Adam Mosseri knows you don’t like the new Instagram.
The head of Instagram uploaded a self-deprecating video across social media explaining the unpopular updates to the platform. The gist? The updates aren’t good yet.
He addressed the app updates that have users in a tizzy: the full-screen feed, the pivot to video to challenge TikTok, and the increasing number of recommended posts. They’ve gotten so much backlash that even Kylie Jenner (360 million followers) and Kim Kardashian (326 million followers) took a public stand. Both reposted an infographic to their Stories with a straight-forward demand: “MAKE INSTAGRAM INSTAGRAM AGAIN.”
Users just want to see pictures of their friends. Is that so hard to understand?
Well, according to Mosseri, the photo-sharing app needs to evolve. In response to the shift to video, he said, “More and more of Instagram is going to become video.” But the app won’t be ditching photos entirely and will “continue to support” them on the platform. (Duh.)
Meanwhile, the full-screen feed is still in the testing phase and Mosseri knows the unpopular feature is “not yet good.” Yikes. Talk about transparency. “We’re going to have to get it to a good place if we’re going to ship it to the rest of Instagram,” he added. On users’ dislike of recommended posts, Mosseri said, “If you’re seeing things in your feed that are recommendations that you’re not interested in, that means we’re doing a bad job ranking, and we need to improve.” They do!
He concludes the video with a promise (or is it a threat?) that the platform will continue to adapt to the world around it. “We’re going to need to evolve because the world is changing quickly and we’re going to have to change along with it.”
