leo burghaus

Giants fall all the time, and I don’t put it past Instagram. The platform has become part of our culture and might look strong as part of Meta, but it has an inherent problem that might just get bigger over time.
In short, Instagram does not deliver its value proposition to most users. The gap between what people signed up for and what they get in return is widening. I feel people are becoming aware of this.
The app’s initial promise was to offer a simple way to share pictures (and later videos) with friends. For some time, it did this. It served as a creative outlet and connected people in a simpler (and more original) manner than Facebook. This was also a part of the reason why the latter became less popular with younger generations. Some people were very annoying posting their breakfast, cats, or selfies, but it was largely a calm place. We did not get overwhelmed by the content, and got to see mainly what our friends and acquaintances posted. We also looked into the lives of some of our celebrities, and at one point, started following some sites related to our interests.
But at one point, there was a change. Today we’re looking into it.

Early Instagram‘s Downside

It was not a paradise, and there were some signs of danger. Social dynamics began to find their way into Social Media in general, especially for teenagers and young adults. Places such as Instagram became an accelerator for popularity within groups. The other side of the coin meant that it was a new way to exclude people in new ways. Instagram became a game that you had to play, but there were winners and losers. And, on the long run, even the populars were losers.
Teenagers are the best example of the harmful side of social media in its early years of popularity. This is because we (I was a teenager when I got instagram) were the first ones signing up to it in masses, and we let our social dynamics play out there. Here’s how it went:
Some high-school kids signed up to the platform when it became popular. Those that were already popular at school, got the most followers, and likes, so these metrics became a symbol of status. The higher visibility of the people signing up early also meant that they had a chance of increasing their popularity. This left people who did not have many friends anyway and signed up later, with fewer followers and likes. This, in turn, reinforced their unpopularity and the equation no likes=no popular. Now, the marginated not only became more aware of the fact that they were not popular at their school, but they also saw that they were not popular with children from other schools. The gap became bigger. And quatified.
Due to the nature of the immediacy of Social Media, those that were positively reinforced by Instagram were hooked to the rush of gaining likes and followers. Not only did they need to grow their status on the platform, it might even become more important than real-life interaction on many levels. Because you had numbers validating not only were you one of the popular kids in your school, but you were part of the popular people in town.
The result: Popular people, who in the end were the ones setting the trends, made Instagram a must for everyone wanting to play a social game. The more people played their games, the more relevant their success was. For those who were unpopular, it gave them a slight chance to become socially validated outside of school.
What really drove Instagram home though, was something that’s obvious but often overlooked. If you create a place for people to connect, you will create a place for people to date. Thus, Instagram became our generation’s presentation card when meeting new people. Because followers and likes represented a sign of popularity, it became relevant to many when it came to meeting someone.
When I say that the apparent winners also ended up losing, it’s because it modified their actions in real life to fit into Social Media, not the other way around. In general, linking success to online popularity is not a good idea, but this holds especially true on Instagram, where success does not depend on who you are, but on how much you are able to adapt to what’s hip. Teenagers often feel immense pressure to increase or maintain their status, but Instagram magnifies this. There are some unusual power dynamics in general, and because they were more immediate and quantified on Instagram, it became a dangerous place for many.
Some suffered more, some less. However, I think that the vast majority of teenagers, at some point or another, felt the platform’s negative effects.
In any case, I am diverging. My point is that yes, the Social Dynamics played out on Instagram, and that made Instagram (rightly) face criticism. However, this is not why I think it will fall.

