That is quite a cheesy statement for an app that counts millions of user engagement per day but listen closely and something has changed.
I was curious why I don't see the work of the people I follow any more. I see more and more adverts or paid promoting stuff. I visited my friend list and noticed that they do post, I just don't see them. Some of them left goodbye messages too. Also, when i post something, it rarely gets any notice any more.
Today, one of the pages I follow with 130k followers said goodbye too. There is a growing dissatisfaction between photographers on Instagram. Meta aims at longer engagement times and they do this via Reels. Also they have increased the adverts on people's feeds - indeed every second post on my stream is some sort of adverts.
So basically, Meta increased overall engagement times with the app at the expense of individual engagement with the photographers you like. It must be true - the pictures I posted 2-3 years ago have more likes that posting them now with the same hastags. It just feels that from 2022, Instagram became a less friendly platform for photographers.
That makes me think what a lucky bunch we are here at RFF. We don't have to worry about algorithms and paid material and good pictures are always in short reach.
Sorry to react to this more than a year after you started this thread.
I'm also a bit done with Instagram lately... perhaps some other people have the same experience as I do.
Just wanted to talk about it. (sorry for my rant)
Before I was a Flickr member (still have my account, but at some moment the interactions tumbled down to zero).
So I then switched to Instagram 10 years ago, as that app was booming at that moment.
I also was switching from carrying my heavy DSLR to my lightweight phone to take daily snapshots underway, commuting to work ...
It was the time Instagram was still photo focused.
Nowadays it's more rewarding for video-posters, making reels, posting daily stories, more going the way of TikTok.
Lately I noticed that it took away too much of my daily focus and productivity, and it seems to make me addictive and lazy.
Therefore I now started a digital detox for the next month... see what changes in my daily habits.
However, last week I was looking for alternatives for Instagram that are less addictive, but still interesting, and I also became aware at that time that lots of other people were fleeing away to alternatives.
Things were happening in the news, with Elon Musk, a lot of X users switched to something else.
With the less-ethical Meta strategies the same, a lot of users were starting to look for other stuff...
So I read about the Metaverse.... and there's the Fediverse too.
Didn't know about that.
There's Mastodon (X alternative), Pixelfed (a bit alternative for IG), Friendica (FB alt), and so on...
There's aswel BlueSky (X alternative) who is making a new photo app too to go live soon (Flashes).
So I made accounts on these platforms to test them out... it's a bit difficult to start from zero again, and almost no mainstream users there that I was following on Meta platforms.
BlueSky has "starter packs" with groups of users that you can follow directly with one click, so you get a whole bunch of people to follow with the same interest, e.g. photography.
I'm now using a website called Fedica, where I can schedule posts so I can upload a couple of my fav/best photos from before... and it's handy, you can plan and post them directly to all the platforms together at once.
But I'll now just test it out now for a month and see what's happening... I'm not sure I'll return to the other side again as I know how bad it goes.
Now that I think of it more from a distance, I see a lot of people selling themselves online, almost onlyfans, a lot of people became the product, and the content is lowbrow superficial.
There's much more reasons to make the switch from Meta/X to Fediverse.
What irritates me the most: a lot of my friends posts do not show up in my feed and after a year I go to their profile and see that they posted a lot of stuff I wasn't seeing ... they then think I've been ignoring them all the time, but that's because the feed is not shown.
IG and FB decide what content is shown, based on
dodgy algorithms.
It has long been known that Meta manipulates the behaviour of their users and made them believe they have the freedom to post their opinion and are really connected to each other. But the opposite is true.
The lack of moderation on hate speech, algorithms that prioritize controversial discriminatory content (racism, LGBTQI-phobia,…), in order to get more outrage engagement leading to a wider spread of bad ideas. Invisible shadow banning censorship, echo chambers, reducing people’s reach, dividing people, pitting them against each other and so on.
The opposite of how a harmonious society should be.
More irritations: saturation of commercial advertisements in the feed, privacy issues, tiktokification by rewarding superficial reels above quality photography. Half your feed full of fake AI posts to waste your time. And above all: you are the product, people don’t realize their private data is being sold and you don’t get a single penny.
One could stay indifferent and continue supporting all these things above… or one can be part of the SOLUTION BELOW!
Switch from the Metaverse and X to the Fediverse.
There’s free alternative platforms, community driven, no algorithmic manipulations, no ads, real privacy and data control, open-source, decentralized, no billionaires involved or people on top who decide what's happening. More authenticity, less social pressure.
Imagine we all make a move towards ethical technology and free ourselves from corporate surveillance. Think about apps like Pixelfed, Mastodon, and many more!
Wouldn't it be cool if we all moved there?
If we all slowly make the transition, as from next week? Or let us just try for a month and see what happens if Meta suddenly loses their grip on all of us? You don’t have to close your accounts, yet.
What’s your opinion about this? Would you do it?
Or do you have other alternatives?
