Instagram alternatives

[Dikkie]

Hello folks!

Are there any Instagram users here?

I'm a bit done with Instagram lately... perhaps some other people have the same experience as I do.
Just wanted to talk about it. (sorry for my rant)
Before I was a Flickr member (still have my account, but at some moment the interactions tumbled down to zero).
So I then switched to Instagram 10 years ago, as that app was booming at that moment.

I also was switching from carrying my heavy DSLR to my lightweight phone to take daily snapshots underway, commuting to work ...
It was the time Instagram was still photo focused.

Nowadays it's more rewarding for video-posters, making reels, posting daily stories, more going the way of TikTok.

Lately I noticed that it took away too much of my daily focus and productivity, and it seems to make me addictive and lazy.
Therefore I now started a digital detox for the next month... see what changes in my daily habits.

However, last week I was looking for alternatives for Instagram that are less addictive, but still interesting, and I also became aware at that time that lots of other people were fleeing away to alternatives.
Things were happening in the news, with Elon Musk, a lot of X users switched to something else.
With the less-ethical Meta strategies the same, a lot of users were starting to look for other stuff...

So I read about the Metaverse.... and there's the Fediverse too.
Didn't know about that.

There's Mastodon (X alternative), Pixelfed (a bit alternative for IG), Friendica (FB alt), and so on...
There's aswel BlueSky (X alternative) who is making a new photo app too to go live soon (Flashes).

So I made accounts on these platforms to test them out... it's a bit difficult to start from zero again, and almost no mainstream users there that I was following on Meta platforms.
BlueSky has "starter packs" with groups of users that you can follow directly with one click, so you get a whole bunch of people to follow with the same interest, e.g. photography.

I'm now using a website called Fedica, where I can schedule posts so I can upload a couple of my fav/best photos from before... and it's handy, you can plan and post them directly to all the platforms together at once.
But I'll now just test it out now for a month and see what's happening... I'm not sure I'll return to the other side again as I know how bad it goes.
Now that I think of it more from a distance, I see a lot of people selling themselves online, almost onlyfans, a lot of people became the product, and the content is lowbrow superficial.

There's much more reasons to make the switch from Meta/X to Fediverse.

What irritates me the most: a lot of my friends posts do not show up in my feed and after a year I go to their profile and see that they posted a lot of stuff I wasn't seeing ... they then think I've been ignoring them all the time, but that's because the feed is not shown.

IG and FB decide what content is shown, based on dodgy algorithms.

It has long been known that Meta manipulates the behaviour of their users and made them believe they have the freedom to post their opinion and are really connected to each other. But the opposite is true.

The lack of moderation on hate speech, algorithms that prioritize controversial discriminatory content (racism, LGBTQI-phobia,…), in order to get more outrage engagement leading to a wider spread of bad ideas. Invisible shadow banning censorship, echo chambers, reducing people’s reach, dividing people, pitting them against each other and so on.
The opposite of how a harmonious society should be.

More irritations: saturation of commercial advertisements in the feed, privacy issues, tiktokification by rewarding superficial reels above quality photography. Half your feed full of fake AI posts to waste your time. And above all: you are the product, people don’t realize their private data is being sold and you don’t get a single penny.

One could stay indifferent and continue supporting all these things above… or one can be part of the SOLUTION BELOW!

Switch from the Metaverse and X to the Fediverse.

There’s free alternative platforms, community driven, no algorithmic manipulations, no ads, real privacy and data control, open-source, decentralized, no billionaires involved or people on top who decide what's happening. More authenticity, less social pressure.

Imagine we all make a move towards ethical technology and free ourselves from corporate surveillance. Think about apps like Pixelfed, Mastodon, and many more!
Wouldn't it be cool if we all moved there?

If we all slowly make the transition, as from next week? Or let us just try for a month and see what happens if Meta suddenly loses their grip on all of us? You don’t have to close your accounts, yet.
What’s your opinion about this? Would you do it?

Or do you have other alternatives?

 

[Thiophilos]

Interesting post! (And long. ) But that's OK.

I have accounts in FB and IG and use them pretty well just for posting and sharing photos. FB works best for this because that is where my real friends are.

IG isn't working that well for me. Maybe it is as you say, they going to reels and so on.

Recently I'm in Bluesky and getting little traction. I post stuff and nobody notices. I didn't know these starter packs existed! Thanks - am trying those now.

The core problem for us photographers is that everybody is making pictures but few are interested in seeing them. There is an oversupply of pics.

Not sure at this point that I want to try Fediverse. It might be great, but managing all these accounts is a bore.

 

[nerwin]

BlueSky. Great photography community there and soon they are rolling out a photo sharing platform.

 

[Ozzie_Traveller]

G'day Dikkie

you say ...
Lately I noticed that it took away too much of my daily focus and productivity, and it seems to make me addictive and lazy. Therefore I now started a digital detox for the next month... see what changes in my daily habits.

