So I got the message from instagram about either paying or using it free (at the cost personalised ads) just now.
Doesn’t this go against the GDPR? Either way, is there a FOSS alternative for instagram like piped is to youtube? It seems like a good opportunity to stop using the official app, even though it would be better to not use instagram at all (sadly not an option for me right now).
Any suggestions, and if so, are there any that provide functionality for: stories, posts, dms? Those are the 3 things I use instagram for.
Many thanks!
Edit: For messaging I do use beeper, though some media like carousels and posts sent to my dms cant be shown in there, so for those cases I open the official app.
Edit 2: many people have suggested pixelfed. Ive heard of it, and want to use it, but unfortunately the only reason Im still sticking with instagram is because I have very dear friends who would never change to anything non-mainstream. Theyre important enough that im willing to not delete it just yet, but I dont want to agree to either pay or pay with my data.
What im looking for is more like a piped for youtube, thing. So a frintend that has instagram content/features, but isnt the main app and avoids the problems I listed above
Edit 3: I ended up installing the site as a PWA on my phone as thats the only device I use it on, and uninstalled the official app. Thanks to everyone for all your input!
Just STOP using their service.
This situation isn’t getting any better. After this they will regularly up the price and take out features that you are used to and charged you extra.
They are still gathering and selling your information. Meaning you might not get ads on instagram but your digital fingerprint is still being used literally on every other website that FB works with.
Corporate social media is a toxic parasite that’s only going to enshittify more and more while people are willing frogs boiling themselves slowly.
Join mastodon, pixelfed and peertube. That’s the future of consumer rights and clawing away from billionaire ownership.
It’s just more enshittification
It absolutely is not. You are using enshitification incorrectly. This is the core business model of facebook since the very beginning. They don’t give a shit about people spending $13/mo. They absolutely do not want people to choose that option. This is literally about about a legal loophole they think they have found to get around GDPR and have people “opt-in” to the same kind of data collection their business is based on.
It’s linked to the same thing though. Investor pressure to produce a profit or sink. It’s the service getting worse. And Facebook wrote the book on enshittification- think 2006 Facebook.
Eh, they do want to maximize profits, but this is more about fighting back against the EU basically making their business model illegal not making their service worse in favor of profits.
Just because the EU is involved doesn’t make it any different. This is like how Target is leaving Seattle because the city decriminalized shoplifting. The whole point is to punish the people in the place with laws they don’t like.
Im already on mastodon and i use piped, but sadly I cant leave insta yet because i have very dear friends on there who i chat with, and they’d never switch to something else (… And meta knows this btw)
Your first mistake was making real friends >:C
If he only follows them through Instagram it’s most likely a para-social relationship, and not a real friend at all.
Or friends who’ve decided that their “one app” for messaging is Instagram? I think something like that is a possibility.
I had to do the same thing. If they are dear friends then they shouldn’t have a problem getting a free app to chat with you. Otherwise sms is always an option.
Someone has to be the catalyst for change. Otherwise the corporate grip is only going to get stronger and soon enough all corporate social media will be subscription only.
Well someones gotta go first. Nah, I’m kidding and I get it. I tried it myself with Snapchat and Discord and it was a very slow and tedious process. But I got it done. Migrated to SMS for the people that refused to adopt a new platform and since SMS is …quite bad it does get easier to convince once you’re there. Feel somewhat guilty for bothering people but I sure don’t miss the old platforms. Good riddance.
If the only thing you do on instagram is chat. maybe try Beeper? It’s a matrix client with an instagram bridge. You still have to trust beeper but you can host your own matrix server and use their brigdes.
Instagram still gets your chat data but it won’t be scooping up anything else.
I already do, but i need the app for some things like when they send me posts or stories :/
Beeper is great though
Should have posted that chain-text to my Facebook wall years ago so my profile would be blue and safe…
Please forgive me,… I failed you all… 😭
I swear these specific copypastas are started by grad school sociology students for their thesis research or something.
Lmao completely forgot about that
“Your info won’t be used for ads”
But we’ll still be tracking everything you do and selling that on to everyone who wants it.
They get to show people the words “your info won’t be used” to make you feel safe, with the caveat that they will use it for literally everything and anything else.
Very cool of them
That said “will” not “won’t” FYI.Ah I’m dumb ignore me.
I have fond memories of the Internet 20-25 years ago.
How did it turn into this much of a mess? Social Media, SEO, adverts, data mining, profiling, privacy nightmares… what a shit show.
The venture capital dollars started running out. Returns started being demanded. Companies that made slightly improved and/or more accessible versions of more open products extinguished those products using venture capital dollars then started rolling out the enshittification, demands for money, intrusive ads, spying, dark patterns, sabotaging, paid tiers.
