There is no other way for Instagram but to be more like TikTok over time

TikTok is a huge threat to other social media platforms, which explains why Instagram is getting more and more like it… literally. Over the past few months, we saw it introducing more videos in our feeds, and many are unhappy about it. Even the Kardashians expressed their frustration regarding the visible changes on the platform. Mosseri has an answer for that (which could probably further upset them): Instagram is getting more videos in the future.

Kylie Jenner and Kim Kardashian recently shared the same image showing their unified dismay over the changes on Instagram. It reads, “Make Instagram Instagram again,” followed by a parenthetical saying, “Stop trying to be TikTok, I just want to see cute photos of my friends.”

Of course, Instagram and Meta could easily ignore the message, but given that the two celebrities are some of the platform’s biggest stars, the complaint received attention from Mosseri. The Instagram head addressed this by saying he loves photos just like everyone else, and they are “going to continue to support photos — it’s a part of our heritage.” However, Mosseri added that he also believes “more and more of Instagram is going to become video over time.”

?? There’s a lot happening on Instagram right now.

I wanted to address a few things we’re working on to make Instagram a better experience.

Please let me know what you think ?? pic.twitter.com/x1If5qrCyS

— Adam Mosseri (@mosseri) July 26, 2022

“We see this even if we change nothing,” Mosseri stated in the video. “We see this even if you just look at chronological Feed. If you look at what people share on Instagram, that’s shifting more and more to videos over time. If you look at what people like and consume and view on Instagram, that’s also shifting more and more to video over time, even if we stop changing anything. So we’re going to have to lean into that shift while continuing to support photos.”

The last part of the message seems to be directed toward the Kardashians, wherein the Instagram head stresses the idea of inevitable changes. “We’re going to stay committed to supporting photos,” Mosseri added. “We’re going to stay in a place where we try and put your friend’s content at the top of Feed and at the front of Stories whenever possible. But we’re also going to need to evolve, because the world is changing quickly and we’re going to have to change along with it.”

The Kardashians are not the only ones who openly voiced out their concerns regarding Instagram. Aside from the complaints about more videos, many users have noticed lately the unfavorable recommended content offered by Instagram’s algorithm. Mosseri answered the issue by saying it is the product of Instagram’s Recommendations feature.

“Recommendations are posts in your Feed from accounts that you do not follow,” Mosseri explained. “The idea is to help you discover new and interesting things on Instagram that you may not know even exist. Now if you’re seeing things in your Feed that are recommendations that you’re not interested in, that means that we’re doing a bad job ranking, and we need to improve. And you can X out a recommendation. You can even snooze all recommendations for up to a month, or go to your Following Feed. But we’re going to continue to try, and get better at recommendations because we think it’s one of the most effective and important ways to help creators reach more people. We want to do our best by creators, particularly small creators, and we see recommendations as one of the best ways to help them reach a new audience and grow their following.”

Mosseri also discussed the concerns about the new full-screen version of Feed, which many users frankly find unattractive. According to him, the feature is just a test rolled out to a limited number of users and still needs fine-tuning before being released to the general population of the Instagram community.