Money

Instagram became a must have. This was where it started to go south.
When you become a must, you grow. When you grow, you attract attention. When you attract attention, you become a business. When you become a business, you need to make revenue.
As users grew, so did some sites that (as mentioned before) were dedicated to specific topics. There were meme pages, sports pages, news pages, random hobbies pages, etc., which made the experience on the app better (I would say), as it became more entertaining and interesting. Good. However, it was also the start of the downfall because it changed our minds as to what instagram should be. Instagram was not only a place for people, but it now became a place for things. When corporations saw this, they thought, “Let’s make this a place for our things”. This is natural. You want your ads to be where most people are. With its huge number of users, Instagram was that place, and the cost of sharing content there, as opposed to billboards or TV adds, was virtually zero. In addition, the results can be tracked better. It was a no-brainer.
For Instagram, this was what they waited for. They now finally had a way to monetize their operations – which, inevitably they needed to do to keep the thing going. Except, of course, if they wanted to become a non-profit focused on delivering a solid space for digitalized social interaction without dangers. Not judging the platform for its decision but pointing out that this was probably the time it was decided that this was about money and not their initial idea of giving people a place to share pictures with friends.
Instagram took the decision of partnering with companies to not only facilitate them posting content, but also give them the option to pay for the attention of their target audience. Initially, the content was often just a normal ad adapted to the platform. But instagram marketing today has evolved. Ironically, it is now largely focused on how to make company posts feel more like people posts. This often fails.
This brings me to my point in all this.

Why Instagram is in a tricky place

Now people post less. I’d argue that people have shifted from using Instagram as entertainment, not for social connection. Funnily enough, when people justify why they have instagram, the main argument is generally that it keeps them connected to friends. They can follow people they know that live abroad, travel, or post about their art, or to friends who send memes. However, there is an inherent contradiction with the ‘why’ of the usage, and the ‘how.’
Because actual people are posting way less, and corporations way more, the platform is shifting from something we do socially (connecting with each other) towards something we consume. In my opinion, this is a major shift. Users spend their time on the platform decreasingly on the things they signed up for and more on consuming short-form entretainment, which is becoming increasingly posted by companies.
This would not be so much of a problem if people did not feel that they were spending too much time on the app. Pretty much everyone I speak with of my generation accepts instagram as a distraction that consumes more time than intended. Most uninstall the app for periods at a time, either if they need to focus on a project, are not feeling good mentally, or often just because they have been sucked too much into it lately, and need some time off.
Instagram needs to asks itself some questions:

• We are no longer able to deliver on the promise of social connection. Are we able to keep giving the illusion that we do?
• If not, do we need to be open about the fact that this is a place for entertainment (and a small factor of social connection)?
• Are we becoming increasingly like TV? Or even like TikTok
• If we are becoming more like TikTok, how are we going to compete against them if they have been marketing themselves in the right way?
• If we switch publicly to an entertainment company, how will our business model change?

The people at instagram are not dumb. They know that a shift in behavior is happening and it will continue to do so. It will be interesting to see how they react to it and whether they are able to save the situation.
At the moment, on the app store, they keep seeing themselves as a company to stay in touch with the people ‘who get you.’ There is just one mention of ‘finding what makes you smile’ (which makes reference to finding new content), and that comes at the end. This is risky: as consumers see instagram more as something addicting, more will be aware of the dangers of downloading the app. Instagram might be able to keep existing users for a while as they have become, to some degree, used to the product – but it’s a matter of time until most people snap out of it. Mainly, because the product is not that good anyway.
From a consumer standpoint, I can see more people in my generation leaving the place in the coming years. Not only because they see it as distraction, but because they realize that the small social connection they get is not worth the time investment most users put in. In addition, TikTok, specially because of it’s better algorithm, is a major competition for Instagram that’s taking time away from user consumption.
In all fairness to the app, Instagram has become very relevant culturally, and is still the go-to for people to connect with others. We’ve become used to having an in-between of ‘not giving you contact information’ and ‘I will share with you my phone number’. As long as Instagram doesn’t have competition when it comes to platforms to connect with others, it has a raison d’etre.
Zuckerberg must be aware of all this – and much more. I would be interested to know how he sees it. Maybe he’s just milking the Instagram cow as long as he can, and will just buy the next big platform as soon as he needs to. Maybe his idea is to make Facebook attractive again, and is looking to find a way to bring Instagram users back to Facebook. Difficult, this.
I guess only time will tell.

Maybe, in a major victory for humanity, Instagram’s fall is the nudge we need for Social Media to start collapsing. It would mean the end of a short, but intense ride.