Instagram walks back TikTok-style changes — Adam Mosseri explains why - The Verge
Instagram head Adam Mosseri explains why Instagram is pausing its full-screen design and some recommended content.
Instagram will walk back some recent changes to the product following a week of mounting criticism, the company said today. A test version of the app that opened to full-screen photos and videos will be phased out over the next one to two weeks, and Instagram will also reduce the number of recommended posts in the app as it works to improve its algorithms.
“I’m glad we took a risk — if we’re not failing every once in a while, we’re not thinking big enough or bold enough,” Instagram chief Adam Mosseri said in an interview. “But we definitely need to take a big step back and regroup. [When] we’ve learned a lot, then we come back with some sort of new idea or iteration. So we’re going to work through that.”
The changes come amid growing user frustration over a series of changes to Instagram designed to help it better compete with TikTok and navigate the broader shift in user behavior away from posting static photos toward watching more video.
On Monday, the TV star and entrepreneur Kylie Jenner — along with her sister Kim Kardashian — posted memes asking the company to “Make Instagram Instagram again.” And on Twitter, nearly every day people post tweets criticizing the new Instagram that quickly go viral.
Redesigns often incur the wrath of users who are hostile to change, but in this case the high-profile dissatisfaction was backed up by Instagram’s own internal data, Mosseri said. The trend toward users watching more video is real, and pre-dated the rise of TikTok, he said. But it’s clear that people actually do dislike Instagram’s design changes.
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