High definition videos only if viral. Instagram’s breakthrough that infuriates users

The video you uploaded to Instagram Does it lose quality over time? Nothing strange, also according to what was reported by CEO Adam Mosseri: the social network, in fact, tends to favor and …

High definition videos only if viral. Instagram's breakthrough that infuriates users


The video you uploaded to Instagram Does it lose quality over time? Nothing strange, also according to what was reported by CEO Adam Mosseri: the social network, in fact, tends to favor and push those videos that have gone viral and can count on numerous views, essentially penalizing all the others also on a qualitative level. A conscious choice as it was dictated by “engagement” issues, but certainly unpopular, which turned up the noses of both simple Instagram users and all those content creators, especially emerging ones, who saw their work belittled.

The matter is very simple: the platform essentially reduces the video quality with a lower number of views, with the main objective of reducing the storage and processing costs of the largest files, optimizing the use of the resources of the servers on which they are uploaded and making the experience of followers of the largest profiles more pleasant followed. This is essentially the reason why content creators who laboriously try to gain space on the Meta social network have protested online: with this type of penalty, growing becomes very difficult.

Mosseri admitted the new strategy during an “Ask Me Anything” session, in which an Instagram user asked why videos uploaded to Stories seemed to progressively lose quality over time. The CEO explained that the platform favors storage on high-performance servers only for viral videos or those with great visibility, moving all the others to less performing servers and consequently reducing their resolution.

If over time a video were to attract the attention of numerous users again and therefore be viewed for a long time, then the platform would restore its original quality by moving it again to the best server available.

Many began to complain to Instagram’s number one right away during the session, accusing the social network of paving the way for already successful and well-established profiles and of instead stifling the emergence of new content creators. Mosseri tried to defend himself by arguing that the resolution of the less viral videos does not actually suffer as heavy a cut as it might seem, and that the statistics reveal that it is the content and not the quality that attracts views and followers, without however convincing the protesters .

“Streaming quality is essential for those who create artistic content”commented a videomaker for example. “This system seems to favor already established creators and penalizes those who are starting out”another user considered.