Comment by habosa

Comment by habosa 5 days ago

41 replies

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So I only use Instagram for the DMs with friends. I don’t follow anyone at all, so my feed should be empty. For years it was.

Then at some point Instagram decided I must not know what I want, they should show me recommended posts from random accounts.

There’s a setting to turn this off … but instead of being a normal toggle I can only “snooze” the posts for 30 days. 30 days of peace and then the spam comes back.

No matter how many times I make it clear what I want, they don’t care. Just gross.

Imustaskforhelp 5 days ago

Dude if you only want to use insta for dms, try bleeper. I swear, most of my school friends only use / are active on insta and I never used insta because I Hated reels / insta in general (my personal opinion, never found it appealing)

So my friend suggested me to use bleeper, I had heard of it ofc but I mean I always thought eh it would be too much of an hassle, then when my friend did it and said its easy so I actually downloaded bleeper created an insta with a password on private incognito and then just pasted the password to my phone's bleeper in insta and then gave it to friend and boom I am now in insta dms without using insta.

And its all free. and they even run on matrix protocol and are pushing to be even more self hosted (ie. currently the account gets in their server, (i think) afterwards, it would be on your local device)

Seriously man, I think I am sort of a shill of bleeper even though they don't even know who I am or I have an incentive to, but I genuinely like their product. I genuinely hope that they don't ever enshitten it man. Bleeper team if you are reading this, that's my only request, don't add power creep, keep on focusing on local as you are doing right now and just don't ever enshitten your product.

Reply View 22 replies
  • heresie-dabord 5 days ago

    Sincere question: What is the reason for the popular appeal of using Instagram for messaging?

    Reply View 18 replies
    • kevincox 5 days ago

      Because it is what your friends and potential friends are using.

      It isn't really a noteworthy messaging app other than bring attached to a popular app.

      Reply View 8 replies
      • heresie-dabord 5 days ago

        > potential friends

        Hmm. So it's the perceived "best place" as a default. Is there some "discoverability" feature as well?

        Reply View 7 replies
    • diggan 5 days ago

      > What is the reason for the popular appeal of using Instagram for messaging?

      Same reason people use any social network: because your friends, family and/or people you otherwise/somehow care about are there.

      Reply View 8 replies
      • reaperducer 5 days ago

        Same reason people use any social network: because your friends, family and/or people you otherwise/somehow care about are there.

        If they're on Instagram, aren't they necessarily also on SMS, plus a billion other people? All ad-free?

        Reply View 3 replies
      • heresie-dabord 5 days ago

        Sure, but why Instagram specifically? Is this just first-mover/early-mover advantage or is IG better at something?

        Reply View 3 replies
  • philipp-gayret 5 days ago

    Bleeper or Beeper (https://www.beeper.com)? Beeper is an app like you describe, can't find Bleeper. And it's by Automattic which I think have an OK reputation for not destroying their products.

    Reply View 2 replies
sneak 5 days ago

It’s not nice to subject your friends’ private communications to ad tech surveillance.

I deleted my Instagram account, now my friends and I message on other (end to end encrypted) platforms that don’t subject us to censorship and spying.

Reply View 11 replies
  • charlie-83 5 days ago

    Sometimes you have to choose between not talking to someone and talking to them on such a platform. For friends, sure, just says that you want to switch to something e2e. But for people you don't really know that well it's kind of unreasonable to expect them to switch for you. LinkedIn is a good example, I don't like using the platform but I also have no interest in adding loads of random old colleages I might talk to occasionally to any e2e platform I use.

    Reply View 10 replies
    • Imustaskforhelp 5 days ago

      That is so real man. I was a massive push in pushing everyone to use signal but I could only convince 2-3 of my friends and literally now there is only 1 single friend of mine who is on signal..

      Whereas on insta dm, literally all of my friends are there, mostly 24x7 active. I just used bleeper to sometimes interact with them. I think it made my mental health definitely more saner/net gain

      I care about my privacy enough but I can't have it make me lonely. I hate meta with my guts but the sacrifice that I found was using bleeper or something that doesn't have anything extra of insta related except just chats

      Sometimes Sacrifices must be made

      Reply View 6 replies
      • sneak 5 days ago

        If your friends can’t install a free app and type in their phone number and an auth code (literally takes 30 seconds) to talk to you privately, they aren’t your friends.

        (I have no other messengers and have recruited about a hundred people to use Signal, including much of the Vegas cash game poker scene.)

        Quality over quantity is important always, but is of utmost importance when it comes to personal associations.

        Delete your Meta accounts, find out who your real friends are.

        Reply View 5 replies
    • vel0city 5 days ago

      > it's kind of unreasonable to expect them to switch for you

      And yet they expect you to switch for them?

      Reply View 1 reply
      • charlie-83 3 days ago

        I guess there is a difference between expect and assume. It would be weird for me to assume that the vast majority of people care deeply about digital privacy when clearly that's not true. Its pretty reasonable for them to assume I have Instagram or whatever when the vast majority of people do.

        From their perspective, they assume I already have an Instagram account and if I say I don't then they aren't really going to understand why I wouldn't want to make one. For someone who isn't well informed on issues of digital privacy, I think this is a reasonable way to behave. From their perspective, someone demanding they download and use some random app they haven't heard of for reasons about encryption they don't understand is not reasonable.

        Of course it is very worthwhile trying to educate people on issues of digital privacy. If you are able to educate them, then they will see that you perpective is reasonable. However, you aren't going to change everyone's minds

        Reply View 0 replies
    • [removed] 5 days ago
      [deleted]
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Sloowms 3 days ago

They didn't even consider what you want or anyone other than the way to make profit of the app. Sometimes those goals align, many times not. The reason they show you random accounts is because they want you to get hooked and watch the ads they sell.

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crossroadsguy 5 days ago

It’s like X reverting to “For you” from “Following” no matter how intently you ask them to show less often. It’s like X telling you - “don’t ever install our app, it’ll be worse”.

By the way, Meta then must add a paid plan “Messaging Only” mode for Instagram :)

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iLoveOncall 5 days ago

While I do get the frustration, you cannot really complain if you don't use Instagram for its main feature...

You can use an application like Franz or Beeper to have ONLY the chats and nothing else.

Reply View 1 reply
  • Imustaskforhelp 5 days ago

    Can vouch for beeper. My mind was blown when it JUST WORKED. I use beeper to chat with my friends on insta and its definitely a really good method to communicate with the insta friends instead of using the app. Though when they send reel I can't really see it natively and it opens web browser but that's what I want and I don't watch the reels the guys send anyway.

    Reply View 0 replies
internet_points 5 days ago

Is there any account that just shows boring stuff every day? Because now it says when I snooze that I won't see recommended posts unless I've scrolled past my friends' posts. So it seems I need to follow something that I'm totally uninterested in (I'm thinking gray boxes of unvarying sizes would be good), and that posts quite often.

OOh I found a use for AI slop! Getting me off instagram!

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