Instagram's Failed Update & Rollback

A quite recent topic that I just thought we should pick up today because it's like a pure product management topic. Have you heard of Instagram's update recently? Who hasn't? I have to admit I'm not an Instagram user anymore, but even I have heard of it. Yeah. And I thought we should pick it up, right? For everybody who's tuning in today, Instagram recently tried to change the app and the newsfeed to a more TikTok-style feed, right? I mean, I don't know how to better describe it. And they experienced a huge pushback from their customers, which made them roll back the app updates. And I think even the Kardashians brought it up and there have been like multiple tons of like petitions of make Instagram, Instagram again, and so on and so forth, right? So yeah. And if the Kardashians are criticizing your product, I mean, this is the red flag. That's when you know you need to press the rollback button. It is so much pressure on the CEO, right? If a Kardashian posts something on Twitter. But Alex, I thought there are so many levels we could look at when we take that particular rollback or this whole feature, right? Because there have been, I believe, invested days, weeks, months, millions of dollars in researching it, testing it, building it. And also, I mean, planning, maybe even more revenue and stuff like that. And then from one day to the other, pushback. I have to say that I had like mixed feelings about this whole topic, right? I mean, I use Instagram more than you do, definitely. I had the update, I think, right at the beginning when they started like rolling out the beta. And so, yeah, I mean, it changed drastically the way you use Instagram, right? But like also kind of being a little bit like having followed Instagram and YouTube and TikTok and all these like social media platforms and the way they try to compete, especially around shorter video formats, right? Which TikTok implemented. I mean, I could understand why they did it, right? And yes, it felt off, it felt wrong. It didn't feel like the experience that I'm used to and that I want from or that I expect from Instagram. It's also very close to, I mean, you have the feed and you have the reels, like both started to be very close because you suddenly had like a lot of new recommendations on the feed, almost more recommendations than actual posts from the people that you follow. And it was really video happy, right? So yes, there was definitely a big change. Now, the thing is when I started seeing like everyone screaming, oh no, bring back the old Instagram and so on. The one thing that it reminded me of was when Facebook made their big redesigns over the years, right? Every time Facebook made a redesign, everyone was complaining how shit it is and how bad it is and take it back and we want the old one back and why are you changing it, blah, blah, blah. I mean, I think on one side, there is company still behind it. There is like certain business goals. As a company, you analyze trends, you see that people are going to certain platforms and that certain interactions and certain ways of like structuring the app and working like with especially these recommendations and this algorithm brings more people, right? So you need to ask yourself, okay, do I start to follow the trends? Do I innovate or do I stay the old me and maybe lose all these customers? Think of like Tumblr, think of Pinterest, like they drastically lost their user base because they didn't follow some of these trends, right? So what is wrong or right? But also like, I mean, each app or each social network fulfills its own purpose, right? And I mean, TikTok is TikTok and Instagram is Instagram. So the question is, can... YouTube is YouTube, right? The thing is, those companies, like their business model relies a lot on the influencers and on the content creators and they need to make sure that they can give them reach, that they can give them customers. And that's where those creators also naturally are being drawn to, right? And that's where TikTok came in and they got a lot of traffic and a lot of people came to it. And that's where YouTube, Facebook, Instagram started copying them. I'm not sure what Snapchat is currently doing. Does it exist? I don't know. No, yeah, of course. But I mean, they were actually the ones that started the trends of the stories that Instagram successfully copied, WhatsApp, Facebook, and so on. LinkedIn failed in doing that, right? But I think like, obviously, like from a company perspective, you want to push the product in a certain direction, that might be your strategy. And you also think on how to do it, right? So you tell people, if you do more videos, then we will make sure that you get more reach. If you get more reach, you're automatically happier, you get more money, you get more sponsors, and so on and so forth, right? And now that obviously, by its nature, affects also the business model, like Instagram wants the photo app that we all used 10 years ago, where you would like put some strange analog corners around the picture and post a picture every day, right? But also because the behavior change and... Exactly. You need to develop also to stay relevant. And I think like also, Adam, the head of Instagram, they're saying, okay, they rolled it back now, but they will still continue working on this, because this is what the creators want more reach. Therefore, they need to have like a better algorithm for more recommendations. That's also what keeps you more in the app, what keeps you like exploring, discovering. Interesting, because now we're talking about the real problem. So people want maybe more reach, they want to have like also the customers stay longer Instagram, but the question is now, is the feed the right solution? So I mean, we're going to figure out, but the reason why I want to pick up this topic today is, I mean, especially Instagram. I mean, Instagram is literally everywhere, right? And I remember, I think it was either in 2018 or 2019 at the product management festival, where one of the, I think the Instagram design heads was speaking about removing the like button. And I think, I mean, still the internet is full of discussions around are like buttons good or not, and what it does with people and, you know, all that kind of thing and disliking things. But especially Instagram is like a product or an app that always has been on focus when it comes to user experience, when it comes to design questions, also when it comes to ethical discussions, especially with the like button. And now we see also again, a new paradigm shift into a more like video focused behavior changing app, or maybe even Zeitgeist adapting revolution. And as you mentioned, people are always complaining about change. And actually, that's the interesting thing, right? I wasn't expecting the rollback because, and like also when we just recently did a ruby brand, I was like, right from the first day, telling and managing the expectations of everyone of like, people might or even will hate it. Because the nature of the human is that whenever they're used to something, they