[racked]

Honestly I never understood the appeal.

A social network that forces you to wedge your content in images and short videos, while on Facebook you could share YouTube videos, music, interesting links, write-ups, you name it. How can anyone in their right mind prefer something as limiting as Instagram? Even its instant messenger is limited compared to Facebook's.

[standardUser]

The simplification is (was) part of the appeal. It felt clean and refreshing to mostly look at pretty photos with minimal text. And it was a much more positive space. Photos of vacations, food, clothes, pets, friends. No political fighting or conspiracy theories or bitching about an ex. The comment space, a usual cesspool of unmitigated negativity and cruelty, was conveniently tucked away.

I miss the pre-pandemic Instagram. Now, it feels like it's transformed into a more general-purpose, Facebook-like social network. Which I guess should have been predictable!

[mertd]

Instagram's formats feel nicer for getting updates from friends and family. No rants, just happy photos against usually a nice background.

Performative or commercial accounts make the experience worse though, and from what I understand these are being prioritized in the timeline.

[pwython]

People said the same thing about Twitter with its original 140 character limit. Just easily-consumable content you can scroll through. I enjoy the artwork I find on there. If I want YouTube links, music videos, news articles, etc I'll hit up Reddit.