Ask HN: Is Instagram “Dying”?

[slymerson]

I saw a tweet from a VC that made a point that Facebook used to be the place to go to when you first met a person if you wanted to know more about them, and then Facebook began to become less popular so Instagram became "that" platform but that now it is slowly dying as we see Instagram recommending more IG reels and less things about your friends. So, the VC is saying that there is an opportunity to create something that will become the go to platform to get to know what someone is like. The VC labeled it "profile of records."

My idea is a social app where your profile has different categories, so for example "Relationship", "Travel", etc. In these categories you can upload content based on what the content is about. So if you're traveling, you would post it and have it under your "Traveling" album. The goal would be to allow you to create as many categories as you want and give you the ability to use whichever medium you want to use as your form of expression (video, text, photo, audio).

This would then show what you enjoy, and allow others to also see what you enjoy. You'd be able to compartmentalize whatever content you choose to put out.

Hopefully that makes sense, and I'd love to hear your feedback on this whole discussion. Thanks!

[mfnex]

"You'd be able to compartmentalize whatever content you choose to put out."

I wish this were mandatory.

On Twitter, when it still made sense to use it (no, it's not about Musk, it sucked by shadowbanning almost everybody who wouldn't pay well before Musk came), several people whom I should really follow for my work basically FORCED ME TO UNFOLLOW THEM, because:

- their work-related tweets were ACTUALLY important for MY job (papers they published, slides from their talks, professional conversations...)

- but they buried them under garbage, meaning every work tweet was lost in 20/30 other tweets about food porn, what movie they were watching, what shirt they got for Christmas, and tons of other totally personal, totally irrelevant shit that was impossible to filter out, all coming as one stream

No matter how relevant their work tweet were, extracting them from that endless drivel just was not worth the time.

[brtkdotse]

Sounds like you wanted LinkedIn, not Twitter.

[Juliate]

Too late, LinkedIn has already become kind of a Facebook+Twitter mixture now…

[mfnex]

read my comment again. It was not my choice. The people I mentioned were/are only on Twitter, it is either endure their non-work drivel on Twitter, or lose everything they say.

Above all, what I report is just an example of a general problem anyway. If they were only on LinkedIn, and mixing one work-related post every 50 about what cocktail they had last Saturday, what would "wanting LinkedIn, not Twitter, change"?

[manuel_w]

> My idea is a social app where your profile has different categories, so for example "Relationship", "Travel", etc. In these categories you can upload content based on what the content is about. So if you're traveling, you would post it and have it under your "Traveling" album. The goal would be to allow you to create as many categories as you want and give you the ability to use whichever medium you want to use as your form of expression (video, text, photo, audio).

The social network from Google (forgot its name) worked like that. You could group your friends into Circles, and have them be in several Circles in the same time. You'd share your posts with those Circles instead on a generic Wall.

[zamnos]

It was named Google Plus, stylized as Google+, then later renamed Google Currents. Categorization is a good idea, but imo it's part of why it failed. Having separate circles means the place as a whole felt emptier, driving away users.

[sph]

Debatable. It probably failed like any other Google project that is not creating billions in revenue on day one.

[__d]

Google's social network was called Google+. I thought its Circles were useful too.

[ggm]

There was no boolean logic. It was impossible to say "my circle of friends except bob" which means you can't exclude Bob which means you can't use it to give bob a surprise party or harrass bob by exclusion. So, like a lot of powerful concepts sets and groups need boolean operators, or they are tedious and limited and "safe"

Of all the smart companies you'd think Google would understand this, but no.

[phendrenad2]

"Dying" is probably a bad word to use, because people will think you mean "becoming unprofitable". Instagram is probably more profitable than ever, because it's in the same category as TikTOk at this point (which is the same category as youtube - mindlessly watching content). But yes, it's no longer a good place to look up your friends. Heck, half the friends of friends I know have their profiles set to private, which makes them completely unviewable (except for a very small profile pic to try to figure out if it's the person you know or not).

Any new social media project that tries to reconnect people without inserting heavy-handed promoted content and native advertising has my vote.

[__d]

It used to be that you'd use different networks for this.

Facebook for friends/family, LinkedIn for work, Twitter for opinions, Instagram for fashion/social events, Pintrest for crafting, FourSquare for travel/food, etc, etc.

[awb]

Sounds a bit contradictory.

Getting to know someone involves getting to know their full self. Part of that is how frequently they post about food or their friends.

Segmenting a user’s personality into categories bifurcates the experience.

[sebastiennight]

Aha, I was hoping that your post was going to tell me what the next "profile of records" platform is going to be.

I haven't used IG for several years in a row, but now find myself in a situation where people do "Instagram me" instead of "Googling me" to find out what I'm about, and I'm painfully aware that my profile isn't up to the dreamy-influencer standards it needs to be for that use case.

So... I do think for a large proportion of the population it is still the profile of record. Maybe tied with LinkedIn for professional users.

[precompute]

This won't work, because this space is already saturated: people use snapchat for informal, quick comms / pictures, instagram as a photo album, twitter as random musings, etc.

[nunez]

Definitely not dying; in fact, it might be growing now because of Reels.

[ulizzle]

Yeah, it's definitely "dying". We need a social network for IRL. I remember Path, but that was more of a journal than a "social networking" app.

[warner25]

What seems to be "dying" is more broadly the concept of "social networks" to connect with people you know IRL. Everything has shifted to the concept of "social media" for broadcasting to the masses. I agree with others in the thread who've said that the cause seems to be a combination of people setting their profiles to be private (even pseudonymous, or just sharing less about themselves), and the platforms trying to extract maximum monetary value (which I guess comes more easily from broadcasted content, paid for by ads and premium accounts).

Anyway, it was a fun idea when I was a college student in the mid-2000s. I really can't imagine what a new social network would have to be like now to get me to sign up and share about myself.

[udev4096]

Do you really think that people on HN would care about that?

[zamnos]

Not all HN users interact with Instagram, but thankfully, no one is forcing other users to comment on topics they don't find interesting. It's already gathered 5 votes in an hour, so if you categorize Instagram as not interesting to all of HN, you may need to recalibrate how you judge Instagram users.

[ulizzle]

Yeah, of course. We all care about social networking platforms. It's a big part of the internet, and we build the internet.

For a nice history lesson, check out the archives for "Diaspora".

[eswat]

Likely depends on the circles you’re in. Sharing IG handles is still the most popular way of connecting I get from people I meet for the first time.

[suprjami]

Instagram is already dead.

I run a popular account and watch my subscriber numbers. The turning point was when IG started shoving unrelated short-form videos into every second post in the feed. People left almost to silence and only some returned. If new users are growing now, it's very very slowly.

Anyway, I don't hold hope for your idea. You're describing a service which people are used to getting for free. As every social network has shown, monetizing never goes well. Eventually you'll get all the subscribers you're likely to get and capitalism doesn't like a plateau. One day you too will jam in short-form videos or whatever the flavour of the month is, because you have forgotten your mission and want to emulate someone else's success like TikTok. Then you'll be the social network people are saying is dead.

Maybe one day the EU or similar will fund a noninvasive useful social network with taxpayer money, which isn't beholden to shareholders or constant growth. That's the only way I see a social network working anymore.

[akagusu]

Instagram is the new Facebook. Tik Tok is the new Instagram.

[hmmokidk]

This is the premise for bereal, right?

[1attice]

[deleted -- wrong thread]

[dendrite9]

I think you meant to post here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35048279