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   wakest ⁂ (liaizon@social.wake.st)'s status on Monday, 22-Jun-2026 05:50:05 JST wakest ⁂

   Who's seriously trying to take on Instagram's dominance rn? I don't mean anything in the open social web, as we are but a tear drop in the bucket.

   • Embed this notice
     Eugen Rochko (gargron@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 22-Jun-2026 05:49:03 JST Eugen Rochko

     in reply to

     • かき@GNUsocialJP

     @liaizon I’m not surprised. Instagram passed me by completely. When I was curious about it, it was only available on iOS and I couldn’t afford an iPhone. When I could afford an iPhone, I was no longer curious. I actually finally tried it out a few months ago, but the experience was so bad, I still genuinely don’t understand what people get out of the app. It’s some kind of mutual hostage network effects situation.

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     wakest ⁂ (liaizon@social.wake.st)'s status on Monday, 22-Jun-2026 05:49:13 JST wakest ⁂

     in reply to

     That we here on this super nerd alt technology space have not been able to make the slightest dent in their monolithic hegemony is frankly frightening

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     wakest ⁂ (liaizon@social.wake.st)'s status on Monday, 22-Jun-2026 05:49:24 JST wakest ⁂

     in reply to

     I think it's quite dangerous how much of a lack of response we have to Instagrams dominance

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     wakest ⁂ (liaizon@social.wake.st)'s status on Monday, 22-Jun-2026 05:49:32 JST wakest ⁂

     in reply to

     I'd be interested in what's going on in countries where Instagram isn't so prominent

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     wakest ⁂ (liaizon@social.wake.st)'s status on Monday, 22-Jun-2026 05:49:43 JST wakest ⁂

     in reply to

     All the people and projects building clients and servers for the fediverse and the atmosphere are great and I am glad they exist, but adoption is a hell of a problem and you need a team of many people to even attempt this. It is bigger then anyone who's working in this area acknowledges

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     wakest ⁂ (liaizon@social.wake.st)'s status on Monday, 22-Jun-2026 05:49:53 JST wakest ⁂

     in reply to

     I think the first part of this is even understanding what IG even is in 2026. Like its such a huge surface area. I'd say Telegram is probably the thing that's closest to having a dent in IG rn. Signal isn't going in this direction (for good reason)

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     scribe (scribe@mastodon.sdf.org)'s status on Monday, 22-Jun-2026 06:00:46 JST scribe

     in reply to

     @liaizon A fundamental part of this is understanding methods of the attention economy, and mainly the default view into content browsing. Network effects and vendor lock-in make it psychologically difficult to entertain another "homepage" that you fire up when you're bored - certainly not a novel one, and certainly not past the 3-4 apps you can only just keep up with already.

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     scribe (scribe@mastodon.sdf.org)'s status on Monday, 22-Jun-2026 06:02:51 JST scribe

     in reply to

     @liaizon I was going to say that any alternative has to come with clear and refreshing values about *why*, as well as an actual easy UI etc etc. But honestly? I think the masses just want to go where the masses are. Same with TikTok, WhastApp, even X still. Societal defaults - small groups may emerge as alternatives, but it all comes down to mainstream network effects winning out.

   • Embed this notice
     Eugen Rochko (gargron@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 22-Jun-2026 06:17:22 JST Eugen Rochko

     in reply to

     • かき@GNUsocialJP
     • Casey

     @kc @liaizon Yes, my own understanding is that the primary value of Instagram is the DMs since it basically has the userbase of facebook but it's not widely considered cringe to be using it. Unfortunately I've encountered more than one person who has no public email and can only be contacted through Instagram.

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     Casey (kc@chaos.social)'s status on Monday, 22-Jun-2026 06:17:23 JST Casey

     in reply to

     • Eugen Rochko

     @Gargron @liaizon Instagram gives you ~a gazillion options to express oneself without being labeled a „content creator“, from private messages to TikTok videos to temporary „Stories“ and permanent posts, there’s something for everyone and once you‘ve learned to use it, its vastness and those hostage effects are really darn convincing to just (truly) asynchronously and non-linearly communicate there. I think especially that non-linearity is one of the things that intrigues people most about IG.