Instagram is switching its feed from chronological to best posts first

I&#x27;m not inherently opposed to a smarter order, but I feel like it (at least in the case of Facebook and Twitter so far) breaks a fundamental part of the use case for me. I check in every so often, and want to scroll back to the last post I saw, so I can know I saw everything. When it is sorted non-chronologically, this is impossible. I see the same thing multiple times because it&#x27;s sorted near the top, and I miss some stuff completely because it gets sorted to the bottom.<p>Also, I&#x27;m not sure what signals they&#x27;re using to rank posts. I could imagine using likes and comments, but I don&#x27;t think that would accurately identify the posts I most want to see. For example, I follow a couple of local restaurants who post specials and similar things on Instagram. I never &quot;like&quot; or comment on those; it seems pointless (I use those actions to communicate with my friends on their posts). If you use that signal, those posts which I <i>always</i> want to see will get pushed to the bottom. I&#x27;m not sure what other data they have to use.

Why do all of these social media companies ruin feeds like that? It would be fine if there was a seperate tab for &#x27;best&#x27;.. I want to see things as they&#x27;re posted. No fancy algorithms.

This makes sense. Gotta wean people off chronology to sell them the &quot;best&quot; ads.

I knew something was up when they removed the time since the item was posted. This change will just make me unfollow the bigger users that I follow and check them manually.

I&#x27;m curious what data all of these companies are using to determine that it is better to identify posts by algorithm as &quot;the best&quot; rather than simply showing everything in chronological order.<p>I thought Twitter originally said several weeks ago that they would introduce the new feed and then let the user choose to use it or not. So when it first started I thought I opted-out. Just the other day on twitter.com I was shown a list of &quot;best posts&quot; that I needed to close, and then another click to say I didn&#x27;t like seeing that section.<p>Even if somehow finding which posts&#x2F;tweets are &quot;the best&quot; is helpful, I don&#x27;t doubt that some users prefer chronological order.<p>It&#x27;s really disappointing, but then I guess it comes down to the issue of using a free service- in the end they get to choose how it&#x27;s run and not me.

I can totally see genuine reasons for that. Feed is a huge part of the product, and you want to control that (which means controlling UX). You don&#x27;t want to let things go out of hand. Some of us feel like, well, we can control it ourselves by unfriending&#x2F;unfollowing&#x2F;unliking things we don&#x27;t like. That&#x27;s true. But we shouldn&#x27;t forget that we can&#x27;t apply this assumption to the whole active userbase of Facebook&#x2F;Instagram. Many many of their users won&#x27;t bother, or aren&#x27;t even aware of it.<p>It&#x27;s kind of odd seeing all frustrated comments about how it&#x27;s just about ads and etc. Well, duh, they are a business, not a charity.<p>The only problem with it is if they disable an ability to switch back. But, again, I can see reasons for that. It might be that they ran some experiments and some that people switch to chronological and then they happen to be less engaged over the time because their chronological, raw feed happens to suck big time.

They too have noticed that having a feed of n% stale posts and 100-n% new content is more likely to addict you. A skinner box is a powerful device, and you don&#x27;t get addicted nearly as easily if you get the reward every time.

I really hope they have an option to switch it back to chronological. I tend to check Instagram at the end of the day and just scroll back until I see things from the previous day, then I know I&#x27;ve seen everything. I don&#x27;t follow too many people so it only takes a few minutes.

Serious question: Does TechCrunch receive any payment for these types of articles?<p>On the face of it, the article fails to address any of the concerns raised throughout this thread &#x2F; elsewhere on the internet.

Arguably this is Facebook&#x27;s most important secret sauce, so it makes sense to try it with IG. I&#x27;ll be curious if it sticks or if they revert back to a chronological feed.

Discussed a couple days ago: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=11293705" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=11293705</a>.

I want to get off this ride.

Twitter is ruining itself the same way.

Welp time to stop using Instagram. Patiently awaiting a competitor.