don't like change. And yes, I also didn't like the change in the first place. But still, like usually you also see people then adjusting. Now Instagram saw that a lot of people left the platform. I'm not sure where they went to, right? Because the main complaint was like, I want to go back to this photo app. I want to see photos of my friends. I think it's a mix of obviously, like you're you're observing where your user base goes. You need to stay focused. You need to stay your user base goes. You need to stay relevant. But you know what I also think? I mean, there are a lot of new trends are emerging around Instagram, right? I mean, the stories have been we just talked about, right? Stories have been, I think, invented by Snapchat, which has been, thanks God, successfully adapted by Instagram. Facebook is amazing in copying everyone. That's exactly what I wanted to get to, right? I mean, Facebook or let's say Meta, if we take the overall thing, they are like tremendously in this copying mode and survival mode. At least it feels to me like that, right? I mean, so if people say, hey, I want to stay in the Instagram app because of pictures. I mean, the first question that comes to my mind is what can Instagram do to start a new revolution, to start a new trend when it comes to people sharing their pictures, right? I would rather see development in that space and in that area instead of just trying to stay competitive with fucking TikTok or something else. Yes. And A, I think like not even Instagram or Meta, I keep saying Facebook, not even Meta makes a big secret out of the fact that in the current market of social networks, it is like, okay, A, you need to compete with those new players that come in and kind of revolutionize. And if you're Meta and you have like this massive audience, it's also then easier that people still stick around. I mean, they now have like a fairly big ecosystem with like WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram and whatever follows it. Also did some good acquisitions, right? Let's be honest. And then there is the second stream of like innovation. And I mean, they're okay. It's a question like, where and how are they innovating? That's up to them to find the right thing. But it doesn't take away that if they don't react to creators, reels, wanting to reach the interaction of like scrolling down, watching through some videos, videos are keeping me more entertained than pictures over the long time. That's where this whole exploration thing becomes more interesting and so on and so forth. They might lose market, right? So they need to still offer that so that they can serve the broad audience. And then they need to find innovation elsewhere, right? Before someone else innovates and they need to copy it again. But I mean, it's definitely a tough game also to constantly like stay relevant. Man, I honestly, I mean, especially with this update, I don't want to work in that product team right now. Oh, man, I was thinking the same. Like, imagine. Imagine. Well, I'm sure that was like a strong strategic decision. I'm not sure how much they tested it and who they tested it with. But I think, again, with those drastic changes, like even if you test it, don't expect everyone to love it, right? So you need to see, okay, are people able to use it? Are people able to click the right thing? If they say, oh, I don't like it because I like the old design better. That's a comment that you need to ignore, right? You need to say, okay, what is like our goal? What is our strategic direction and then follow that through. So I think I lost a little bit my train of thought. Ah, yeah, right. And imagine then you get like this whole shitstorm online as a product team. Yeah, I mean, damn. And to the point where you decide to roll back. And I mean, then the whole rollback itself, I mean, it's not like this is fun, right? I mean, the engineers, the product people, I mean, they must be vomiting all the time. I don't know. And it wasn't just like design change. It was like the algorithm change, the way you saw things, what you've seen. I think on an architectural level, that must have been such a massive update. Or it was all planned and they just did it to do some press. And the rollback was already part of the strategy. Not, I mean, in an interview, they've been saying that they've lost a lot of users. Yeah, I don't think this is a risk that you're willing to take. But again, so the change stuff, I mean, as you said, right, I think they were, I believe they were aware of the fact that people might not like it and that people are going to leave. But what I also believe is that they have certain measures and KPIs in place that would tell them once it gets too drastic or too shitstormish or whatever, that they needed to roll back, right? So, I mean, remember the iPhone, right? When the iPhone 5 came out. That's a good, that's a good practical thing. Again, just like always keeping it practical. Whenever you do something, you need to have the benchmark or like this line. I would call it negative KPIs, right? So just knowing, okay, I mean, like, I see it as monitoring rather. So by knowing, okay, okay, once we hit certain... But you need to define it, right? Because like, if you roll something out and you don't define, okay, if we lose 10% of our customers, or if, I don't know, the time spent on our platform drops 20%, then we roll back. Then you easily risk that, oh, you're 2% under one of your stakeholders, got like cold feet. And he's like, oh, no, we need to roll back. We need to roll back. It should have been better, right? So I think it is important to say, okay, we need to agree on what is like the threshold of when to roll back. And you know what I also think, yeah, but you know what, what I also think is very important. And that's something that I should have done much more in my professional career back then as a product manager is during the planning phase already asking yourself, what if this goes wrong? How do we roll back? Can we roll back? How do we want to roll back? What is involved by rolling back? Is it just an app update? Is it rolling back the fucking backend, which is usually more pain in the ass? So I mean, it's a lot about risk management, right? Get checkout. And then you go to the last branch and everything's fine. Yeah, that's the dream. Yeah, well, I think it was just worth catching up on it. And again, we're going to see where they go. Yeah, definitely. And still, as I said, I don't want to be in any Instagram employees skin at the moment, because I can imagine it's a tough challenge. Yeah, I mean, fingers crossed for them. Still did a good job. We know the pain of I mean, being in product is having to deal with these things. It happens. You can't always do it right. So can't wait to stay strong. Yeah, we are with you. And with that, in case you like this episode, or you have something to add to the recent Instagram rollback, let us know on social media and don't forget to press the follow button. With that said, I'm already yawning. Have a good night. Talk to you soon. Transcribed by https://otter.ai