When Will Instagram Pay their Creators?

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• Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri views the platform's core mission as connecting people over creativity, necessitating constant evolution (like adding Stories, DMs, and Reels) to avoid becoming irrelevant, even if it risks alienating users who prefer the original photo-centric experience.  Copied to clipboard!
• Instagram is rolling out a new feature allowing users to tune their algorithm by adding or removing topics of interest, a risky move intended to give users more control over recommended content, especially as following accounts matters less than recommended content.  Copied to clipboard!
• Instagram currently lacks a sustainable, large-scale revenue-sharing program for creators because it has not yet reached break-even profitability, unlike Facebook, with the vast majority of creator income coming from off-platform brand deals and the new Partner Ads feature.  Copied to clipboard!

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Defining Instagram’s Mission

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(00:02:25)

• Key Takeaway: Instagram’s fundamental purpose is connecting people over creativity, requiring evolution beyond its initial photo-sharing roots.
• Summary: Instagram’s core mission centers on bringing people together through creativity, which has necessitated evolving features like Stories, DMs, and Reels. The CEO noted that failing to adapt as user connection and entertainment methods change leads to irrelevance. New features must connect to creativity or connection and be used by enough people to matter.

Risk Tolerance and Evolution

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(00:05:09)

• Key Takeaway: Instagram’s culture biases toward taking risks and pushing boundaries, preferring to risk blowback over becoming slowly irrelevant by failing to adapt.
• Summary: The leadership biases toward taking risks and making bigger bets, viewing stagnation as the greater threat to the platform’s scale. This risk tolerance applies to feature additions, where the goal is to evolve rather than simply maintain the status quo. The CEO acknowledged that sometimes these risks result in negative feedback.

Feature Prioritization Filter

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(00:06:30)

• Key Takeaway: New features must be novel, interesting, or meaningfully advance the app or business, while also aligning with Instagram’s mission of creativity and connection.
• Summary: A feature must either be novel/interesting or meaningfully move the app or business forward to be considered, otherwise it is deemed noise. Features must also connect to the mission, such as empowering creators with AI, rather than pursuing unrelated goals. Instagram consciously makes bets that might sacrifice immediate engagement or revenue, like prioritizing originality over aggregators, hoping for long-term creative community benefit.

Meta Independence and Focus

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(00:08:16)

• Key Takeaway: Instagram balances Meta’s broader goals by leveraging shared infrastructure (like ads and safety tech) while maintaining its distinct identity focused on visual creative expression.
• Summary: Instagram operates as a balance within Meta, utilizing shared infrastructure, ad systems, and safety technologies from the parent company. Its unique identity is focused on creative expression, particularly visual creativity, differentiating it from Threads (ideas/perspectives) and Facebook (social marketplace). This balance ensures contribution back to Meta without losing Instagram’s specific focus.

iPad App Rationale

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(00:09:45)

• Key Takeaway: The Instagram iPad app was developed as a Reels-first experience to align with current growth drivers (messaging and Reels) and suit tablet consumption patterns.
• Summary: The iPad app was prioritized because Reels and messaging are driving current growth, and the app needed reorientation around those concepts. Tablet usage naturally aligns with video consumption, which involves fewer sessions but longer duration per session compared to phones. This allowed Instagram to test a Reels-first experience without disrupting the existing mobile user base.

Handling User Feedback

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(00:11:36)

• Key Takeaway: Instagram seeks the root need behind user feedback, aiming to meet that need in a forward-moving way rather than simply reverting to old features.
• Summary: The CEO actively reviews comments and DMs to find the signal within user requests, trying to understand the underlying need rather than just the requested feature. While users often ask for old features like chronological feed or prioritizing photos, the platform must balance this with necessary forward evolution. The most requested items currently include verification and restoring chronological feeds, though the latter is available but not the default.

New Algorithm Tuning Feature

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(00:16:41)

• Key Takeaway: A new feature allows users to tune their algorithm by viewing and adjusting inferred interests, addressing the shift toward recommended content over followed accounts.
• Summary: Inspired by the ‘Dear Algorithm’ meme, this feature lets users see the top topics Instagram believes they are interested in, primarily driven by engagement with recommended Reels. Users can add missing topics or explicitly remove interests they no longer want to see, offering a more granular control than a full algorithmic reset. The risks involve potential execution errors and reduced engagement efficiency compared to the current system.

Social Network Convergence

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(00:22:56)

• Key Takeaway: Social networks are experiencing increased convergence, rapidly adopting successful features like ranking and stories from competitors, creating pressure to differentiate while borrowing ideas.
• Summary: The competition is fierce, leading to a fast rate of convergence where apps quickly borrow successful features like ranking and stories from each other. If all platforms become identical, users face no switching cost, pressuring Instagram to maintain a unique identity. The core ideas (connecting friends, exploring interests) must remain, even as the ‘how’ (the feature set) changes.

Creator Monetization Breakdown

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(00:27:26)

• Key Takeaway: Instagram monetization relies overwhelmingly on off-platform brand deals, as the platform’s direct revenue share (bonuses) has not proven sustainable or break-even.
• Summary: Creators primarily earn money via branded content deals and the new Partner Ads feature, which allows brands to use creator content for direct response advertising. Instagram has not made its direct revenue share (bonuses/rev share) sustainable, unlike Facebook, because it cannot yet break even on the payouts. The three criteria for scaling rev share are achieving break-even, transparent eligibility criteria, and ensuring checks are not ’embarrassing’ in size.

Future of Instagram and AI

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(00:43:01)

• Key Takeaway: The next major change for Instagram will be driven by AI, leading to more content creation but also blurring the lines between real and synthetic content.
• Summary: Over the next few years, AI will change content creation, enabling more people to make better or first-time content, though this raises concerns about deep fakes and content trust. The future will likely involve a ‘blurry middle’ of AI-assisted content rather than purely synthetic or purely real content. Further out, the rise of wearables like smart glasses will fundamentally change Instagram’s consumption form factor, making its future less clear.

Human Creators vs. AI

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(00:48:19)

• Key Takeaway: While AI creators are efficient, Instagram values human creators because their taste, cultural understanding, and unique perspectives offer differentiated content that AI ‘slop’ cannot replicate.
• Summary: Human creatives bring taste and cultural understanding that AI currently lacks, even if AI can fabricate content easily. Content that is easily found everywhere (like AI ‘slop’ or sports highlights) is less valuable because it is not differentiated or defensible for the platform. Instagram is incentivized to keep human creators happy because their unique output provides value beyond simple engagement metrics.