When it comes to social media platforms, Instagram should feel like the all singing, all dancing way to share your pet pics, holiday snaps, avocado on toast, and more.
The Meta-owned Instagram is tied with WhatsApp as the third 'most popular' social media platform in 2024, trailing behind Facebook and YouTube but still boasting a whopping 2 billion active users.
While you might think TikTok is all the rage as the 'zoomers' of Gen Z flock there, its 1.6 billion users are still dwarfed by Instagram.
Still, the Instagram model has changed a lot over the years, and whether you use it for Reels or to send memes to your pals (when your DMs are working), it means big business.
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Instagram is far from perfect, though, and if you're frustrated with the quality on your latest Oscar-worthy video, you aren't alone.
Worryingly, it turns out that Instagram reserves crystal clear video quality only for its most popular content.
In a video reposted to Threads, Instagram boss Adam Mosseri confirmed: "We bias to higher quality... for creators who drive more views."
During the AMA, someone quizzed Mosseri why older videos in highlights tend to look a little blurry, with the big cheese explaining: "In general, we want to show the highest-quality video we can. But if something isn’t watched for a long time — because the vast majority of views are in the beginning — we will move to a lower quality video."
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He says that if a video becomes popular again, Instagram will 're-render' it to higher quality, but it's set a divisive precedent.
The big worry is that creators looking to make a buck are already at a disadvantage compared to those who have a larger platform. Yeah, good luck trying to post a video competing with Cristiano Ronaldo's 641 million follower count.
It comes after Meta previously admitted it uses "different encoding configurations to process videos based on their popularity" as a way to manage computing resources.
Responding to the news, it's clear users aren't happy.
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One disgruntled critic wrote: "It’s not fair, a lot of artists using this platform like a portfolio. Better to move in another direction increasing the possible quality on the platform. Because you are moving in the direction of TikTok."
Another added, "From a creator’s perspective, spending time on creating high quality content just for it to be downgraded to low res sucks 🤣," and a third said, "If someone had said that to me I’d have called it a conspiracy, never thought they would ‘post-upload’ reduce the quality of content, crazy." Not everyone was against this though, with one suggesting creators 'git gud': "Get good… Increase the fidelity, effort, and technical quality of the videos as you increase you following. Like every YouTube or TikTok creator, you’re competing with every other channel for people’s time.
"Make good content and the people will follow. A higher rate (proportion) of viewers engage with your content and you won’t have to worry about Instagram dropping your content video quality to good-enough HD."
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Mosseri has assured users that it works at an 'aggregate' level rather than targeting specific creators, but still that's not enough for many. Oh well, just another reason to keep your highlights out of your profile.