I hate Instagram. Because every post results in Meta knowing more about me and getting better in manipulating me and society. Locked in because of the critical mass. For now, it’s the only way to keep in touch with international friends.
Would you be willing to make a Pixelfed account? Today? And double post everything for a while, on Insta and Pixelfed?
It’s the only way to make this work, I think. Slowly creating a critical mass without dumping Insta rightaway. For the moment you and your friends won’t miss out on anything. Along the way mention from time to time on Pixelfed there are no ads, no manipulative algorithm, …
There are tool to import your Insta posts with hashtags and timestamps. Although, apparently, these don’t work perfect yet.
Continue doubleposting until half of your contacts have done the same. Then start only posting to Pixelfed, simultaneously posting an Instagram post saying you and most others have switched and why.
Could this work?
EDIT : perhaps my question is : How can we make this into something trending?
EDIT 2 : if you already switched. Did you manage to convince some of your contacts?
I think the big question is what kind of IG user are your contacts. If they are on the platform to look at what the Kardashians are up to, or the big influencers, then lack of monetization on Pixelfed means your contacts will miss the content from IG.
If it’s people that exchange pictures and don’t care what famous people do, then maybe switch to Pixelfed and continue posting a reduced amount to IG, with the information that most of your posts are on Pixelfed. And maybe, once in a while you could post a screenshot of your Pixelfed feed on IG, so that people can see the quality of other people’s content.
For me personally the question was only “who can I only contact through Instagram that I want to keep contact with”? I think the app is really replaceable besides that. I basically used my chat history as a checklist and deleted chats until the dates were far enough back then pulled the bandaid