In the short term I agree with you. But it decreases the long term value and utility of the platform IMO.
Take Instagram. It used to be a platform for posting pictures. It was a digital version of Polaroid—an “instant” camera. When you look on Instagram now it’s core functionality and differentiation is basically gone. When you look on the explore tab you are hard pressed to find any photos at all, let alone ones that were taken with the camera itself.
Instagram now is no different than Facebook or any other generic network, it’s just the biggest. The content is nonsensical and people will eventually get bored of it. At some point I think it occurs to every user, “why am I even doing this” and they bounce, so it always requires new users coming in to grow the userbase.
IG is now easy, from a technical standpoint, to replace as it has no real identity. Just let people post whatever for internet points. Socially it’s hard to topple, but that’s hard to defend long term and somewhat out of your control.
I just don’t see how or why IG exists ten years from now. For what? At least in its original incarnation it had a purpose, however niche, which might have had some long term viability.
I think the best example of this is probably looking at the Chinese social apps like YY, Inke and Meipai. A billion people who don’t give a shit about Kylie Jenner and are developing apps with far more interesting features than anything we have.
IG content isn’t nonsensical IMO. The content on IG is generally of higher quality and visually curated. It’s also a better platform for showcasing your brand if you’re in the ecommerce space than FB Pages for example.
Granted, there are accounts that are dedicated to memes and other ‘nonsensical’ content, but you get much more of that on FB. Putting IG in the same trash pile that FB is in is unfair.
It’s only for ecommerce. You are either selling a product or selling yourself for likes. Every post is an ad. The amount of sharing that happens the today on IG is the same amount of sharing that happens when you watch a TV commercial.
It’s nuanced, but fundamental different from the photo sharing sites that came before it like Flickr.
The share button may as well be replaced with “Promote” because that’s what it is.
However, Instagram's reliance on the number of views, likes, followers, and so on still puts it in the same category as Facebook and its likes, Twitter and its retweets and favorites, LinkedIn and its likes and comments, YouTube and its upvotes and comments and subscribes... and so on. It's still a metric-driven network, even if the content happens to be better. And what is showcasing your brand if not grinding for better numbers?
Take Instagram. It used to be a platform for posting pictures. It was a digital version of Polaroid—an “instant” camera. When you look on Instagram now it’s core functionality and differentiation is basically gone. When you look on the explore tab you are hard pressed to find any photos at all, let alone ones that were taken with the camera itself.
Instagram now is no different than Facebook or any other generic network, it’s just the biggest. The content is nonsensical and people will eventually get bored of it. At some point I think it occurs to every user, “why am I even doing this” and they bounce, so it always requires new users coming in to grow the userbase.
IG is now easy, from a technical standpoint, to replace as it has no real identity. Just let people post whatever for internet points. Socially it’s hard to topple, but that’s hard to defend long term and somewhat out of your control.
I just don’t see how or why IG exists ten years from now. For what? At least in its original incarnation it had a purpose, however niche, which might have had some long term viability.
I think the best example of this is probably looking at the Chinese social apps like YY, Inke and Meipai. A billion people who don’t give a shit about Kylie Jenner and are developing apps with far more interesting features than anything we have.