As new legislation in Australia aims to let users opt out of the algorithmic nature of modern social media, Instagram’s Adam Mosseri has said that the experience of a chronological feed is “much worse.”
Reported by ABC, Mosseri said that “the average user experience gets much worse” when going back to a chronological feed. The Instagram chief added:
If you go to a chronological feed, it ends up getting overwhelmed with content from companies, brands, and publishers… Creators get drowned out, and then your friends get drowned out even more… You miss a lot more content … and you spend a lot less time on the platform…
That last bit is pretty telling, but there’s certainly a point to be made here.
In a chronological feed versus an algorithmic one, a larger quantity of posts would indeed improve reach and, as such, constantly-online influencers, businesses, and others would absolutely benefit from their ability to post more content. That could drown out content from close friends, assuming the user is actually following all of these other accounts in the first place.
