It was inevitable that Instagram was going to change when Facebook bought the photo-sharing app for $1 billion back in 2012.
Users hated, but eventually got used to, ads on Instagram. And that’s probably going to be the sequence of events when Instagram transitions to a non-chronological photo feed.
Instagram said today (March 15) that it will roll out an algorithmic feed, which is how Facebook determines what shows up in its news feed, in the coming months. As the number of photos posted to the app has grown, it’s become harder for people to keep up. Currently, users on average miss 70% of the photos and videos on their feed, and the change will make it easier for them to see the images they care most about, Instagram said.
Images will be sorted based on users’ relationship with the poster, when the image was posted, and “the likelihood you’ll be interested in the content,” according to Instagram. Though the algorithm will develop over time, it will start by simply presenting the photos in a different order without hiding any of them.