At the ongoing F8 Developer Conference, Instagram made a public announcement which may appeal to some users while at the same, perhaps annoy others. This is about the new feature that will hide the public like counts on feed, permalinked pages, and profiles.
The new feature will be initially tested to Instagram users in Canada although there could be a big chance that it may be implemented to users in other regions as well. We’ll never know, it would depend on how whether this new feature will be embraced by users or not.
According to Instagram, the new feature is aimed at refocusing user attention on the photos and videos that are being shared on Instagram instead of the number of likes they get. This is fair enough considering that Instagram was created specifically for photo and video sharing. Previously, it doesn’t really matter whether you get a million like for what you’ve shared or you get none. You’ll still continue to post for as long as you have a great photo or video to share.
Once implemented, only the user who owns the photo or video posted on Instagram will be able to see how many likes their photo or video get. Earlier this year, we announced that this feature would be coming.
It is only now during the F8 conference that Instagram finally made it official by way of testing the feature to Instagram users in Canada. The reason why the new feature will be tested only in Canada is known.
Perhaps, Instagram would like to test first whether users will like it or not especially since public likes on Instagram posts as of today can either be demoralizing or encouraging. There are some users who post photos and videos on Instagram to gain popularity while others post for the simple joy of sharing their content to friends and family.
What remains to be seen though is how this will impact Instagram. It could be a good way to reduce the stress from Instagram users to post photo and video that will get as many likes as possible. Or it could backfire and discourage popular Instagram users to continue using the social platform.
