So I got the message from instagram about either paying or using it free (at the cost personalised ads) just now.
Doesn’t this go against the GDPR? Either way, is there a FOSS alternative for instagram like piped is to youtube? It seems like a good opportunity to stop using the official app, even though it would be better to not use instagram at all (sadly not an option for me right now).
Any suggestions, and if so, are there any that provide functionality for: stories, posts, dms? Those are the 3 things I use instagram for.
Many thanks!
Edit: For messaging I do use beeper, though some media like carousels and posts sent to my dms cant be shown in there, so for those cases I open the official app.
Edit 2: many people have suggested pixelfed. Ive heard of it, and want to use it, but unfortunately the only reason Im still sticking with instagram is because I have very dear friends who would never change to anything non-mainstream. Theyre important enough that im willing to not delete it just yet, but I dont want to agree to either pay or pay with my data.
What im looking for is more like a piped for youtube, thing. So a frintend that has instagram content/features, but isnt the main app and avoids the problems I listed above
Edit 3: I ended up installing the site as a PWA on my phone as thats the only device I use it on, and uninstalled the official app. Thanks to everyone for all your input!
Just STOP using their service.
This situation isn’t getting any better. After this they will regularly up the price and take out features that you are used to and charged you extra.
They are still gathering and selling your information. Meaning you might not get ads on instagram but your digital fingerprint is still being used literally on every other website that FB works with.
Corporate social media is a toxic parasite that’s only going to enshittify more and more while people are willing frogs boiling themselves slowly.
Join mastodon, pixelfed and peertube. That’s the future of consumer rights and clawing away from billionaire ownership.
It’s just more enshittification
It absolutely is not. You are using enshitification incorrectly. This is the core business model of facebook since the very beginning. They don’t give a shit about people spending $13/mo. They absolutely do not want people to choose that option. This is literally about about a legal loophole they think they have found to get around GDPR and have people “opt-in” to the same kind of data collection their business is based on.
It’s linked to the same thing though. Investor pressure to produce a profit or sink. It’s the service getting worse. And Facebook wrote the book on enshittification- think 2006 Facebook.
Eh, they do want to maximize profits, but this is more about fighting back against the EU basically making their business model illegal not making their service worse in favor of profits.
Im already on mastodon and i use piped, but sadly I cant leave insta yet because i have very dear friends on there who i chat with, and they’d never switch to something else (… And meta knows this btw)
Your first mistake was making real friends >:C
If he only follows them through Instagram it’s most likely a para-social relationship, and not a real friend at all.
Or friends who’ve decided that their “one app” for messaging is Instagram? I think something like that is a possibility.
I had to do the same thing. If they are dear friends then they shouldn’t have a problem getting a free app to chat with you. Otherwise sms is always an option.
Someone has to be the catalyst for change. Otherwise the corporate grip is only going to get stronger and soon enough all corporate social media will be subscription only.
Well someones gotta go first. Nah, I’m kidding and I get it. I tried it myself with Snapchat and Discord and it was a very slow and tedious process. But I got it done. Migrated to SMS for the people that refused to adopt a new platform and since SMS is …quite bad it does get easier to convince once you’re there. Feel somewhat guilty for bothering people but I sure don’t miss the old platforms. Good riddance.
If the only thing you do on instagram is chat. maybe try Beeper? It’s a matrix client with an instagram bridge. You still have to trust beeper but you can host your own matrix server and use their brigdes.
Instagram still gets your chat data but it won’t be scooping up anything else.
I already do, but i need the app for some things like when they send me posts or stories :/
Beeper is great though
Corporate social media enshittens the smallest man.
Should have posted that chain-text to my Facebook wall years ago so my profile would be blue and safe…
Please forgive me,… I failed you all… 😭
I swear these specific copypastas are started by grad school sociology students for their thesis research or something.
Those, and the copypastas that end with “I want to see who’s brave/caring/proud enough to repost.”
Lmao completely forgot about that
“Your info won’t be used for ads”
But we’ll still be tracking everything you do and selling that on to everyone who wants it.
deleted
That said “will” not “won’t” FYI.Ah I’m dumb ignore me.
€12.99/mo. sounds wildly overpriced to me in comparison to 1) cost to serve and 2) ad revenue. I’m not an ad revenue expert, but I have a hard time believing they make anywhere near €13/user/mo. from advertisers.
I guess the information they gather is worth enough that overpricing the subscription makes them more likely to retain free users.
The wording and the dark pattern on this screen should be violating the rules already. They very clearly want people to stay on the free plan, and likely aren’t even going to stop tracking users?
Maybe they just want to show how it “failed” and make a case that people don’t care
My god I just glanced quickly and thought it was 2.99. Asking 12.99 is an absolute joke.
