Instagram Killed the Photo. Now It Just Wants Your Content
Instagram used to be simple. You opened the app. You uploaded a photo. Maybe you added a filter. Done.
Those days are gone. Now opening Instagram feels like navigating a casino. Reels here, Stories there, prompts everywhere. The app desperately wants you to create “content” instead of just sharing pictures.
I miss when posting a photo was actually about the photo.
The App That Ate Itself
Instagram isn’t one app anymore. It’s three or four apps crammed into a single icon.
There’s the grid. That’s what people over 35 think of as “Instagram.” Then Stories appeared, shamelessly copied from Snapchat. Next came Reels, where videos show up a week after they went viral on TikTok.
Plus, Instagram constantly pushes you toward engagement features. Want to use that iPad app you waited a decade for? Great. But you’re looking at Reels first. Need to search for something? Nope. You’re asking Meta AI instead.
The app throws so many features at you that actually sharing a photo becomes an obstacle course.
I Tried Using Every Feature at Once
Here’s an experiment. I uploaded one photo and enabled every feature Instagram offered.
First, I added text on top of the image. Then overlaid another image. Added a suggested song. Applied a filter. Tweaked the lighting. Used Meta AI to rewrite my caption into a “prompt.” Tried adding a poll that somehow never appeared in the final post.
I stopped short of adding a fundraiser. That seemed gross even for a test.
The result? An unbearable mess. More importantly, it wasn’t a photo anymore. It was Content with a capital C.
When Did Photos Become Content?
Instagram changed from a photo app into a platform for Content years ago. But the transformation accelerated recently.
Why just post a photo when you can turn it into an engagement opportunity? Add music. Create a prompt. Ask followers to comment. Make them vote in a poll.
Instagram wants everyone to imagine themselves as content creators. You’re not sharing vacation pictures. You’re building a personal brand. Encouraging followers to like, comment, and subscribe.
Look, I get it. Some people love adding songs to beach photos. Fine. That’s great for them.
But Instagram forces these options on everyone. The app is bloated with a decade’s worth of features designed to keep you scrolling. Each one makes simple photo sharing harder.
Just Give Us Elder Millennial Mode
Here’s a free idea for Meta. Give us back simple photo sharing.
It doesn’t need to be a separate app. Make it a mode. Call it “elder millennial mode” if you want. We’re old enough to remember when you uploaded a photo, added a filter, and finished.
We want that again.
I don’t want to soundtrack every grid post. I don’t care to use AI to rewrite captions into “prompts” that beg for engagement. I just want to post a picture.
Sure, any app that’s been around since 2010 needs to evolve. I don’t post the same way I did a decade ago. Back then, anything I saw on the sidewalk seemed worthy of the grid. Now those random shots go in Stories, where a handful of people see them before they vanish.
That’s actually an improvement. Stories work for ephemeral moments.
But there’s a difference between evolving gracefully and bolting on every trend from the past decade. Instagram chose the latter approach.
The Joke’s on Me
Given how often I open Instagram daily, I guess the strategy works. Meta got what it wanted. Endless engagement.
But sharing a photo shouldn’t feel like publishing Content. It should feel like sharing a photo.
Remember when Instagram was just about the pictures? When the app didn’t try to turn every user into a content creator? When you could upload something without navigating a maze of engagement features?
That simplicity is dead. Instagram killed it. What we have now is a platform that treats every photo as an opportunity for you to create, optimize, and monetize content.
Maybe I’m just old. Maybe this is what people want now. But I doubt it. Most of us still just want to share pictures with friends. Not build personal brands. Not chase engagement metrics. Not turn our lives into content.
Just pictures. Is that really too much to ask?
