Instagram has plans to soon release a new update that lets you see who of your friends or followers are online by showing a green dot besides their name.
This update has already been revealed for public use at least on the Android platform.
Instagram has slowly been moving towards broadening their activity status since early January when they rolled out the activity statuses by showing ‘Active Now’, ‘Active 30m ago’, ‘Active 3h ago’, or ‘Active today’.
The new update will just add a small green dot next to the name and you can see that when you go to your ‘Direct’ inbox which is placed in the top right corner with an icon of a paper airplane icon.
The thing that struck me the most was how this was exactly like Facebook and their Messenger app and that lead me to the observation of how Instagram might slowly be turning into a second Facebook with an array of useless and unneeded features and updates.
Unnecessary Updates In Instagram
Instagram was bought over by Facebook all the way back in 2012, however, since then there has been a steady walk to slowly integrating Facebook features and services into the former platform.
First, they changed the layout of the images from the standard cropped square format to introducing portrait and landscape image, then they brought on ads and then rearranged the algorithm to rearrange posts as per the user’s activity and what they care about. This way, at least a good majority of the newsfeed does not go ignored and users will spend more time on the app.
Instagram Web Profiles was another feature that I cannot understand because sure, perhaps it works well for brands and celebrities who want to showcase their entire life online and freely, but for normal people, unless and until you have made your account private, your whole Insta page is just one Google search away from being found.
That means all your images and every bit of your life that you put on Instagram is there for anyone and everyone to see, which seems like a major violation of one’s privacy.
The intimacy and blanket of safety that Instagram at first provided by being only a mobile service, was effectively ripped away by Facebook introducing the profiles on the web domain.
Then Instagram stories, introduced a number of new problems mainly one where people were focusing more on their stories instead of posting on their actual page. What this did was make the actual posting of images on the profile exclusive and meant for important occasions and the rest of our feed was filled to the brim with ads, celebrities and influencers mainly who are posting in a very professional manner and only to gain more followers.
Then Instagram live like Facebook live came in and perhaps the most irritating of all would be the addition of random people whom Instagram recommends us to follow, suggested posts to see, and ads related to your searches.
Why Is Instagram Wasting Time With Bad Updates?
Instead of actually changing the platform with good updates that better the user experience it now feels that features are just a copy paste of Facebook in order to gain more revenue since why not.
They obviously worked for Facebook, and will now work for Instagram and work to bring in the money, just like limiting the reach.
The problem of being unable to tag friends if you don’t really recall their username, posts not coming in chronological order, increasing number of troll and dangerous accounts that spread hate and unrest among the users is still not solved.
Privacy is still being violated, but does anyone care?
No, not really, because Facebook is mainly just concerned with making money and how will that be made if everyone is hidden by a safety wall of privacy?
Image Credits: Google Images
Sources: Hindustan Times, Wall Street Journal, The Odyssey + more
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