> but they haven't found good ways to monetize it yet and one of these days they'll ruin it.

What I think is ad supportted _anything_ turns to crap eventually. It's a toxic business model.

One feature (limitation) of Instagram is that you can't include clickable links in a post message. So if you're running a business or are a personality of interest, you might share something that your followers might actually care to look into in more depth off-platform.

But then you have to tell them to check your profile for your one allowed link, go to your site, search for the product/blog/video - or you pay for an ad with links enabled.

I found the instagram app to be unusable as you describe, but https://www.instagram.com works fine on my phone using firefox with an adblocker.

Interestingly enough, direct messaging is only available in app. A workaround had to be created by an ex-Instagram employee.

I guess that explains why I don't think of Instagram as a messaging service. What is the workaround?