Instagram is changing not for the first time, but the current updates are causing outrage even among the stars of the social network. Super influencers Kylie Jenner and Kim Kardashian, who have a combined 686 million followers, criticized Instagram for trying to be TikTok. Since they and other thought leaders are an important part of the social network, Instagram had to respond.

The answer, which sounded more like an excuse, was given by the head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri. In the video he explains that the social network must evolve to keep up with the ever-changing world. Mosseri also talked about three key changes that are currently being implemented on Insta:

  • A full-screen feed for photos and videos, which is currently being tested and will be refined for sharing to all of Instagram.
  • More focus on video, as he says people are increasingly watching video on social media. Mosseri assured that they will continue to support the photo, but there will be more video.
  • Recommendations that help you “discover new and interesting things you didn’t even know about” and that Instagram will also develop.

“If you’re seeing things in your feed that are recommendations that you’re not interested in, that means that we’re doing a bad job ranking, and we need to improve … We’re going to continue to try and get better at recommendations because we think it’s one of the most effective and important ways to help creators reach more people,” says the head of Instagram.

Despite Mosseri’s words, the changes brought a lot of problems to people who make money on the social network. First, they had to learn to post less photos and more Stories that were viewed by a wider audience. Later, IGTV and Reels appeared – an imitation of TikTok. According to The Verge if someone hasn’t posted a certain number of Stories and Reels, the algorithm hid their posts. So people were forced to make more videos to stay visible. Recommendations changed the feed even more, showing more photos and videos from strangers, with friends’ posts and followers disappearing behind them.

Platform changes complicate business for two reasons. First, you have to redo everything to try to please the algorithm. Secondly, Instagram is losing part of the audience that used it literally for photos.

High-quality photos – the original and valuable proposition of Instagram – are losing their importance in the face of advertising and TikTok imitations. It seems that they are desperately trying to squeeze everything out of the social network for growth. Meanwhile, in a way that matters to people, Instagram is over.