Not meaning to be rude in any way - but ...
You could 'go commando' and abandon all such platforms and simply devote your energies to one or two dedicated forums such as this one - where non-photographic stuff is not inserted to cause you to waste so much of your day

Maybe / hope this will help you 'face the world'
Phil

 

[Dikkie]

Not meaning to be rude in any way - but ...
You could 'go commando' and abandon all such platforms and simply devote your energies to one or two dedicated forums such as this one - where non-photographic stuff is not inserted to cause you to waste so much of your day

Maybe / hope this will help you 'face the world'
Phil

Yeah, perhaps it's the only way indeed.
Perhaps my focus is too shattered around too many channels (social media, other internet things).
Perhaps it's also too shattered in too many hobbies and interests. Doing 10 hobbies below average instead of only 1 above average.
I just can't help it. I can't let go my other passions, and connections.

But I'll your advise and narrow the communication channels... don't have to close the other things, I can do some time management and post on the others an update once every couple of months too.

In any way I'm not leaving this forum you know, I'm here already from 2005 and love this kind of communities. Although I'm not that active since I'm not really doing photography so much.

I recently went to Paris for a day (not that far away for me), and got my DSLR with me... didn't take it out of my bag, I took all the photos with my phone.
I noticed there is not much pressure pushing me to go for it as I did before.

 

[dstreetphoto]

I couldn't agree with you more about Meta, and the irony is, the "Metaverse" was coined by Neal Stevenson in his dystopian sci-fi novel, Snowcrash. I gave up on both FB an IG, they only exist now to exploit users and make money from them.

As for alternatives, there are a few: Cara (not specifically for photos, but you can still share them) Pixelfed and another platform on the horizon, Flashes from Bluesky. Beyond these platforms, you could also try a blog.

 

[Thiophilos]

Hmm... Flickr should be the ideal place for sharing photos. The uploaded pics are high res, exif info is shown, comments are possible, adult content is OK, there are groups and albums.

But nobody loves Flickr.

 

[Dikkie]

Hmm... Flickr should be the ideal place for sharing photos. The uploaded pics are high res, exif info is shown, comments are possible, adult content is OK, there are groups and albums.

But nobody loves Flickr.

I loved it before... and I used it to store pictures that I then could upload on forums like this one.

But for some reason I don't have good interactions there or make connections with others like I do on Instagram very quickly.
I'm still doubting to leave IG, I really met some nice people and locals, as you can quickly view which visitors come into the bar or shop next door, as they tag it and comment there too.
IG has no privacy, that's right. Some say it's bad, but I found it handy to quickly get social and connect with others I probably wouldn't have met otherwise.
On the other hand: too much ads...

I have ads on Flickr too, as I'm a free plan user, and I stopped uploading because otherwise I get to my max 1000 images and will face the question: paid plan or delete old pictures?

What bothers me on Flickr too is that the way of engagement is so childish... hundreds of groups to tag your BW shot as "BW" or people willing to be a curator and starting a group, "like 5 pictures and .... ", "award and fav that... group".
Oh boy.

And then all the following: same as on IG. Ok it's nice to have a lot of followers, boosts your ego, fine. But on the other hand there are so many uninteresting people you follow too... you could easily unfollow, and then they're offended.
Or boring family and friends who started to follow you and wanted a follow back to see picture of what they're eating and their cats... Unfollow them and feel the rage coming

Perhaps I'm a bit done with that, outgrown, I don't know, perhaps I need a rest and focus on real life, doing something else, start playing my guitar again. But sooner or later I'll feel the need to record that guitar, and put something online to share... for feedback? and then I need an account somewhere, with followers that I don't know and will never meet
I'm in a cycle you know, endless !

 

[Ozzie_Traveller]

Hmm... Flickr should be the ideal place for sharing photos. The uploaded pics are high res, exif info is shown, comments are possible, adult content is OK, there are groups and albums.

But nobody loves Flickr.

G'day all

Hmmmmmmm - havta disagree here matey - but for me it's the =only= site I use to display my images to family & friends, not only for the reasons referred to above, but also because it does not require visitors to create an account so as to view those images
Phil

 

[Dikkie]

G'day Dikkie

you say ...
Lately I noticed that it took away too much of my daily focus and productivity, and it seems to make me addictive and lazy. Therefore I now started a digital detox for the next month... see what changes in my daily habits.

Not meaning to be rude in any way - but ...
You could 'go commando' and abandon all such platforms and simply devote your energies to one or two dedicated forums such as this one - where non-photographic stuff is not inserted to cause you to waste so much of your day

Maybe / hope this will help you 'face the world'
Phil

I planned an instagram detox for February.
I abandoned it for over 2 weeks now, and the first days I noticed my brain started to push me trying to get me back.
A bit like when I stop drinking coffee for more then a day I start getting headache.
Some kind of "fear of missing out", while at the same time realizing I actually don't miss 90% of the the superficial things happening there.
I went to an event in that time span where I made a picture and thought: "oh no, now I can't share it in my stories".... mm, and sharing it later in March is totally irrelevant. So I sent it just to a couple of people who were interested in that event via Whatsapp, because I came to think that 'happiness is only real when shared'.
I explained a bit more about that thought here in this post:

https://www.thephotoforum.com/threa...graphy-sean-tucker.480202/page-5#post-4237907

Why would I even take a picture from something as I'm not planning to share it with others?

