Instagram’s Testing A New Feature That’ll Drive Users Crazy
3 June 2024, 15:12
Instagram has begun testing a new way to view ads on its platform and it's definitely going to annoy its current users. Here’s what we know.
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Instagram might have taken a blow to its popularity once TikTok came to be, but the social media platform has begun testing something that may lead to its demise.
The photo-sharing app wants to start integrating ‘unskippable video ads’ on users' feeds, something not even Facebook implemented during its lowest of lows, despite both platforms being owned by Meta.
That would mean that as users scroll, every so often they’ll be forced to watch a paid advertisement for an unknown amount of time before they’ll be allowed to continue to scroll.
The feature has reportedly been named "ad break," it will be a new way of pushing ads on the platform and it's already being tested on users.
According to a number of reports, Instagram has started testing the feature which will encourage commercial investment, especially from small businesses, who will want to put their money towards targeted advertising.
User Dan Levy shared how the test appeared for him on his feed. In the screenshots he uploaded, he showed that the in-feed ad took up the entirety of his phone screen and a small circled timer appeared at the bottom.
This timer signified how many seconds were left until he could scroll on.
Holy moly! Meta seemingly is now forcing us to watch ads in our feeds on Instagram!
— Dan Levy ✡ דניאל לוי (@TheDanLevy) June 1, 2024
The app legit stopped me from scrolling past this ad which is just a bonkers move to me. pic.twitter.com/740EXjGyl2
What was once a great app all about sharing photos of your lives with loved ones has turned into a commercial nightmare and it has to be said that this feature does not enhance an Instagram user's experience in any way.
A similar feature was added to YouTube years ago and as a result, users just ended up downloading ad blockers that the platform is now actively targeting.
But even with all the ads being blocked, at the end of the day, it must have been financially beneficial for the company and Instagram must be expecting the same.
It’s been a while now since users' feeds have featured content that was 100% from the people they choose to follow.
According to AdNews, our feeds are filled with almost 50% of content that we haven’t subscribed to, from reels to sponsored posts, to skippable ads, perhaps the assumption was that we simply wouldn't notice.
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