Everything Is Content - Everything In Conversation: Is Instagram Doomed?

Starting point is 00:00:00 I'm Richerra and I'm Anoni. And this is Everything in Conversation. Beth is away in Beautiful Island on a lovely little trip. And actually, the three of us are going to be taking a small two-week break. But we will be back in your ears, rested and raring to go on Wednesday, the 19th of August. In the meantime, please do feel free to send in anything you see that you would love for us to discuss in upcoming episodes. Remember, if you want to take part in the conversation, just follow us on Instagram, Everything is Content Pod. That's where we share topics and ask for your thoughts.

Starting point is 00:00:33 We also have a surprise for you when we're back. We're launching something that has been in the works for quite some time. We are going to miss you, but I hope that you can forgive us. We are a three women band and we just need a little hiatus to get us back to delivering the very best takes, analysis and pop culture reporting. Love you and I hope you enjoy the episode. Would you pay £3.19 a month to see how many times your crush viewed your story? Well, now you can. Introducing Instagram Plus.

Starting point is 00:01:04 The new optional monthly subscription unlocks exclusive customization and insights on the platform, including 48-hour story extensions, anonymous story viewing, and rewatch counts. Instagram claims that this is to give us users more of what we love, but in a piece of the Atlantic, Annie Joy Williams writes, If what you love is the ability to more conveniently keep tabs on your crushes or enemies, by which I mean talk to yourself, then Instagram nailed it. Instagram Plus is social media's newest low, a company preying on our most pathetic impulses for the price of a small iced coffee.

Starting point is 00:01:40 Obviously, there are already paid for add-ons in the app. In 2023, META started to roll out a paid verification service that gives Facebook and Instagram users a blue tick for a monthly fee. And lots of social media sites have rolled out paid for ad-free, So is this the beginning of the end of the free social media? TechRadar says, this is how it starts. Someone adds the word plus to a familiar service. Plus sounds like more.

Starting point is 00:02:05 But somehow it's almost always a harbinger of less. Less access, fewer features, unless you pay. Routura, are you going to be giving £3.19 a month to Instagram? And only, as you know, I'm not on Instagram enough as it is with the free features. So the idea of paying for more nuanced ways to see who's seeing my stories or just to get more kind of niche elements out of this platform. It's just I'm the wrong audience. I'm the wrong person.

Starting point is 00:02:32 What about you? No, and also what I find interesting is we've spoken on this privately, but so many people, if you're really a stalker for the love of the game, you've got a burner. You're already doing this. And we had a message from Emma that said the ability to stalk people undetected is the best thing about Instagram, e.g., you can just go on people's Instagrams if they have an open profile.

Starting point is 00:02:51 unlike LinkedIn, which I found out the hard way. She goes on to say, who's this description actually for? I don't know anyone who would seriously pay for that. Is it for influencers? Also, maybe it's my age, early 30s or social circle, but very few of my friends actually post stories on Instagram. I use it to follow brands, podcasts, influencers that I like, not people I know in real life.

Starting point is 00:03:10 So this feature would be of no use to me at all. And we did get quite a few messages from people saying, this does feel like it's something for influencers. Like Vivian said that she works in marketing and she thinks that brands might pay for stuff like this. So she could imagine it be a useful tool for influencers too because you're able to sell things to specific audiences and having your stories seen by more people

Starting point is 00:03:29 could bring in more money. And that was just making me think about how much Instagram is starting to feel like a pyramid scheme where there aren't really, there are people who use it for their friends. But more and more it feels like everyone on Instagram is either an influencer trying to be an influencer or like teaching other people how to be an influencer.

Starting point is 00:03:45 Yeah, I can really, really see that. Something about this, it's really giving me the ick with the platform because it feels like it's funneling us, as you say, into this one way of using it, which is to A, act like a brand, act like we're all marketing suites for ourselves. And I know the personal brand has been a discussion for a decade now. It's obviously just getting worse and worse and worse. Whether you literally use it to post your dog pictures to your five friends, it feels like we're all getting funneled into surveying, analyzing, learning the data of our small or large lives on the platform. And it's just, it's so

Starting point is 00:04:20 unnecessary. And it also just feels like it's making us more neurotic about the stuff we put online. I never look at the people who see my stories because if I did, I don't think I'd ever post them. I feel like something about that knowledge really, it overwhelms me. I can get really easily overwhelmed by the idea of being perceived. So jumping on those elements for the average person and accelerating them or finding ways to make people pay for them just feels so bizarre. Catriona sent a message and said, maybe this will be the catalyst to delete the app for me, ha ha. I honestly, I mean, we need it for work.

Starting point is 00:04:51 That is the final thread holding me onto this platform. And I know you feel the same all the time. Yeah, we also had a message from Eliza who said, hoping this will be the final straw that pushes me to delete the app and be free. And I think this is what's so funny that Instagram have been like giving you more of what you love. When users couldn't be more transparent about what we would love. We would love chronological feeds. We would love not to see stuff that we haven't asked to see.

