It's been an interesting path. It went from the early days where you'd post just about anything, then people tightened up on what felt "good enough" and some of the charm was lost. I got the sense that people became more anxious about what reached that "good enough" mark. A friend who was making a living from putting up Instagram content just abruptly started turning down money and stopped posting. No one should be fretting about sharing content because they worry about how their grid looks - it's idiotic. I think that slowdown in content in part (also, fending off rivals) brought about Stories.
I grew to appreciate Stories as a way to tell the behind-the-scenes story of the main feed highlight shot/video. And the ability to save those screens into actual stories (of an outing or a project).
Then they ramped up ads, added Reels and wrecked the way the main feed works with integrating Reels. Reels feels like the step too far. Revert the main feed UI, let me switch off all suggested content (not just for 30 days, you bastards), tone down the ads, and I'll be OK.
> I got the sense that people became more anxious about what reached that "good enough" mark
Bo Burnham has some interesting comments in his "Inside" special about how social media makes us disassociate from ourselves and think about both living in the moment and how it will be perceived afterwards. I think that's a big part of what causes this - after you know that you're not just posting for fun then you have to think about why you're posting something and what it means. This has caused by to basically stop using them because it never seems "worth it" to post something
The feed anxiety thing predates the pandemic. People using it semi commercially were stressing about the right colour tones of their grid, etc. I find myself avoiding posting shots in a particular sequence because I don't want a cluster of ocean photos or video icons adjacent, etc - less so because I care, but because my prospective clients would think about it showing a lack of attention to detail. Very silly.
In a scrolling feed, no issue. If you were creating a collated folio of best work, no issue. I think having a chronological grid is what irks people. Better to let people choose a grid that represents them. A photographer could have their best work, someone else might choose to have their most popular, and others could leave it chronological.
Food blogs were one of the first genres to develop once they evolved beyond links. There were jokes about how nobody wants to read a blog about what you ate for dinner before there were jokes about how nobody wants to read tweets about what you ate for dinner.
I grew to appreciate Stories as a way to tell the behind-the-scenes story of the main feed highlight shot/video. And the ability to save those screens into actual stories (of an outing or a project).
Then they ramped up ads, added Reels and wrecked the way the main feed works with integrating Reels. Reels feels like the step too far. Revert the main feed UI, let me switch off all suggested content (not just for 30 days, you bastards), tone down the ads, and I'll be OK.