What's the point of posting on Instagram anymore?
If you're not trying to make money, is there any reason to post?
When Mark Zuckerberg took the stand during Meta's antitrust trial in April, he confirmed — almost in passing — something I’ve been thinking about for a while: people aren’t posting like they used to. Pressed by Federal Trade Commission lawyers, Zuck acknowledged a 2022 internal memo that noted “friending and friend sharing are losing steam.” While this was part of his argument against breaking up Meta’s “personal social networking services” monopoly, it also speaks to a broader shift in how social media is used today.
Today, my Instagram feed is mostly filled with posts from brands, influencers, celebrities, ads, and AI-slop. Most people I know don’t post to their feeds at all anymore—except for the occasional milestone: weddings, babies, birthdays. A few still post to Stories, but those tend to be promotional in some way, whether for their work or a cause they support. As someone who’s worked in audience development and social media for over a decade, I understand why brands and influencers keep pumping out posts. But for the average user—not chasing money or clout—it’s hard to see the incentive to post original content anymore.
For much of Instagram’s first decade, it served as a casual, visual diary and a place to keep tabs on your inner and outer circles. At times, it even felt like the platform allowed you to know too much. I remember many conversations that sheepishly started with, “I saw on Instagram that you...” Things began shifting around 2016, when the chronological feed was replaced with an algorithmic one and Stories were introduced. These two updates kickstarted the influencer era and the pivot from posting permanent content to sharing ephemeral moments. The slowdown in personal content accelerated with the launch of Reels in 2020, and nearly flatlined when suggested content took over the scroll in 2022.
Today, Zuck estimated that roughly 10% of Instagram content is generated by users' friends, 35-40% comes from ads, and the rest comes from accounts “we follow out of interest.” When I checked my own feed, I had to scroll past 56 posts before finding something from someone I actually know. And that person is an above-average poster.
In 2018, I gave a talk at Social Media Week in LA. At the time, I was head of social at Food52, and the throughline of my talk was "post with purpose." For brands, that meant having a clear outcome for every piece of content—drive traffic, sell product, stir up comments. I still believe that. But when it comes to individuals, the question of purpose feels more complex. It’s no longer clear why you should post, or even if you should.
Over the past few years, whenever I’ve considered posting, I find myself navigating a series of messy questions:
Should my personal account serve as a professional portfolio?
Should I relax and just post for fun?
Should I use my expertise to game the algorithm to my benefit?
Why should I contribute free content to a platform that monetizes my attention?
Should I disengage entirely, given social media’s broader societal implications?
Am I just looking for a dopamine hit?
Usually, thinking about all of this has deterred me from posting at all. Curious, I decided to look back at my posting habits over the years to see how they’ve coincided with major platform changes and cultural shifts—and what I found was striking.
I posted 760 times between 2012-2016. 🤯 And that doesn’t even include the four daily posts I was sharing on Food52’s account, seven days a week. Damn. No wonder I have a complicated relationship with the platform. My posting habits shifted dramatically with the introduction of Stories, and while this chart doesn’t reflect Stories, I almost stopped posting them entirely by the end of 2020.
Most recently, after a trip to Japan, I debated whether to post about it on Instagram at all. I wavered over what the purpose of it was for a while, before I just decided to sit on the couch and make a damn Reel. Ultimately, what tipped the scales is that I have nearly 50,000 photos and videos in my camera roll, and my Instagram account has 888 posts. It’s curated and showcases photos and videos that I took the time to compose, and it is a record of what I deemed important or interesting at the time. I could search for my video clips from Japan in the future, but wouldn’t it be nice to have an edited home movie?
I get why most of us don’t post anymore. The app has changed, and it generally doesn’t feel like a great place to be. Most people I know are in a love/hate relationship with it, with the scales tipping toward hate. But if I’m going to spend time compulsively opening the app, I figure I might as well post when the inspiration strikes. If you’re not posting for professional reasons, the best purpose I can come up with is: post for yourself. If anything, think of your account as an archive that reflects the rise of Instagram in our lives. If in 50 years we are opening this stupid app, at least you’ll have something to look back on.
P.S. - This doesn’t mean I am going to start posting on Instagram frequently.