Meta makes their ARPU readily available to the public, so you really don’t have to guess in this regard: https://www.statista.com/statistics/251328/facebooks-average-revenue-per-user-by-region/
Last quarter posted there, it was $19.04 for European users, or €17.84 with today’s exchange rate.
Those appear to be per-quarter numbers, and if so that would mean ~€5.95/month.
Looks like they report ARPU on a quarterly basis, yes.
13€? Are they insane? If I were to use the platform I’d be willing to pay 3€ at most. 13€ is just ridiculous.
It’s on purpose. They know most people won’t pay, so now it’s carte blanche to their data. And if somebody’s desperate enough, they’ll pay 13€ and meta will make more money on the user than with ads.
They will collect and sell your data either way. They just won’t force ads down your throat if you pay them. This is what billionaires have done to our beloved internet.
The call to action button is the free plan, with subscribe having a secondary button style. That alone makes it clear they want to show you ads more than they want you to subscribe.
They don’t want you to choose the paid option. They make more in the ads and info.
Pixelfed it is then
Is pixelfed an entirely different platform? Sadly i have many good friends on insta who i talk with, and they wouldnt ever switch to anything else, so because of that im stuck with meta. Otherwise i would 100% leave it
It is Instagram but federated in a nutshell. Just like Lemmy is similar to Reddit but federated. Whoah, wait I saw your profile and you do not know about Pixelfed?
Ahh i see. Im going to edit my post now to specify that Im looking for an alternative frontend to instagram, such as piped is for youtube. Sadly i have friends on insta that I cant stop using it for now because of
Edit: haha ive heard of it, but its not really what im looking for sadly
Doesn’t exist.
Just switch to Pixelfed.
Good friends will talk to you elsewhere like Telegram or Signal.
XD, I mean that you look like you would now a lot of this stuff, just that. Take it as a compliment.
Actually lemmy was my first introduction to federated platforms. Im still a newbie :D
FOSS alternative is PixelFed
Ive heard of it, and want to use it, but unfortunately the only reason Im still sticking with instagram is because I have very dear friends who would never change to anything non-mainstream.
This is called the network effect, it’s a social problem and no amount of technology will solve this. So your choices are either to stop using apps where you are the product, and obviously convince your friends to stop that as well, or grin and bear it. Maybe think about what you did 20 years ago and do that instead.
I’ve given an ultimatum to friends and family, switch to fediverse or our interactions will be reduced to in person encounters.
I chose option C, don’t use Instagram. But thanks, I guess!
Option 3: uninstall
foss alternative to Instagram
Pixelfed?
Edit: doesn’t like Signal stories cover this usecase. I don’t really “get” shit like IG tbh
I heard in a podcast that this is primarily to address the requirement to not target ads for under 18 and will be free to them. They probably have to offer it as a paid service for anyone 18+ and priced it so that no one actually does.
Without a doubt, everyone is still being tracked.
Anecdotally, the last time I checked my dormant Facebook feed it was deserted. I wonder how many people hit that message and just decide they can just nope out and not lose much of value.
I mean, that’s what I did the first time it popped up. I only ever logged into that in case somebody was trying to reach me for work stuff, and that never actually happens, so…
As for whether this is GDPR compliant, it seems that FB was convinced it would get them past the newer post-GDPR regulations and the EU has strongly signalled that it really won’t, so it’s gonna be fun to watch from the sidelines.
Thanks for the GDPR info (grabs popcorn to watch as well).
As for facebook, I only use it because of messenger for work, which I will delete as soon as im done with my BSc in about a year (I work at my uni). I dont have the app but rather a PWA on my phone, not that theres much difference.
However, Im interested in instagram because of good friends that use it
I’ll just stop using it if they tell me this. You can sign up for pixelfed. It’s a part of the fediverse, too. You can transfer all of your Instagram photos to it very easily. They even have instructions on how to do it. I moved all of my 650 photos in about 20 minutes. Just in case.
I dont have many photos, but thats not the issue. Its that all my friends are on it, and until I leave after my bachelors and need to have contact with them often im stuck with it. After i leave to a different country once i get my degree itll be easier, but for the next year or so im stuck with instagram because i dknt want to lose contact with them. As most people, they would never leave the mainstream thing behind, so no chance of converting them as well
Ok then, run it in a browser, instead of the actual app, to give them less of your data. I have it installed on my phone as a webapp on Firefox with ublock origin and TrackerControl app
Maybe Barinsta? https://f-droid.org/packages/me.austinhuang.instagrabber/
…but from my experience it’s not very useful, since Instagram is making everything in their power to make life of Barinsta users miserable, like logging you out and forcing to provide credentials every couple days, locking accounts, confirming with SMS, etc. On mobile devices, web-browser version is a better option.
Alternative cache/browser for public profiles:
Best choice would be… not to use Instagram ;) Pixelfed is much better: https://pixelfed.org/-
I used it and a think its not maintained anymore, but while I ised it had many bugs, its core features where very good though.
