Personally I follow a lot of artists and I enjoy seeing their art on Instagram. You get to choose what you expose yourself to.
In regards to people taking lots of photos, I don’t really see the harm. They enjoy it, so let them.
It doesn't address the essence of the criticism though, that there is a way that is easiest to use a platform, and that way is followed by the majority of people.
If someone says caltrops are dangerous, and you reply with the idea that they can be used to clean gunk from under fingernails, you have not added anything to the conversation.
I did a story once; I was on solo vacation and spending the day biking through Austrian wine country. It was actually pretty fun to play with, more so than I expected. I was also learning along the way, making mistakes, learning from them. That was the best part. It's not something I'd normally want to subject myself to; a quick snapshot is all i can usually be bothered with. But I can see why they're enjoyable to make if you have nothing else going on.
Its worship in the sense that a hunter might worship the spirit of their prey.
I just can't get behind "stories" on Instagram. In fact, I'm not even really sure why I use Instagram instead of just posting the same photos on FB; it's sorta a random decision, but it's enjoyable enough, I guess.
But I just have no desire to click on some thing you decided to share, and be captive to your content, and whatever pacing you chose, whether bad or good, and worry about whether the sound will be blaring or not. I'd much rather scroll through photos for a second or 500 seconds or whatever my attention span happens to be at that moment -- to fill the amount of time I have to fill, not to be captive for as long as you want me to be.
I'm slowly realizing that every time I see "kids these days" taking endless amounts of time "taking pictures", they're actually creating these stories/snaps/whatever that are apparently as tedious to create as they are to consume. My most recent experience with it was out hiking at a state park, and I kept accidentally stumbling into the background of a photo, so I'd go back to the group i was with, and then start going up the trail again a minute later, and they're STILL THERE "taking photos". I don't mind the fact that they're blocking the trail, I'm in no hurry and if I wanted to be on my way I'd just walk through whatever they're shooting, that's fine. I'm happy to accomodate whatever they're trying to do, I appreciate it when people pause to stay out of a photo I'm composing as well. But it all just seems like the polar opposite of "living in the moment".