“[For] people who live in the country or in remote areas or minority groups or [who have] small businesses, that is a really good way for them to communicate and reach other people,” she says.
“It’s just not possible to set up an alternative at this point in time. So, to put it bluntly, we’re in a bit of deep shit, to be honest.”
No mention of Pixelfed, but I can understand why. Will it only be seen as an alternative once a critical mass of users move there? And can that happen if they don’t see it as an alternative? Chicken and egg. I’m trying out, but it’s a little vapid when everyone I know is on Instagram.
You could just not share every little scrap of your mundane lives in its full photographic glory?
We really don’t need to see another picture of a coffee with a little swirl on top, next to a mass produced bun.
You could just not share every little scrap of your mundane lives
We agree on that and I find people who do that really annoying -often muting them-, but that’s not really how I use Instagram for myself. I use Instagram to post vacation photos or to share some unusual life news, maybe four or five times a year and that’s about it with posting. I just checked and I posted 3 times in 2024 and 9 in 2023, all vacations, death of a pet or moving news - All worthy of sharing with friends, imo. Otherwise, my main use case for Insta is to track things locally, like restaurants, bars, clubs, shows, events, etc. Unfortunately there’s not a better alternative for that sort of use case in another app right now. It’s a bummer because I would love to move off of social media and use an alternative, but local stuff can’t be accessed by things like RSS feeds and lots of businesses don’t really do newsletters anymore - or in some cases don’t even bother with websites.
There are a lot of people circlejerking in this thread about not using social media and patting themselves on the back, but people who like to go outside their house and who want and actually try to keep in touch with friends can find it pretty useful. Also, Lemmy and forums are practically social media - so stop being so hypocritical with your reality warped dissonance. I see too much of that already on Instagram and reddit.
That sounds like what Facebook was for before they filled it with nonsense, scams and racism.
the fact that people are so obsessed with social media that they cant even realize the simple option of just stopping all together really says how toxic and addictive social media is.
Yup, not everything needs to be replaced like for like. Some options:
- spend time on a hobby (video games, exercise, etc)
- in person relationships
- learn something new
Tons of options.
Life?
but but 9/11 /s
Just… Don’t use it. It’s easy. I don’t even know what Instagram actually is.
It’s Tumblr with most of the features removed.
For artists and art appreciators Cara is a pretty good replacement for IG.
There’s pixelfed!
is it run by feds?
No it is run by volunteers as a fediverse alternative with instances.
“But all the other lemmings are there! I can’t leave or I’ll be left at the top of the cliff by myself!” 🙄 Guess what, there’s more of us up here who aren’t jumping than you realize.
Sorry to be harsh, but that’s how I feel about it when people say they have no choice but to enrich these social media oligarchs by participating in their exploitation machines. By contributing their “content” to be collected, sold, used for training their generative AIs, by viewing their ads, and by making themselves targets to be manipulated by propaganda of all kinds.
They already exploit us enough in ways we can’t control, without us willingly participating in their schemes.
Amen
Instagram is like 15 different things at once.
Its a messaging service with a TikTok like video service and a pixelfed like photo sharing service.
The Guardian cannot spell “Mastodon”, it seems from this “article”.
It is nicknamed The Grauniad for a reason.
Why are people upset at this? Who is stupid enough to trust fact checkers or community notes on social media? Read a real news site for facts.
About 90% of the electorate is stupid enough, and fact checking measures are to limit the damage to them.
Who are the “fact checkers”?
Regime whores similar to “journalists”
Pixelfed is a federated image-sharing network.
“what’s your alternative?” the answer is always lemmy am i right guys 😎
Always has been
Talk to people?
They don‘t talk back. Too busy browsing their phone.
Gotta hop on that pixelfed!