Starting point is 00:05:13 We want Instagram to function basically like original Instagram. And I'm seeing more and more people saying, like, I don't want to watch videos. Like this app is for me, I want to see people's pictures that they share. I personally hate as a creator having to write on everything. It is madness now. If I write on a picture, the visibility it gets compared to it if I just post images. And so I think they're really, it's weird because I'm sure there are some people that will pay because I think we are living in a subscription-based society where people, like I was always

Starting point is 00:05:40 quite interested in people that would pay for like add-ons on dating apps. that that's quite normalized now. People pay, like, all of these sites have tricked us into feeling like you kind of have to pay for them. But it's just not more of what we love. And it does make me wonder if actually it could be a good thing because it'll just make people think, this isn't what I came here for. This is what we came for.

Starting point is 00:06:01 I don't know what I'm going down. And yeah, so I think that it's going to be interesting for it back spies, but I really agree with that tech radar piece, which basically says like, this is just the beginning of the end of things getting cordoned off in the app. And it's kind of like soft launching. users being used to paying for stuff. I wonder, is there anything that you would pay for an Instagram? Like, would you pay £3.19 a month to get back 2017 Instagram, do you think?

Starting point is 00:06:23 That's such a good question. I, no. And the reason is, because of the landscape it exists in, I feel like because we've all got to the point of our absolute threshold and beyond with social media and how it's made us feel, the impacts on society, the ubiquity of tech bellinas, just dictating our politics, all those kind of things. I know that sounds like a big one, but it has these like knock on effects of just complete and utter despair and exhaustion with the concept of social media on a micro level, I think,

Starting point is 00:06:55 day to day. I think it's too late. I don't think there's any way to say that and everyone knows that I'm such a miserable get when it comes to social media stuff. I think I'm at that point where it's like, I don't know if going back can undo the feelings I have about it now. I think I am just trying to live my life, IRL, not URL, and just, it's not going to save Instagram for me if they did go back, which they obviously won't anyway. What about you?

Starting point is 00:07:20 Could that lure you back onto Instagram if they gave you that promise? I think because I use it for work, I am on it in a very different capacity anyway. And I was actually talking to you guys about this, but I used to blend sharing kind of like from a work angle and life. But now I feel like I don't really understand the benefits of sharing just like life things on Instagram. So Instagram for me has really become a work tool rather than an app that I enjoy going on for fun. I do have a personal account where I follow like all of my

Starting point is 00:07:49 school friends and because I only follow basically my friends from school, uni and my family. I will go on there to watch stories because it's basically just everyone's stories and it's everyone I know and that's how I catch up. I never see any of their stuff on my main account. So I use it like that anyway there, but I don't really post on that one. So I don't think I would pay for it because even like to have it chronologically. Because I think the thing is for me, me it would have to be like I would need everyone to be accessing the same Instagram otherwise it wouldn't want. We also had a message from Sadia which read no one needs to know that I viewed their story once or 87 times that's between me and God. One, I think this is so true but it's

Starting point is 00:08:23 making me think of like the absolute nutcases who have their TikTok's views on. You know you can see like people that viewed your so if you have it on people can also see I think if you turn it on you can see who's looked at your profile but then anyone else who has it on can also see theirs and that is a kind of thing where I'm like, I do not need to know that. I lived through the Instagram sidebar where it would be like people you follow have liked and you would see people's boyfriends liking busty women. You would see people's dads liking political stuff, whatever. And I'm like, I just, yeah, mostly busty women.

Starting point is 00:08:56 I just don't live in a world that I need to know. But I think that we cross the Rubicon too far that unless they literally reinvent, like reverted Instagram back to what it was, I think I'm also slowly walking out the door with everyone else. And I wonder if that's already happening. I think there is a collective unrest on social media. So many people are posting pictures. I keep seeing this massive trend with writing over the top that says, I don't want to have to write my pictures for people to see it. And then it gets really big. And I think Instagram are thinking, what could we get to get them to stay? Oh, if we make them more neurotic, because that is something that social media goes hand in hand with social media stalking.

Starting point is 00:09:28 So I think that's why it's even more like insidious because it feels like they're preying on people's base desires, our desire to kind of pick at scabs by figuring out who's looking at story loads. It just, it doesn't instill me with good vibes. Yeah, that's such a good point. You're right. It's finding people's Achilles heel and just like re-going there rather than any meaningful, interesting conversation around the platform and why people feel so frustrated. These constant changes with like moving the goalposts with what is going to do well on the platform, I'm not a content created, well, I am a content created because of this podcast, but I still feel weird using that term because I'm not, I'm still not used to adopting that term. So I don't,

