The rise and fall of Instagram (?)

[p.giannakis]

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.

 

[JohnGellings]

Yeah, my views and likes keep dropping. At first I was thinking people were just sick of my photos (which is ok), but yes, I notice I don’t see a lot of people’s photos either… then when I go to their feed, they’ve posted a lot. Yet, some people still get hundreds of likes with less followers. It certainly isn’t the same, but I’m not sure how it works for some still. I feel like the same 50 people see my photos and that’s it.

 

[Coldkennels]

It's not just photographers. Engagement across the whole app has moved from real content to reel content - they're chasing the TikTok crowd and it's killing everything else.

I had to make a post about something for work on there in December. I realised when I logged in that I hadn't posted anything since August; there used to be a time when I'd post at least once a week without fail. If there weren't people who refuse to use anything but Instagram DMs to stay in touch with me, I'd close my whole account.

 

[Yokosuka Mike]

To quote myself from a post I made yesterday:

I'm not on Flickr, I'm not on anything except my own blog and RFF. I have no idea what is faved or popular and I don't care.
I've always considered RFF as a great place for photography enthusiasts to get together and share their images. Share knowledge. Inspire each other to do better. No competition, no cliques or cults, just a bunch of photography lovers hanging out together! One big happy family.

Instagram can rise, fall and do the hoky-poky, I don't care... I get all the photography interaction I need right here at RFF.

Mike

 

[Michael Markey]

I`ve too have noticed the changes on Insta .
Its a shame because I really valued it for the variety .
On the other hand Flickr ... at least for me ... seems to have declined to the point that I`m considering pulling my "pro" account .
It`s no longer required as a vehicle to enable posting on sites such as this so I`m questioning the need .

​

 

[Disappointed_Horse]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification

I liked Instagram when it first came out. I deleted my Instagram account the day Facebook acquired Instagram and I've never regretted it.

 

[yanchep_mike]

What is Instagram???

 

[titrisol]

Agreed, now i see mostly memes and *orn

 

[Ko.Fe.]

If I remember correct, it was an app with presets for iPhones with in-the-cloud posting.
It was not free and not my choice because early iPhones, Apple accounting were infested with money stealing apps and Apple doing nothing.

Flickr was free and much better for sharing/viewing photography in better resolution and much better presentation, including EXIF.

But Flickr is not what crowd (always stupid) wanted. Too intelligent for an average.
So, one day Insta became most popular platform to view photos. Because as I mention, most are just a primitives and because of this, viewing pictures on phones is enough. Or maybe they are losers without access to good monitor at home.

And since Insta is the platform for masses (mass has no brain) Insta became infested by social agendas, not photography and smart ladies offering paid views for hornies.

Do you really want to be associated with a dumpster? I'm not. I respect my time and photogaphy.

Sorry to bring it straight.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

I`ve too have noticed the changes on Insta .
Its a shame because I really valued it for the variety .
On the other hand Flickr ... at least for me ... seems to have declined to the point that I`m considering pulling my "pro" account .
It`s no longer required as a vehicle to enable posting on sites such as this so I`m questioning the need .

​

Posting on-site is freebie, which is not going to lasts.

P.O.T.N. was tremendous source to see mostly Canon gear taken photogaphy. This year owner sad - I'm done and whole photos (maybe million) are gone with single click.

Same happened to one of the oldest Russian speaking photogaphy sites this year.

I respect Flickr for been able to pay for my photos been stored and not going away because some dude lost his interest in free hosting.

 

[Ororaro]

I’m on instagram for the sexy girls.
I can sincerely say my eyes are extremely satisfied and happy.
Each scroll is a huge explosion of goodness.

Other people’s street photography? Political thoughts? Personal Agendas? Meh.

 

[Dogman]

I'm on Flickr and by extension Flickriver. It's the only site that was attractive to me for displaying my photos other than here on RFF and the few pictures I post on other forum sites. Flickr is simple--pop in a photo and let the world see it. Pay them money and they'll let your post every worthless click you make. Viewers are more important than faves or followers to me. I like to show my pictures to others--feeds my ego, I guess. Plus I like seeing photos by others and discovering new photographers and their work.

Instagram? It seems more phone photo connected. I don't use my phone for taking pictures.

 

[Mos6502]

I never used instagram, primarily because the site is extremely ugly. The site is also extremely poorly designed from a user's perspective. It is deliberately poorly designed because the design is not about providing ease of use to users, it is about getting the users to behave in a particular way. So the site is ugly, counterintuitive in use, exists mainly to mine data of users, and is basically openly hostile to photographers and photography. The sooner people leave it behind, the better for everybody and everything involved.

 

[mrtoml]

Youtube is going the same way catering for the TikTok crowd.

 

[JohnGellings]

Ok, but what are the real alternatives? Flickr isn't these days. RFF gallery isn't. What's next? and not just another instagram like app. Something has to be in the mix. Every decade or so, change comes...

 

[Deleted member 65559]

To quote myself from a post I made yesterday:



Instagram can rise, fall and do the hoky-poky, I don't care... I get all the photography interaction I need right here at RFF.

Mike

That's a pretty thin slice of the photography world Mike....

 

[Coldkennels]

Ok, but what are the real alternatives? Flickr isn't these days. RFF gallery isn't. What's next? and not just another instagram like app. Something has to be in the mix. Every decade or so, change comes...

I'm a big fan of Mastodon, but really, anything based on ActivityPub works well.

For instance, if you run a Wordpress blog for your photos, you can now use an ActivityPub plugin so that it can be accessed via Mastodon. And there's a bunch of different frontends and clients - whether app or browser-based - for Mastodon so you can get exactly the view/layout you want.

There's a solid community of photographers, artists, and dedicated film photographers on Mastodon. It's not the archive that Flickr was, but it's a good thing to dip into while waiting for the kettle to boil or between tasks in the office.

 

[mrtoml]

Apparently a lot of instagram photographers went to Vero.

 

[JohnGellings]

I'm a big fan of Mastodon, but really, anything based on ActivityPub works well.

For instance, if you run a Wordpress blog for your photos, you can now use an ActivityPub plugin so that it can be accessed via Mastodon. And there's a bunch of different frontends and clients - whether app or browser-based - for Mastodon so you can get exactly the view/layout you want.

There's a solid community of photographers, artists, and dedicated film photographers on Mastodon. It's not the archive that Flickr was, but it's a good thing to dip into while waiting for the kettle to boil or between tasks in the office.

Thank you, I’ll check it out since Vero didn’t seem to catch on over the years.

 

[rulnacco]

Enshittification - Wikipedia

I liked Instagram when it first came out. I deleted my Instagram account the day Facebook acquired Instagram and I've never regretted it.

Yep. This is so accurate. Facebook got totally enshittified a while back--not only is it foisting rubbish on you that you don't care to see, it acts like it's been programmed by a 12-year-old...a not very clever 12-year-old.

Unfortunately, Instagram is at the point where rapid enshittification is no doubt entering the terminal spiral. Shame, really.