Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, sat down with Nilay Patel of The Verge for his Decoder podcast — amongst the topics, the state of Reels, the service’s TikTok clone, as Ashley Carmen relays:
Instagram is also seeing a conflict between its many different video formats. Mosseri says “most people” likely don’t know the difference between videos posted to Instagram and IGTV, the app’s format for longer videos that’s existed since 2018.
“That’s probably too nuanced a distinction to resonate with anybody, so we’re looking about how we can — not just with IGTV, but across all of Instagram — simplify and consolidate ideas, because last year we placed a lot of new bets,” he says. “I think this year we have to go back to our focus on simplicity and craft.”
This is a wildly different tone than when Instagram launched the format and called it the “future of video.” But it speaks to the rapid success of TikTok which, in 2018, wasn’t fully known in mainstream culture but is now a driver of conversation, memes, and viral dances. Mosseri hints that IGTV and Reels, as well as general videos posted to the Instagram grid, need some sort of consolidation and clarity, which makes sense, especially when the app is trying to do everything all at once.
Yes, it’s a mess. I would hugely be in favor of returning to a state of simplicity for Instagram. It’s not just that the various overlapping formats are confusing, but the UI has become Microsoft Office-like, with nested layers of options. This is just such a stark contrast to the way in which the service started, and spent most of the formative years: as an extremely simple photo sharing service.
Unfortunately, my guess is that any changes now will be more akin to Facebook’s overall idea of “simplicity” — which is best exemplified by the “simplifying” of the privacy settings of the main app on a regular basis. The fact that it has to happen every year or so says just about all you need to know. This is the M.O. — shove stuff in, watch users react, try to smooth out over time. Rinse. Repeat. But never actually “simplify”.
I still think Reels should be its own standalone app. I know this didn’t work for IGTV, but this is different for a number of reasons, including timing. Instead, it has been shoved into our faces — front and center, in the area where the posting button used to be, no less — alongside Shopping and other tangential things as Instagram continues its march towards becoming Facebook. Make Instagram great again!
