A Redditor posted images of the Instagram ad breaks. FireCubX writes that users will suddenly find they have hit the bottom of their feed, so to speak,...

Instagram has long been accused of stealing features from platforms such as TikTok, Snapchat, and Twitter/X. It appears that the company has looked to YouTube for its latest idea: unskippable ads that you have to watch for a period of time before being able to scroll further.

A Redditor posted images of the Instagram ad breaks. FireCubX writes that users will suddenly find they have hit the bottom of their feed, so to speak, and can’t scroll down any further. An “ad break” icon will appear with a countdown timer that prevents users from browsing through more content until they view an ad, at which point the counter starts running down.

I’m happy I only have a lemmy account

  • Yrt@feddit.deEnglish
    2·
    5 months ago

    Wouldn’t it be funny, if that would end the doom scroll cause suddenly it’s a disturbance and can’t be skipped like other non liked content, so it breaks the trance and leaves the user with anger instead of numbness?

    • samus12345@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      5 months ago

      User tolerance of online ads is really being tested lately with the increase of unskippable crap. I suspect that some will stop rather than deal with it, but most will just tolerate it. Which is what they’re counting on.

    • catloaf@lemm.eeEnglish
      0·
      5 months ago

      I sure hope so. I use Instagram to follow my friends and local businesses, but I can get sucked into reels too. I have an app that specifically pops up if I spend too much time in Instagram to break that cycle.

      • barsquid@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        5 months ago

        What’s that app? I need that.

        I need something like a smartwatch to just tap me on the wrist every 10 minutes so I can gather my thoughts. I want to be consciously deciding to waste all my time online instead of just losing half hour chunks of my day by accident.