Wow, I've been using instagram for 5 years and I just learned that there's a following-only feed. I had always just assumed that Instagram was designed in bad faith to always interleave posts from people you didn't follow to try to capture your attention. It's incredibly annoying that I can't set this as my default.

You just discovered OG Instagram. The feed used to be just your friend's posts and nothing else. Maybe an occasional ad, but the first few years it was mostly ad free if I remember correctly.

I've found it. I'm quite sure the drop down wasn't there a few months ago.

But the sad reality: nobody is posting anything anymore. I follow around 500 real people I know in person, and in the last 30 days they published only a few posts. Very short feed.

So instagram became something completely different over time, and I still opened it occasionally, because I associate it with old memories. To feel closer to people I lost touch with, or didn't see for a while. But instead I get bombarded with BS and ads (and the occasional "real" social media post), without me consciously noticing the change for years.