Tobacco exec says smoking falls by half with low-nicotine cigs.
I think the single best change Instagram done in a decade is the "ad break" that happens once you've scrolled through enough posts, which stops you for N seconds to stare at some random ad. I think I can scroll through 2-3 posts before my scrolling gets locked, and I close the app, and now I barely scroll Instagram at all anymore. Thank you Instagram!
I don't know what the right balance is, but there should be some sort of friction. Feeds shouldn't be infinitely scrollable, for instance, and users could be made explicitly aware of how much time they're spending.<p>Some people think this should all fall back on personal responsibility, but the way I see it, introducing highly addictive algorithms should've been regulated the same way adding addictive chemicals to food is.
For a lot of people that's a good thing
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Same with HN and its LLM powered comments script they run internally
Bluesky likely knows this problem well. The pro is that I never find myself stuck there. The con is that I just end up somewhere else (including this orange website). Time to ctrl-w.
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Although Bluesky is tiny, they are the biggest and most stable proponent of letting users control their feed. Even if they don't grow big, being half the size of a toxic social media platform is a damn good business model. Somebody can win with that, and I hope a diverse group of startups try.
<i>cue the smallest sad violin</i><p>Snarky reaction aside, and actually reading the article, it says that the problem is something along the lines of "we incentivized and rewarded business accounts to post large volumes, so now if you switch to chronological order you will see <i>more</i> of these posts which reduces user satisfaction".<p>Well, that just means that the company will have to adapt before their users start unfollowing spammy accounts and the whole "influencer" business takes a hit. Though tbh, not sure how much of a hit it could take but hey, when instagram says engagement falls, I allow myself to feel optimistic for a brief moment.
I don't get how instagram is as popular as it is. I made an account last week to try to look for pictures from an event I recently attended.<p>First I was incredibly surprised and frustrated that their search functionality is effectively nonexistent, then, when I gave up and scrolled, if I tapped on a post to look closer, I had to deal with it interrupting whatever I was listening to.<p>Then, cherry on top of the shit cake, they suspended my account unless I did some video ID process. Nope, not happening.<p>Instagram felt like a more invasive and hostile user experience than any social media I've used before.
> I don't get how instagram is as popular as it is.<p>Stockholm syndrome.
Everytime I stumble upon search on ANY meta made platform I'm dazzled by how anyone can make simple search such a shit feature. Messanger search is ridiculously not working for ten years now.
Monetization is down when content isn't force-fed to users. Give this guy a raise.
Because people are lazy, they feed on feed.
Only half? That's sort of depressing.
It can be good in the way that meals with green vegetables aren't consumed as voraciously as cheeseburgers and fries. It depends on the quality of what's in the feed.
Will fry all the brains of humanity for double the engagement (and a promotion to L5).<p>Doesn't sound worth it to me.
It's a good start.
> Users miss more content and spend less time on the platform.<p>And what is the effect of this on the user?<p>Oh right, you don't care.<p>For me this guy is directly repsonsible of all the negative side effects of this attention grabbing engangement BS and he should go to jail for that.
Good stuff ! When’s it going to prod ?
Same probably goes for slot machines if you strip them of all the bright, flashy colours and comforting sounds and make it a black metal box, with only a number display.<p>Its almost like... it was inherently designed to be as addictive as possible?
>Children will be smoking less if you don't offer them cigarettes
Cry me a river, seriously.
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