The popularity of your Instagram video may affect its actual video quality. According to Adam Mosseri (Meta executive who leads Instagram and Threads), more popular videos will be displayed at higher quality, while less popular videos will be displayed at lower quality.
In the video (via The Verge), Mosseri said Instagram strives to show “the highest quality video we can.” However, he said, ‘Because if you don’t watch something for a long time, most of the views are on the video. “We will initially move to lower quality video.”
This isn’t exactly new information. Meta wrote last year about using different encoding configurations for different videos depending on their popularity. But after someone shared Mosseri’s video on Threads, many users responded with questions and criticism, with one user describing the company’s approach as “absolutely crazy.”
Throughout the discussion, Mosseri provided further details. First of all, he clarified that these decisions are made ‘at an aggregate level, not an individual level’, so it’s not a situation where individual viewer participation affects the quality of the video being played.
“We prefer higher quality (more CPU-intensive encoding and more expensive storage for larger files) for creators, which drives more views,” Mosseri added. “It’s not a binary (threshold), it’s a sliding scale.”
Many users have also suggested that this approach creates a system that privileges popular creators over smaller ones. Popular creators post at the highest quality to bolster their popularity, while smaller creators are unable to break through.
Mosseri said this was a “valid concern,” but “in reality, it doesn’t seem to matter much because the quality changes aren’t that big and whether people interact with the video is much more based on the content. It’s more about the picture than the quality.” “For original creators, quality is much more important,” he said.