Back in those days the internet was a curiosity. A hobby. A fun thing to share, something a company might hope to break even on or earn minor profits with, these days big profits are demanded, centralization. Addiction to high resolution and size video and image content which is expensive to host and serve. The network effect drained smaller sites and resources, concentrating people in larger venues that had the investment dollars to support them at the cost of their privacy. Combine with search engine optimization and it became harder to even find smaller places. Add in digitally uneducated kids who thought fb and such were most of the internet and never bother to venture beneath the top 6 google results and older people and this is what you have.
Take something like Omegle. I don’t want to defend what it was for most of its existence as the bad outweighed the good IMO (like 4chan) but something like that if made today would require linking your facebook or google account and serve you video ads every 5 minutes on top of banner ads. But back then it was just something some random guy could make for fun and not think “hmm I need real identities to monetize these people to ad networks to pay for this and turn a big profit selling the data they input”.
Enshittification happened.
Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.
13€? Are they insane? If I were to use the platform I’d be willing to pay 3€ at most. 13€ is just ridiculous.
It’s on purpose. They know most people won’t pay, so now it’s carte blanche to their data. And if somebody’s desperate enough, they’ll pay 13€ and meta will make more money on the user than with ads.
They will collect and sell your data either way. They just won’t force ads down your throat if you pay them. This is what billionaires have done to our beloved internet.
The call to action button is the free plan, with subscribe having a secondary button style. That alone makes it clear they want to show you ads more than they want you to subscribe.
They don’t want you to choose the paid option. They make more in the ads and info.
Per account! I have 2 on Instagram an done on FB. They offered an intro price for €10 that would go up to €19 on may 1st. I believe it is because one of my accounts is linked across IG and FB so they count as one… 🤷 lucky me! At this moment I have uninstalled and waiting to see how EU reacts to the “choice options”. Its more like a forced option really
€12.99/mo. sounds wildly overpriced to me in comparison to 1) cost to serve and 2) ad revenue. I’m not an ad revenue expert, but I have a hard time believing they make anywhere near €13/user/mo. from advertisers.
I guess the information they gather is worth enough that overpricing the subscription makes them more likely to retain free users.
The wording and the dark pattern on this screen should be violating the rules already. They very clearly want people to stay on the free plan, and likely aren’t even going to stop tracking users?
Maybe they just want to show how it “failed” and make a case that people don’t care
My god I just glanced quickly and thought it was 2.99. Asking 12.99 is an absolute joke.
Meta makes their ARPU readily available to the public, so you really don’t have to guess in this regard: https://www.statista.com/statistics/251328/facebooks-average-revenue-per-user-by-region/
Last quarter posted there, it was $19.04 for European users, or €17.84 with today’s exchange rate.
Those appear to be per-quarter numbers, and if so that would mean ~€5.95/month.
Looks like they report ARPU on a quarterly basis, yes.
FOSS alternative is PixelFed
Ive heard of it, and want to use it, but unfortunately the only reason Im still sticking with instagram is because I have very dear friends who would never change to anything non-mainstream.
This is called the network effect, it’s a social problem and no amount of technology will solve this. So your choices are either to stop using apps where you are the product, and obviously convince your friends to stop that as well, or grin and bear it. Maybe think about what you did 20 years ago and do that instead.
I’ve given an ultimatum to friends and family, switch to fediverse or our interactions will be reduced to in person encounters.
Pixelfed it is then
Is pixelfed an entirely different platform? Sadly i have many good friends on insta who i talk with, and they wouldnt ever switch to anything else, so because of that im stuck with meta. Otherwise i would 100% leave it
It is Instagram but federated in a nutshell. Just like Lemmy is similar to Reddit but federated. Whoah, wait I saw your profile and you do not know about Pixelfed?
Ahh i see. Im going to edit my post now to specify that Im looking for an alternative frontend to instagram, such as piped is for youtube. Sadly i have friends on insta that I cant stop using it for now because of
Edit: haha ive heard of it, but its not really what im looking for sadly
Doesn’t exist.
Just switch to Pixelfed.
Good friends will talk to you elsewhere like Telegram or Signal.
XD, I mean that you look like you would now a lot of this stuff, just that. Take it as a compliment.
Actually lemmy was my first introduction to federated platforms. Im still a newbie :D
I chose option C, don’t use Instagram. But thanks, I guess!
The fact that the ad revenue button is more emphasized and easier to press (closer to screen edge) says a lot about the value of you being their product vs. you simply paying them for access.
You need to make a choice, Mr Anderson…
Loving the username and matrix reference :)
Im reading 1984 right now, i like it so far.
It’s good, and after that, check out Brave New World which is similar to what we have now. :)
And Fahrenheit 451, another classic
It’s so interesting because realistically we’re a hybrid of both but damn did they both have a good whack at hitting the nail on the head.
Either way it’s a sad reflection of the world we now live in, all self anesthesized and false truths.
Option 3: uninstall
The sane choice would be to leave.
