Instagram has long been accused of stealing features from platforms such as TikTok, Snapchat, and Twitter/X. It appears that the company has looked to YouTube for its latest idea: unskippable ads that you have to watch for a period of time before being able to scroll further.

A Redditor posted images of the Instagram ad breaks. FireCubX writes that users will suddenly find they have hit the bottom of their feed, so to speak, and can’t scroll down any further. An “ad break” icon will appear with a countdown timer that prevents users from browsing through more content until they view an ad, at which point the counter starts running down.


I’m happy I only have a lemmy account

  • solsangraal@lemmy.zip
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    22 days ago

    they’re stress testing the user base. they don’t give half a flying fuck how outraged you are. they only care about whether you’ll quit the platform. which you won’t.

    • Codilingus@sh.itjust.works
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      22 days ago

      “We have determined that we’ll be able to fill 80% of the user’s display with advertising before inducing seizures.”

      From Ready Player One movie.

    • helenslunch@feddit.nl
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      16 days ago

      Exactly. They’re past the point of bringing in new users. Now they’re just focusing on extracting more value from the ones they already have.