Meta, formerly known as Facebook, still is known for Facebook, has just posted their quarterly earnings report. For the first time since 2007, they have posted a decline in revenue, US$ 28.82 billion versus US$ 29.07 billion in the second quarter of 2021. That is a whopping 1% drop in revenue year-on-year. No, that is not a lot, to be fair. It is not that alarming either, if you ask us. What could be more alarming is that the drop in revenue comes with a larger drop in net income for Meta, about 36% loss compared to the same quarter last year (Q2 2021).
The drop in revenue could be due to many reasons. One of the reasons could be also because of the loss in user base and daily user counts thanks to the ongoing crisis over in Russia and Ukraine. The loss in revenue and profits could also be largely due to Apple’s new “opt out” policy that significantly changes how ads are being served on iOS devices.
While a decline in revenue and profits is bad news, it is not something we should really feel bad about. After all, Meta still rakes in profits in the billions. What could be bad news to us though is what Mark Zuckerberg is planning for Instagram to make it more profitable than before.
Instagram primarily does photos and images. It started its life to be a one-stop shop for sharing your photos with your friends and family with no fuss or frills. When Meta, or then Facebook gotten a hold of Instagram, they saw it as an opportunity to level the playing field with Snapchat and introduced Instagram Stories, a sub platform within Instagram to share photos with your followers available for the next 24 hours. A sort of “what’s on my mind”, or “what am I doing right now” kind of thing for the masses.
Recently, Instagram has started to favour more video contents. Understandably, the rise in short form video contents had an astronomical rise thanks to the likes of TikTok. Instagram tried to introduce more video features within their platform starting with Instagram TV, a long format video platform within Instagram to encourage content creators to post longer format videos on Instagram. Then there is Reels now, a short form video platform within Instagram that is supposed to encourage content creators to post more bite sized chunks of videos on their profile.
While more contents from our friends is great for us in the grand scheme of things, Instagram has also tweaked their algorithms alongside all the new features they have added. Your Instagram main feed is now loaded with posts from strangers and accounts you have never followed. They are recommendations based on the posts you have been responding to or interacted with. Nothing wrong with that, except you are seeing less of your friends and more strangers on your feed. It is starting to be more like TikTok, and people have mentioned that they hated it.
Unfortunately, their woes will fall on deaf ears. Meta’s CEO has mentioned that the company will be doubling the amount of ‘recommended’ contents to users by 2023. The same changes apply to Facebook as well. This also means that at least 30% of our feeds on Instagram and Facebook will be filled by contents from people we do not know or have never followed suggested by Meta’s recommendation algorithm.
If you want to only see feeds from people you are following, there is a way. All you need to do is to hit the ‘Instagram’ logo on the top right corner of your display or the app and select ‘following’ there. That way you are seeing feed only from people you are following. It is an extra step, but hey, it is better than seeing strangers on your feed all the time.
Source: The Verge, Tech Crunch, 9to5Mac
