Instagram has long been accused of stealing features from platforms such as TikTok, Snapchat, and Twitter/X. It appears that the company has looked to YouTube for its latest idea: unskippable ads that you have to watch for a period of time before being able to scroll further.
A Redditor posted images of the Instagram ad breaks. FireCubX writes that users will suddenly find they have hit the bottom of their feed, so to speak, and can’t scroll down any further. An “ad break” icon will appear with a countdown timer that prevents users from browsing through more content until they view an ad, at which point the counter starts running down.
I’m happy I only have a lemmy account
Removed by mod
Outrage, yes, but what about decreased usage? What’s the effect on revenue and stock price? C-suite pay?
People are sleepwalking
Nothing.
What was the effect of the reddit migration on reddit; nothing.
But for us it was everything with a brand new community <3
Gotta say, I love the play on words for the username.
Seconded.
Wow, glad I moved on. But its a shame that Lemmy or Mastodon content quantity is still a problem.
I know people shit on those bots that repost content from Reddit and other places, but it’s a really simple way to bootstrap content on Lemmy. I think if we want to win we need to be open to that.
I’ve considered setting one up for myself for very specific content on my own server, but I’m not sure where I’d start with it. It doesn’t seem as simple as kicking up a docker-compose file.
But in a forum like Lemmy, we need discussions and this is simply not happening with bot posts at the moment.
Just delete your account and uninstall. It seems people forget they have that option.
What account?
Fucking Instagram. Facepals. Tweetle, or, “Borg” as it’s called now. The TicketyTark. Fuck all that shit. Hey look! Free garbage in exchange for everything about my movments and thoughts!
This was the deal in 2000. It’s been 24 years of marveling at how many people just - give all their shit away. Don’t even think about it. And then have the balls to complain when they get screwed.
PIxelfed has no ads (https://pixelfed.org/) - Since we’re over here building the Fediverse, I just wanted to mention there ARE options.
Isn’t that standard practice nowadays? You push an outrageous thing to test the reactions, then you pull back and then you push something similar but toned down to be more acceptable. A while later you incrementally move towards your initial plan.
Wouldn’t it be funny, if that would end the doom scroll cause suddenly it’s a disturbance and can’t be skipped like other non liked content, so it breaks the trance and leaves the user with anger instead of numbness?
User tolerance of online ads is really being tested lately with the increase of unskippable crap. I suspect that some will stop rather than deal with it, but most will just tolerate it. Which is what they’re counting on.
I guess you’re right, but especially Instagram for me is something that relies on this numbness doom scrolling comes with. Every other thing has another driver. Like YT or Twitch is something for entertainment like TV, so (semi) active watching stuff, Facebook and twitter (now X) is something to get angry about, but Instagram is unsatisfying scrolling without knowing why. But why let it stop here and there, if it breaks this drooled scrolling. And if you’re in need of this feeling, there is also tiktok (as of right know, until the unstoppable ads are profitable).
I sure hope so. I use Instagram to follow my friends and local businesses, but I can get sucked into reels too. I have an app that specifically pops up if I spend too much time in Instagram to break that cycle.
Have you tried just looking at “Following”? That shows everything in chronological order, without ads. Lets me quickly see what’s new, and then close the app. I don’t discover many new recipes anymore, but that’s a price I’m willing to pay.
Is there a way to set it to that permanently?
Not that I know of… Most of the time I forget to change, but since the second post I see is an ad 90% of the time I usually realize my mistake very quickly.
What’s that app? I need that.
I need something like a smartwatch to just tap me on the wrist every 10 minutes so I can gather my thoughts. I want to be consciously deciding to waste all my time online instead of just losing half hour chunks of my day by accident.
In a Neal Brennan stand-up special (Piped link) he mentions he uses a Pavlok to shock him every 3 minutes on stage to remind him to smile.
LOL this is ridiculous but also perhaps exactly the thing I need.
The sheer amount of accounts I don’t follow and/or adds I DO see already do this for me. It’s a nice “feature” they added for me. Way to go Meta. I get bored fast now and close the app.
An “ad break” icon will appear with a countdown timer that prevents users from browsing through more content until they view an ad, at which point the counter starts running down.
So the user has to interact with the ad prompt, they aren’t just presented with an ad?
If so, that sounds like an even worse experience.
Shut up and drink your verification can!
Mountain Dew is for me and you 🎵
My Instagram feed is already 90% ads. There are almost no posts from people i actually follow, and most of those are artists i like trying to sell their tour or merch. It’s a fundamentally broken platform as is
It’s not broken. The platform just isn’t meant for real people to communicate with each other anymore. It’s an advertising farm people show up to willingly because it used to be an interesting place.
they’re stress testing the user base. they don’t give half a flying fuck how outraged you are. they only care about whether you’ll quit the platform. which you won’t.
“We have determined that we’ll be able to fill 80% of the user’s display with advertising before inducing seizures.”
From Ready Player One movie.
Nonetheless, they’ll probably get away with it, because other than among a handful of autistic furries, there’s no demand for non-algorithmic, non-enshittified social networks.
The celebrities and brand-builders who use Instagram to grow their brand aren’t switching to Pixelfed or Misskey because, without algorithms boosting them, there’s no clout to be had. Artists, indie bands, vintage clothing sellers and other self-marketers are staying put for similar reasons. (Basically, if your goal is “self-promote at scale and hope to make ends meet” rather than “find a handful of weird friends with the same kind of damage as you”, the fediverse is worse than useless: it’s lost time and effort with nothing to show for it.) Your normie friends, who want to keep up with their favourite pop stars and tattoo artists and have a busy schedule without an extra 15 minutes a day for a social network few people use, aren’t going to add Pixelfed to their dopamine loops.
One sad reality with moving on from these sites is that you really become “out of the loop” of what is currently happening with your circle. They all are sharing, posting about what happening and there is simply no way of knowing that. I recently experienced this and was a bit painful.
At some point I realized who my true “circle” was. I think I deleted facebook in 2011 or something. That made me realize I really did not give a shit about what someone I went to school with is doing. Am I ever going to see them again? Probably not. Do I actually care? I guess not. My real circle I still keep in touch with, talk on the phone, visit, message. I don’t need these garbage apps to do this.
ah, one gotta love the enshittification
Their algorithm is already abrasive enough. I routinely find myself following people I did not elect to follow. Throw some stupid adds in there, to just make it worse…
