Instagram but it's only stories

I remember the golden era of Instagram when everyone was posting photos with horrible vintage filters. There was no quality bar and the app was a lot simpler. The original logo brings back some fond memories too.

For better or for worse, those days are gone. With over ten years of testing, optimization, research, and development, Instagram is a fundamentally different beast. People run entire businesses on Instagram, but more interestingly, fewer and fewer people seem to post on it.

Back in 2016, Instagram launched stories after 1) seeing how wildly successful it was for Snapchat and 2) trying and failing to acquire them.

Stories on Instagram were a massive success. However, in recent years it seems people post to their stories much more than to their feed. This makes sense, but it’s gotten to the point where almost nothing is happening on my feed and all I check is stories.

This got me thinking… what if we embraced this and just made the feed only stories? You could pin people you interact with the most (almost like a MySpace Top 8). It’s not so much an unhinged idea as it is an interesting thought exercise.

Have a friend who needs design feedback? Send them this newsletter.

https://sorens.beehiiv.com/