of pruning I do of my photos on Instagram means I'm never above 500 photos at one time anyway. Sad thing most photographers I know who are calling it quits on Insta aren't going back to Flickr. They're going to Twitter.

Click to shrink...

Flickr isn't too bad and I still post my stuff there but yeah, not too many people go there so growing your base isn't the best since it's not too popular. Though as a photography site, it's decent

 

[Ablacious]

Yeah, it's rough. I use it for business stuff and I'm such a small fish where my engagement levels are working to where I can sellout small 50 person events.
So unless IG starts limiting me to a really low engagement w/o buying adds, I'm ok for now. Not sure where else to get the word out. I left some flyers at the venue a week before and all were taken but I don't believe that helped sell tickets. Email was 0% when it was 50% or so 3 years ago.
I immediately filled up my 20 followers allocation. And even then I feel like they don't show me their content always.

 

[Ernest]

It gives me my feed out of order.
A local bar/venue that I follow had a band I like playing, but their post about it didn't show up on my feed until the day after the show.
So basically, they fucked up the one good thing about social media.

 

[Teuthex]

Sorry for the bump, but I just updated the app on iOS and discovered the new "immersive feed". Absolute trash, up there with New Reddit in the realm of bad redesigns. Low information density, shoving "reels" at me when 90% of my follows are painters, focused on advertising, trying to be something it's not.
Hopefully they roll it back, because I rely on Instagram for my art and it's hard to find anywhere else to go: Twitter is too aggressive, most "art" focused social media is for digital art/fanart/concept art, Facebook is pretty dead as far as organic reach goes and only good for groups, TikTok is for videos…

 

[JohnHornbuckle]

I was literally just thinking this exact same thing and if it's time to delete it…..then opened up Era and this is the first thread I saw

 

[SCHUEY 117]

Yeah the way the IG has gone downhill has bummed me out a bit. I wouldn't mind if Adobe did a standalone app for their discover content in the Lightroom app.

 

[Loxley]

It's basically a store front now, I hate it.

 

[JaseMath]

Literally nothing but ads. Wish they would surface random content. Like the new interface, though.

 

[Deleted member 24052]

Instagram is pretty shit these days, yeah.

Thanks, Zuck.

 

[DazzlerIE]

The ads on story content are hilarious in how frequent they are. I'm sometimes getting two ads in between people I follow now