Opinion: Instagram should stop changing what doesn't need to be changed

Researchers recently found Instagram guilty of harboring a “vast” network of pedophiles engaging in illegal underage sexual activities, something Meta has condemned and vowed to take action against.

While addressing this “horrific crime” will likely be back-ended and only affect the algorithm, Meta is also always working on other frontend changes to make the app easy to use, more fun and appealing to regular users.

These changes often come as software updates to the mobile and desktop apps, although others may also be implemented from the backend. Some may be good, others not, which is just how it is in this business.

One of such many recent changes to the Instagram UI is the tweak to the size of Story icons, which now appear too big or zoomed in to the naked eye.

This change, unlike the ability to comment or reply to posts using GIFs that got an overwhelming reception, hasn’t been received well among the Instagram faithful.

Multiple Instagram users have been up in arms protesting against this change in Story icons size, yet there’s probably little-to-nothing they can do since the update is supposedly server-side.

This implies that Instagram is making this change mandatory for everyone, and that you must live with it if you want to keep using the platform.

Of course, this may seem trivial to some. I mean, how dare you complain about a mere (and minor) shift in the size of an icon? Shouldn’t you fret over bigger things?

And indeed, you are right. There are bigger fish to fry, something Instagram also needs to acknowledge. But instead, the Meta-backed company seems to have placed its priorities elsewhere.

Besides making Story icons too big, Instagram devs have also introduced a bunch of other questionable changes in the recent past.

Not long ago, people revolted against the removal of date timestamps from posts, which now appear with the number of days or weeks since the post was published.

This came shortly after the button to ‘Add to Story’ was shifted to the bottom of the share list to the disapproval of many. There has also been some outcry over the new ‘Top posts’ and ‘Recent top posts’ hashtag sorting.

A section of users were surprised when they discovered that Instagram had removed the ‘Save to collection’ feature from Reels. Heck, even at some point the Reels button disappeared or got replaced by the notifications button.

While Instagram was certain that making these changes would make the overall experience of using the platform even better for users. Unfortunately, that hasn’t been the case.

Instead, people see most of them as an unnecessary effort at changing what doesn’t need to be changed. Rather, the company should focus on more tangible issues that have been plaguing the app for sometime.

For instance, issues with regular outages or the app crashing randomly, sometimes when viewing Reels or Stories, and other times when opening DMs, need more urgent attention.

There’s also the issue of scammers on the platform who are always to prey on unsuspecting users. This is besides the growing threat from bots that are often watching or liking Stories or tagging users on random fake posts.

With the likes of Twitter working around the clock to eliminate bots, Instagram should also borrow a leaf and redirect their efforts on this growing menace.

If anything, there’s just so much that Instagram can do to improve the platform rather than spend time on fixing elements of the UI that aren’t broken. And this is where the company’s focus should be at this point in time.

Instagram userbase recorded a slowdown with a 5.47% annual increase from 2022 to 2023 compared to the previous 5.79%. Still, the latter is nowhere near the 16.35% growth rate from the year before it.

This decreasing growth rate is enough evidence to confirm that there’s growing dissatisfaction among users. And that Instagram needs to do something — and do it quick too — or risk stalling its growth.

Hopefully, this will include redirecting efforts from trivial changes like augmenting the size of Story icons or shifting the position of the ‘Add to Story’ button and instead focus on the basics.

That said, we’d like to know your thoughts on this topic too via the comments section and poll below, so feel free to join the conversation.

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Feature image: Instagram

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