YHK - yet another hacker news clone

Instagram's head says engagement falls by half without the algorithm

53 points hsuduebc2 1 hour ago 64 comments

hsuduebc2 1 hour ago | parent

>Children will be smoking less if you don't offer them cigarettes

cynicalsecurity 22 minutes ago | parent

Because looking at pictures is the same as smoking cigarettes.

petterroea 1 hour ago | parent

For a lot of people that's a good thing

civvv 1 hour ago | parent

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?

Zigurd 58 minutes ago | parent

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.

dofm 1 hour ago | parent

Only half? That's sort of depressing.

jazzyb 1 hour ago | parent

It's a good start.

dofm 34 minutes ago | parent

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.

blitzar 1 hour ago | parent

Will fry all the brains of humanity for double the engagement (and a promotion to L5).

Doesn't sound worth it to me.

Tangurena2 1 hour ago | parent

So this is the result of "move fast and break things (humans in this case)".

Zigurd 1 hour ago | parent

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.

sakisv 1 hour ago | parent

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.

pluc 1 hour ago | parent

Monetization is down when content isn't force-fed to users. Give this guy a raise.

Towaway69 11 minutes ago | parent

Nobel prize for economics perhaps?

danw1979 1 hour ago | parent

Good stuff ! When’s it going to prod ?

embedding-shape 1 hour ago | parent

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!

voidUpdate 58 minutes ago | parent

When did that start for you? I've never seen that myself, I can keep scrolling as long as I want

embedding-shape 54 minutes ago | parent

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

izacus 46 minutes ago | parent

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.

embedding-shape 43 minutes ago | parent

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!

voidUpdate 43 minutes ago | parent

Content not viewable in my region :P

embedding-shape 36 minutes ago | parent

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...

voidUpdate 29 minutes ago | parent

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

pif 46 minutes ago | parent

You get that when you refuse personalised ads.

pokot0 52 minutes ago | parent

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! :)

matwood 39 minutes ago | parent

Same! It's a great reminder to stop scrolling and close the app.

boesboes 28 minutes ago | parent

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

pvab3 23 minutes ago | parent

old reddit isn't really blocked, you just have to be logged in

ThatMedicIsASpy 8 minutes ago | parent

I'll not login on the couch tablet so no more reddit for me on it.

coatmatter 1 hour ago | parent

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.

Zigurd 1 hour ago | parent

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.

esperent 57 minutes ago | parent

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.

chinathrow 1 hour ago | parent

Cry me a river, seriously.

dumberquestions 1 hour ago | parent

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.

_ink_ 36 minutes ago | parent

They should tax Instagram for continuous scrolling. The longer one session gets the more it costs :D

Towaway69 14 minutes ago | parent

> 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.

brookst 1 hour ago | parent

Tobacco exec says smoking falls by half with low-nicotine cigs.

xtiansimon 45 minutes ago | parent

Nobody says bring back cocaine-cola because sales.

dgrin91 6 minutes ago | parent

Probably because there are strict laws outlawing cocaine sales, unlike nicotine

eagerpace 10 minutes ago | parent

"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."

mrkramer 1 hour ago | parent

Because people are lazy, they feed on feed.

hgoel 1 hour ago | parent

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.

hsuduebc2 57 minutes ago | parent

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.

hackingonempty 57 minutes ago | parent

> I don't get how instagram is as popular as it is.

Stockholm syndrome.

criddell 44 minutes ago | parent

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.

croes 59 minutes ago | parent

> 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.

hsuduebc2 38 minutes ago | parent

This is simply 21. century Tabbaco industry with all it had. The glamour, controversy and now the fall.

esperent 58 minutes ago | parent

That's great, does he have any other good news to share with us?

HNUsesLLMs 56 minutes ago | parent

Same with HN and its LLM powered comments script they run internally

Aboutplants 53 minutes ago | parent

Yeah, we know! That’s the problem!

sanex 48 minutes ago | parent

Good

vrganj 47 minutes ago | parent

That's the point.

Engagement ~= addiction. Just a more euphemistic framing.

GrinningFool 47 minutes ago | parent

"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.

ragebol 46 minutes ago | parent

Good!

VCFundedGenYer 45 minutes ago | parent

They don't know that.

You can't currently turn off the algorithm in Instagram.

This person is talking nonsense.

4ndrewl 36 minutes ago | parent

"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?

Zigurd 6 minutes ago | parent

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.

swiftcoder 36 minutes ago | parent

> 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

alpineman 30 minutes ago | parent

>> 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.

nottorp 26 minutes ago | parent

Good?

lrvick 24 minutes ago | parent

A great start and a major win for humanity. Halfway there!

Towaway69 13 minutes ago | parent

What’s the other half? ;)

dbbk 17 minutes ago | parent

Everyone loves to hate the algorithm but this is obvious

scientifik 15 minutes ago | parent

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