Starting point is 00:10:06 don't think of myself as one and also I'm really bad Instagram so helps but yeah just it must be so ridiculous just the constant changing and you have people who've based their entire careers on this platform it's like you can be fucked when it comes to the kind of content you put out we'll determine what is going to do well for you and not really tell you so you have to figure it out retrospectively or just be tied to our platform and constantly on it to see what other people are doing but we can make you feel worse about it because we'll give you even more data about the people who are or not seeing your stories and will make you weirder basically by being able to create these like microgroups of people

Starting point is 00:10:43 you're super targeting without them knowing which feels really scammy and weird to me to be honest because imagine if I was in a group for a brand because I'm a young woman I don't know maybe a brown woman who might in theory like this brand they're targeting specific people for South Asian Heritage Month whatever it's just like that is a possibility from the use of these tools. It makes me feel really weird and gross that they're making Instagram such a hype marketing platform in the way that the point of social media is. Brands were meant to be on an equal footing to the rest of us. We were meant to be able to use it in the same ways. Yeah, we had a message from Rebecca that said since reading Careless People, I'm thinking

Starting point is 00:11:22 about all meta products in different ways. Curless People, a cautionary tale of power, greed, and lost idealism is a book by Sarah Wyn Williams. She's now being sued by Facebook to the point where like every time she gets interviewed about the book, she's not allowed to talk about the book, but we spoke about it. Maybe last year, and one of the big things that came out was that Meta would target young girls who deleted their selfies with ads to do with, like, beauty or cosmetic things, because they assumed that if a young person was deleting their photo, they were feeling insecure. So it was like the perfect time to advertise to them. So that is definitely, I think we should all be feeling really cynical about anything that they're offering us,

Starting point is 00:11:56 because they are bad actors. And like Ian said exactly that about the bad actors in his message. she said, paid accounts always feel like a bleak inevitability that gives more data to bad actors. So just hoping we get some good drama off the back of it feels right for influencers, celebs to find ways to create a narrative about it. And actually, Ian, you are right. This could have really aided Warkathar Christi's investigation. So maybe there is a bit of sort of like real housewise fun drama to come out of it. But I mostly agree that it feels quite bleak.

Starting point is 00:12:23 Yeah. We had a message from an end and this is an interesting one because it kind of lands on the more cynical side as well. He said, I believe the phrases, drug dealers get their money on the comeback. Instagram got the whole world hooked on its dopamine and now is charging. The same is happening with AI and its integration with everything. It is just another example of our society's complete and shittification, all under the guise of progress and user choice. I also, when I was reading about Instagram Plus,

Starting point is 00:12:52 could not stop thinking about chat GPT, Claude, co-pilot, all of the kind of AI services that are now being integrated everywhere and are so clearly just being normalized and just kind of, I don't know, it feels like complete gas-lighting. I feel like a year ago, the conversation that we had about AI is just so almost the ideological points were completely relevant. Practical points are already so irrelevant because it's here, as you've already said in previous episodes. I feel silly for imagining a world of being like, we should all make choices not to use it

Starting point is 00:13:23 because it's being shoved down our throats everywhere. And I already know they already have tiered levels. I feel like the basic level is going to run. run out and everyone who's hooked on using AI for the most basic things, such as Googling, where your feet are, are suddenly going to have to pay for it because it's become such a huge part of their daily ritual, their daily life, their way of being. Yeah, we had a message from Lauren that said, sounds great for businesses, but I'm one woman, I don't need to know on my metrics. And reading that, and as you're talking, I was just thinking of those two black mirror

Starting point is 00:13:50 episodes, the one from last year where the couple are trying to get medical care and they keep increasing the cost of the subscription. And also the really old one where they walk around and they're rated. They have numbers on their head. So they have like their social ratings. It all is kind of gearing towards that. It's like we are not enough as humans. We have to know our metrics. We have to like optimise. You're also going to have to be subscribing to everything. And I think that it does feel like the beginning of the end. But it also to me, it just does feel really naive from these platforms. Like surely they could make enough money from advertising if they just gave people a platform that people actually genuinely want to stay on and spend time on. Like people do spend time on the apps, but almost always it's with like an exasperation of, oh no, I like absolutely. one of my phone too much. Rather than like, oh, great, I get to go on Instagram and I can see XYZ. It feels like quite a naive, short-sighted, or maybe that is just like how tech billionaires think, but there is a world in which there is profitability in actually having a good product that people want to use. It just feels interesting that that is never the road they go down and they kind of go, oh yeah, we're giving you what you want. And I'm like, I do not think anyone asks for

Starting point is 00:14:50 this. Well, it feels like I think we're all a little bit burnt out from all of these apps. And I don't really want to be spending this money on it. But who knows, maybe in two weeks time when we're back, Instagram will have crashed and burned and we'll be back to 2016. Here's hoping. A girl can dream. A girl can dream. Thank you so much for listening and for all of your opinions and takes on this topic. We adore being in conversation with you all. Remember to go back and listen to our last episode about the correlation between bitchiness and chronic illness. We'll see you in two weeks time. Bye. Bye

Everything Is Content - Everything In Conversation: Is Instagram Doomed?

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