It's sad how they aren't instead capitalizing on their niche and going back to their roots, instead choosing to go against TikTok which is probably a futile endeavour because they already grabbed and established that culture.
If I've learnt one thing from social networks, it's that competitors only rarely succeed in capturing another network's niche. Instagram has tried to become TikTok too but few would say the Reels concept is a smashing success... Facebook has tried to be Snapchat as well with ephemereal messaging, but few would say Facebook is known for that and recapturing the youth culture today. Meanwhile, Snapchat still thrives at a more rapid rate than Twitter and Facebook. You can not simply copy features and then the culture will come.
And when Google+ was rising, Facebook desperately tried to introduce more ways to handle your friend lists due to the innovative "circles" of Google+. These features still remain but few today are aware that Facebook posts to Friends aren't seen by friends in your Acquaintances friend list because those are there to only see Public posts... This is an example of a relic from those days but there are other examples too.
Despite the confidence you would expect them to have from having more than a billion users, they are surprisingly unsure of themselves and who they want to be. You can also see it happen with Meta and VR. Is that supposed to now work in tandem with the TikTokification (how? a clip feed is hardly interactive?), or are they still just confused about who they want to be? I wonder how much of it has to do with Zuckerberg himself?
You are not the target audience. The fact that HN thinks this spells doom for Instagram just shows how out of touch HN users can be with the average Internet user.
When facebook bought Instagram and changed everything around, people screamed wolf, but IG's popularity exploded. When IG copied snapchat and added stories, techies said it was terrible, the end of IG, but it only caused its popularity to skyrocket, snapchat to practically die, and stories to become the main way people used IG. The average user doesn't care - IG will continue growing and most users will get used to the new normal. A few unhappy users will leave, but they won't even make a dent. Competition in the platform will only increase as every company and "content creator" tries to be on top of the reels feed.
I say this as an outsider that doesn't really use IG.
If I've learnt one thing from social networks, it's that competitors only rarely succeed in capturing another network's niche. Instagram has tried to become TikTok too but few would say the Reels concept is a smashing success... Facebook has tried to be Snapchat as well with ephemereal messaging, but few would say Facebook is known for that and recapturing the youth culture today. Meanwhile, Snapchat still thrives at a more rapid rate than Twitter and Facebook. You can not simply copy features and then the culture will come.
And when Google+ was rising, Facebook desperately tried to introduce more ways to handle your friend lists due to the innovative "circles" of Google+. These features still remain but few today are aware that Facebook posts to Friends aren't seen by friends in your Acquaintances friend list because those are there to only see Public posts... This is an example of a relic from those days but there are other examples too.
Despite the confidence you would expect them to have from having more than a billion users, they are surprisingly unsure of themselves and who they want to be. You can also see it happen with Meta and VR. Is that supposed to now work in tandem with the TikTokification (how? a clip feed is hardly interactive?), or are they still just confused about who they want to be? I wonder how much of it has to do with Zuckerberg himself?