The widespread criticism from Instagram users of the latest version of the app raises the question: Why did they change it?
One answer is for the image-and-video-sharing app to be more like its main rival, TikTok, which has been growing its user base faster.
TikTok is purely video, so Instagram is heading that way too.
"We've been trying to make Instagram do better by video," Instagram head Adam Mosseri said in a video last week.
But TikTok's competition and the pivot to video still doesn't explain all the changes.
Why is it so hard to mute videos now?
Why is it no longer possible to rapidly and smoothly scroll through your feed?
The answers to these questions lies in behavioural economics, app design, and the murky world of "dark patterns".
What's a dark pattern?
Dark patterns are all the ways websites, apps and other user interfaces are designed to deliberately obscure, mislead, coerce and/or deceive website visitors and app users into making unintended choices.
A UK-based user experience consultant, Harry Brignull, invented the term in 2010, when studying the websites of budget airlines.
More than a decade later, the idea of dark patterns has become commonplace.
"When I came up with idea of dark patterns, I thought it was just a niche thing that was occasionally used. I thought I was really clever for noticing it," Mr Brignull said.
"And now it’s everywhere."
Some dark patterns are subtle, some are really obvious.
When it's really easy to sign up to an account but hard to cancel it, that's what Mr Brignull calls a "roach motel" — easy to get in and hard to get out.
When a sales website places a countdown clock on an offer to accelerate a customer's decision-making, that's also a dark pattern.
Many are malicious, but not all. When the supermarket website reminds you of what groceries you bought last time, and haven't bought this time, that's a dark pattern — but also a bit helpful.
Above all, our everyday lives are being constantly shaped by dark patterns.
A recent report found 83 per cent of Australians have had a negative experience caused by dark patterns pushing them to spend more than they intended, or accidentally sign up to something.
The big social media platforms are among the best at exploiting these techniques of deception, said Mr Brignull.
"These software companies have teams of data scientists and designers all teamed up to optimise all the figures," he said.
"These companies are incentivised to use manipulative techniques."
Is this why it's harder to mute Insta videos?
Mostly yes.
To recap, the new version of Instagram has more video, more ads and suggested posts, snap scrolling instead of continuous scrolling, and stretches content to the edges of the screen.
Along with this, it's slightly harder to mute or unmute videos. Before you could tap the video to mute it, now that pauses the video.
An article earlier this week suggested some of these changes appeared to be "dark patterns lifted from TikTok."
Mr Brignull generally agreed. Making it harder to mute audio, he said, was "ever so slightly user-hostile, and business friendly."
Videos with the sound on were more engaging, which meant users were more likely to watch them, he said.
"You can see why they’ve done that. They want to get the graph that shows video viewing rate going up and to the right."
The switch from smooth continuous scrolling to snap scrolling, so that users flick between videos and are forced to pay more attention to each, was also designed to boost video viewing figures, he said.
"It looks like this will boost the viewing figures for each video."
But what's good for the figures isn't necessarily popular with the viewers themselves.
That's particularly the case with an app that's over a decade old and has more than a billion users.
A petition begun three days ago to "make Instagram Instagram again" has over 100,000 signatures and the support of high-profile users like Kylie Jenner.
Critics say the photos they want to see are being buried by videos the algorithm wants them to watch.
None of this is new: Every time Instagram updates its platform, some users complain, and call for a return to plain photo-sharing.
There's a certain irony in Instagram influencers expressing nostalgia for a time when the platform was less commercially minded.
Either way, Instagram has to continue to find a way to compete with TikTok without alienating its existing users, Mr Brignull said.
"I think they realised that TikTok is doing exceptionally well and video is great medium for running ads and selling ads that perform well."
"They're under constant pressure to boost performance."
Users 'shifting more to videos over time': Instagram
On Tuesday, responding to criticism from users, Instagram head Adam Mosseri posted a video "to clarify a few things".
First, he said, the changes were "a test to a few percentage of people out there."
"It's not yet good, and we're going to have to get it to a good place if we're going to ship it to the rest of the Instagram community."
That may be true, but Instagram has been testing the new full-screen version since at least May, and has apparently rolled it out to more users since then.
The shift to video, he said, was not going to be reversed.
"If you look at what people share on Instagram, that's shifting more to videos over time," he said.
So the changes are probably here to stay, despite the outcry.
Nick Johnson, a behavioural economist at QUT, said people would get used to the change.
"People don't like change, but also people tend to adapt pretty quickly," he said.
Brendan Markey-Towler, a behavioural economist in Brisbane, agreed.
"I think it's a bit of inertia of people not liking change to the app."
Mr Brignull preferred to wait and see.
"It's always very annoying when a product is changed under your feet," he said.
"All social media companies use some form of manipulation to get you to do stuff.
"Over the next few weeks we'll see if that [new] version performs better.
"Then we'll be able to judge for ourselves how deceptive or not it really is."
