Instagram’s head Adam Mosseri reveals that fewer views mean lower quality of your posts

When it comes to Instagram rolls or videos, many users and the tech community often see that the quality of videos varies, especially when it comes to some of the old ones. Although this question was often asked, it is only recently that the head of the social media platform, Adam Mosseri, shed some light on the difference in video quality and where it originates. It seems that if your video has not brought in many views, your quality may be declining.

Adam Mosseri confirms that Instagram is indeed reducing the video quality of some of the posts and that users are not delusional

Have you ever scrolled through Instagram and noticed that the quality of some of the videos was not up to the mark, which might be a mistake on the content creator’s end? While speaking to the AMA, Instagram boss Adam Mosseri gave more details about this discrepancy in quality and admitted that Instagram adjusts the quality of videos according to their performance.

In response to one of the questions asked about blurred highlights, especially older stories, Mosseri clarified that while they work for the highest quality videos, since most views are achieved during the first time they are posted, videos are moved later to a lower quality. For example, if the video gains popularity again, then Instagram moves it back to higher quality videos, as highlighted by Engadget.

Explaining this in detail, Mosseri mentioned the bias towards videos that generate more views:

We prefer higher quality (more CPU-intensive coding and more expensive storage for larger files) for creators who generate more views.

However, this comment did not go down well with micro content creators or small creators who believe it puts them at a disadvantage, especially against those with larger platforms. Meta has noted that as part of its resource management strategy, it uses different encoding configurations to process videos based on their popularity. This approach aims to optimize computing resources by adjusting quality based on viewership, helping to maintain the efficient performance of the platform.

In response to the small content creators who are dismayed to be at a disadvantage, Mosseri further explained:

Quality seems to be much more important to the original creator, who is more likely to delete the video if it looks bad, than to their viewers.

So for the viewers, this change doesn’t affect them much because the focus is on the content rather than the quality, but some of the creators were still left in a detrimental position. Whether this tweak Instagram changes how viewers see the content or not, it is still a revelation that the best quality is awarded to videos that generate more views.