Now, as you say, abandoning these platforms and reducing my photo sharing to dedicated forums, is a good idea.
Though, in the last decade I built up an audience through these platforms. And a bunch of interesting people there I met in real life, and some are really valuable. Most are also local people where I can easily build a connection with in real life aswel. On Instagram you can easily find likeminded people going to the same shops and bars and find a direct connection.
That's not possible with a forum where I see virtual people from the other side of the world, like Australia or USA.

Yes I thought about abandoning, but that's not a solution... And creating a new profile and start from scratch isn't it neither, inviting the interesting people from your old profile... not easy if you have to go through a couple of thousands of profiles...
Same goes for "unfollowing" the ones and cleaning up the list... Every couple of years I try to delete inactive users.
Yesterday I went online to check out a couple of functions in the app that might help.... and I directly got sucked into the stories section (a part that's really addictive to me apparently), and the reels full of AI-made content, ad-promotions, semi-porn, fake-news,... Not healthy at all.
TikTok is even more addictive, all video-related, keeping people there for as long as possible consuming the biggest crap.

So I deleted the app again (but chose to keep my account) and will reïnstall and delete it each time once a month or so I don't miss the connection the people I value and don't want to loose connection with. This way I can stay productive each time for weeks, and plan an hour each month to answer messages.

Meanwhile, I also use Fedica if I want to upload content, it's an interesting platform/app where I can win a lot of time with.
You can upload your photo's directly to multiple platforms at once: IG, BlueSky, Mastodon, FB, and many many more. So you don't have to go through each platform anymore. With the free plan, you can schedule up to 10 posts in the future in the coming weeks/months, so meanwhile you can deconnect easily for some time and your audience thinks you're still there. You can also post on automatic calculated times where you will reach the most audience.

Oh well, the system is so contradictive, big companies trying so hard to get people to stay as long as possible on their platform, consuming their content, while (addicted) users trying so hard to stay away from it and save time for real life.

 

[Ozzie_Traveller]

G'day mate

Good for you - even though your post is a long one, it was interesting to read

On a similar - personal - level, I did something similar several yrs ago with my travel blog to "family, friends and others". Into one regular newsletter, I inserted the comment 'my address list for these newsletters is becoming quite large- please RSVP to confirm that you actually read this and would like to continue to receive these newsletters'. Only about 20% of the original addressees responded with a 'yes' ... telling me that the bulk of people were too busy with their own lives to be really bothered with what I was doing / finding important to me. So the list quickly became shorter !

Maybe it applies to other stuff - like Insta+Tik+ whatever etc .... as well
Phil

 

[Thiophilos]

@Ozzie_Traveller - LOL, for sure.

If I went on strike on Instagram and ceased posting, would my followers demand answers?

 

[Dikkie]

If I went on strike on Instagram and ceased posting, would my followers demand answers?

That's a good question.

It all depends on a couple parameters.
Are these followers people who know you in person? Do they actually care? Do you have relevant or interesting posts there or only rubbish?
Tons of people just follow others that post stupid funny cat videos. For certain people, cat videos are not that stupid, it's their whole life. We have to respect that.
Tons of people just follow others to have followers back.
Perhaps if you post a message: "Dudes, I'm out for a while, will be back to you next summer", you'll surely get a couple reactions from dedicated followers who will miss your posts.
But if you just silently stop posting, without announcing it, will someone ever notice? Perhaps a couple, after a while... but will they let you know about it?

Would you be missed (in real life), when you're gone? It's a deep question that everyone struggles with sometimes.

For me personally, my kids and wife, yes. But much other people, I don't know... maybe 2 friends. ...
I guess most close family members won't care, as they're so much busy with their own ego and life, they never care about my opinion or if I'm here or not.

Some people want to get famous, I'm not that guy, but some people just don't want to be forgotten after they're gone. Even if it's just for some close relatives. (a lot of times in my life I've almost been involved in a traffic accident, it was always very close... a bike accident with surgery was maybe one of these moments where I thought it could have been my last moment - everyone has had such moments)
For me, I think it's nice to have some work of mine somewhere, like photos on a wall, or online, or music I made, somewhere in the cloud. If my daughters want to hear me once again later, they can.
I also planted a sequoia tree in the garden together with them when they were little. Hoping that this tree will still be there generations after... a life tree, memories,...

So yes, you always have to be aware that something can happen to you today, and you won't be there tomorrow.
The photo you posted today on Instagram could have been your last, that's why you always need to make sure it's a quality photo.
Imagine your last post people see after your death is a stupid cat video or a meme.

 

[Ozzie_Traveller]

Hi fellas

Funnily enough--we have had a personal 'minor-disaster' and emailed 2-dozen friends asking for some help
So far, only half have responded - telling me that a lot of my/our so-called friends don't follow us via our most-used on-line means of communication
Somewhat sobering ... Phil