Do remember how it felt when you first got on Instagram?
You’d share a photo, and the people who followed you saw it.
There were no internal debates over trending audio.
Or the buyer psychology behind your opening line.
I can't help but notice what a different experience it is when you open the app today.
You’re met with a suggested viral post from a stranger.
Next, you're face-to-face with an oddly specific ad.
One thumb swipe down, and finally a familiar face.
It’s someone you liked and still follow. But now she’s molding her message to fit into a "three-second hook" trying to be seen.
Underneath the experience is a feeling with no name.
Not disgust. Not worry.
Just a sense that it's taking more than it's giving.
As it turns out, this feeling does have a name.
And it’s not just a feeling. It’s written in the data.
Here are three things we know for sure about Meta right now.
- Their Users Are Quietly Quitting: For the first time in its history, Meta is seeing a decline in daily active users.
- They Don't Know What People Want: The company has funneled hundreds of billions into experimental projects—like the Metaverse —that have failed to gain traction, leading to a massive corporate debt. Oh, and your small biz is gonna bail them out.
- You're Paying For Their Mistakes: To maintain profits while users leave and they spend money on things no one wants, Meta is cramming more ads onto our feeds. This buries your posts while creating a crappier user experience, causing more people to flee.
Journalist Cory Doctorow calls this process Enshittification.
It’s when a platform prioritizes profits over user experience, making the whole thing feel a little dirty.
And honestly when I heard the term that hard to place feeling I got from scrolling made 100% logical sense.
