1y ago

Instagram is testing “unskippable” ads that you can’t scroll past

www.theverge.com

You can’t keep scrolling until you finish watching the ad.

18 comments

I can always just... not browse there though.
No scrolling, no ad, no engagement.
They’re about to test the load-bearing capacity of all your normie friends and all the cool celebrities/hot thirst traps being on there. The end goal is a slot machine which shows only ads almost all the time, occasionally delivering a payoff of social or parasocial connection to someone you care about, but only enough to keep the majority of users hooked.
Isn’t the harvested data making enough money for them?
- The entire point of the data harvesting is serving targeted ads.
- enough money
  Illogical illogical
- How much is enough Meth?
I deleted my account ages ago, so I don’t care.
- Same. My mental health has drastically improved since then.
I hope they like old people
and they'll only lose like 10 users. confoundingly everyone knows about enshittification and we watch it happen every day, but fake validation from fake friends apparently is about as easy to give up as meth
- It's easy to pile on, but I know some people who still use Instagram, and the verbs that they must embody when using the service are consuming and sharing.
  My guess is the 80/20 rule would apply here: a minority of the users are responsible for the majority of the content, while the majority of users actively or passively appreciate it.
  I'm just glad I don't have the video bug, because that pretty much describes my role on the fedi - as an active consumer (I'm a serial commenter).
The second this is a thing I'll be deleting my all my content and accounts and then the app.
Yeah works for me, I barely ever check it anyway. I’m not even sure why I still have an accounts I don’t use any other facebook apps.
I think Pixelfed offers a similar experience. I haven't tested either.
- *better experience
I'm pretty sure apps like Instander will work around that.
People always look at me funny when I tell them I don't do that mainstream datagobbler social media shit; but thanks to all the work I put in locking my shit down, I don't ever get advertised to in ways that I can't nearly-immediately shut down anymore. Advertising is brain poison; and advertisers are poisoners.
Time to switch over to the federated alternative of pixelfed

18 comments