@Gargron Yeah, I'm very similarly impressed that people use Instagram. UX is terrible, unless you are using "the app". And I'm a "desktop web" person. But so many... Popular things are designed for people who are clearly not me...

@Gargron Instagram is in a weird phase. They're trying to convert users to their TikTok clone Reels, so the user interface is shattering between two completely different paradigms.

@Gargron Right? And it’s not even just the UX. Most of the content there is so cringey that I can’t stand it for five minutes when someone wants to show “something cool”.

@Gargron Yeah, i used to use it regularly and then stopped. I opened it again a year later to check something and it was an unusable mess, like trying to walk through a maze of neon signs with mirrors and obstacles with the occasional photo I was actually looking for.

Such a reversal for something that started out deliberately minimalist

@Gargron It used to be a neat little photo sharing app with a friendly community and then things deteriorated ever so slowly. Now all users are stuck in that mess.

@Gargron when Pixelfed it's literally better

I have to use it because so many people I know are on there and expect me to be on there, but at some point I said enough is enough and built my own mod. No ads at all and way too many server-side setting overrides in the debug menu to play with. Still hate the algorithmic feed tho. Also reverse engineering is fun.

@Gargron it was really great when it first started, a real community. As expected, when Facebook bought it it started going downhill and now it's just terrible.

@Gargron yea - mostly older people like my age lol - especially Chinese students abroad - that plus #小红书 - where the 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈 battles are - to my understanding at least. 🙏🏻🙏🏻 - 7.

@Gargron the most simple things can only get solved by googling for it. Try finding the posts you have liked.
The content is bland and the app is a UX nightmare.

@Gargron 💯

@Gargron guess most are just using it because others are using it.

@Gargron it used to be a good app. Then it got Zucked.

@Gargron Let's just say it's like a really sad person crying inside while holding the biggest smile they can muster. When you've not been there in a while, it's pretty disturbing.

@Gargron It's honestly boring lol

@Gargron #Instagram used to be my favorite social media site, even more than the #Fediverse. But the people with the most interesting/cool accounts stopped posting because either their mental health cratered, or they graduated/stopped being single and got actual lives.

I mostly use it now to post stories and DM friends that I don't DM on other platforms.

@Gargron so many people use it because so many people use it. UX is trash, 2 ad for a post, 2 ad for a story, most of the posts just a Tweet screenshoot etc

@Gargron I've been underwhelmed myself. And I'm someone who really likes photography and glamorous shots of models and is a rather visual person, so you'd think I'd be gaga for Instagram. Curious.

@Gargron yeah it's pretty terrible. Also the constant ads and "you might like.." it's too much

@Gargron
for quite some it's probably a case of 'frog in boiling water'; the UX degrading slowly over time in a way that they don't notice how dangerous the water has actually become.