Instagram says it will test mixing suggested posts throughout primary feeds, even above posts from people users follow, and adds new controls
especially monetized content — on us as possible. https://twitter.com/... Alex Heath / @alexeheath : Instagram is quickly becoming the Facebook app with a different skin. Was destined to happen after the founders left. https://www.theverge.com/...
The VergeAshley Carman
Context & Ripple Effects
Instagram's suggested posts began in 2020 as an end-of-feed feature — related content served only after users exhausted their follows, distinct from Explore's adjacent-content approach (suggested posts at the end of the feed). This test removes that boundary entirely: recommendations can now sit anywhere in the primary feed, including above posts from people users follow.
The new controls are the counterweight Instagram has been building toward. Two years after this test, it published detailed explanations of how Feed, Stories, and Reels are ranked while testing more user controls like an "Interested" button for recommended posts (how Instagram ranks Feed and Reels), and by 2026 it had expanded its "Your Algorithm" topic-selection tools into the main feed itself (Your Algorithm in the main feed). The pattern is clear: recommendation-first distribution paired with incremental user control.
First-order effects
Users' primary feeds stop being a reliable chronology of who they follow — posts from followed accounts can be displaced by algorithmic suggestions, changing the core product promise of the app overnight.
Creators and businesses lose guaranteed reach to their existing followers, since follower relationships become a weaker distribution guarantee than ranking signals.
Second-order effects
Competitors that still center the social graph — where the feed is what your connections posted — gain a differentiation argument against Instagram's discovery-first model.
More recommended slots raise the stakes on Instagram's ranking decisions, pushing it to keep publishing transparency and control features like the later "Interested" button and Verified-only toggles (Meta Verified-only feed toggle) to manage backlash.
Third-order effects
If the pattern holds, social apps converge on the same structure: the follow graph becomes one input among many, engagement-ranked recommendations dominate surface area, and user-facing controls evolve from settings into product features in their own right.
Distribution shifts from who you know to what the system infers you want — making the algorithm, not the network, the moat, and putting platform choices about inference inputs under sustained scrutiny.
The trend: Social feeds are shifting from follow-graph chronology to recommendation-ranked discovery, with platforms racing to pair algorithmic control of the feed with just enough user control to keep trust intact.
None of the “social networks” are actually social networks anymore. None of them are interested in helping us connect with friends. It's just about pushing as much content — especially monetized content — on us as possible. https://twitter.com/...
The explicit “follow” action is now outdated and on its way out. Implicit actions will feed into AI that determine the users you see content from. https://twitter.com/...
So now I have to sift through ads, reals from strangers, and now POSTS from random strangers just to see actual posts from friends, family, and people I actually want to see??! What in the entire fuck..? @instagram https://twitter.com/...
I probably only see about 30% of the people I follow's content. The rest is just 💩 ads and people I don't know. I miss the days of being able to see someone's pictures just because they posted them. Now FB is apparently the arbiter of what's important to me https://twitter.com/..…
If Facebook does start to wane, it'll be because it has no identity of its own. The strategy of absorbing other social network's best features eventually leads to confusion and bloat, and you can see that happening in Instagram now. https://twitter.com/...
Instagram will put posts it wants you to see from accounts that you don't follow right into the feed, above stuff from people you do. this is actually a huge change for the core Instagram experience, if it gets implemented, which it probably will
No Instagram, I want my feed to be continuous. Don't bring me to a seperate page to see posts older than three days or something so you can make space for your suggested feed. Suggested posts should stay in the search tab. Even better, have an option to turn itt off