Instagram teased a new feature this morning, but unlike most things teased, it’s a feature no one wants. Horizonal scrolling through user’s feeds is the latest move destined to make users dislike the app even further, after introducing more needless features to a once-simple app.
What began as a simple photo sharing service has grown, including features from most other social networks. There’s now stories, promoted posts, shopping, online status indicators, chat and even live video.
Sadly, the result has been that Instagram is a hodgepodge mess of features. The core feature – sharing photos with friends – has been lost amongst the “fitspo” crowd, half-naked models selling everything from flat tummy tea to garbage energy drinks, and soft-core pornography.
Regardless, if you actually used this service, horizontal feed scrolling might be what it takes to turn you off. The feature looks absolutely horrible:
On the change, Instagram told TechCrunch that the rollout of this feature was the result of a bug, and users should return to the traditional vertical scrolling interface soon:
https://twitter.com/mosseri/status/1078321786586951680
It’s likely – having put the time into developing this “feature” – that Instagram does intend to make horizontal scrolling an option in future, if not the default interface.
For my mind, if Instagram goes down that path, I’ll be ditching it for good.
As soon as they went to the algorithmic feed with no option to set it back to chronological order, I stopped using the app. I can’t stand seeing the same posts over and over.
Ever since Facebook took over Instrgram it went downhill.