Instagram head Adam Mosseri defends 'not good' changes amid Kim Kardashian complaints

Instagram
However the company says it's not ditching photos for videos completely. Photo credit: Getty Images

The head of Instagram has defended changes the company has made to the app, amid criticisms from the likes of Kim Kardashian and Kylie Jenner.

The sisters are among a growing group of dissatisfied users publicly complaining about the move to make the popular photo and video sharing app more like TikTok.

"Make Instagram Instagram again. Stop trying to be TikTok, I just want to see cute photos of my friends," the pair posted on their feed.

With just under 700 million combined followers, that's a lot of eyeballs seeing their critique of the company's direction.

Adam Mosseri acknowledged in his video that the full-screen version of the feed that's been rolled out for some users is just an experiment and the company is hearing concerns.

"I want to be clear, it's not yet good. And we're going to have to get it to a good place if we're going to ship it to the rest of the Instagram community," he said.

"We're going to continue to support photos. It's part of our heritage. That said, I do believe that more and more of Instagram is going to become video over time."

Mosseri asked for feedback in the video and Twitter users were quick to offer it, none more so than one who simply asked "Why do you never listen to your users?"

"Believe it or not we try," Mosseri replied.

"We spend a ton of time trying to understand what people prefer based on how to use Instagram and what they say about the app. Things can get tricky when those two are in tension."

He also followed up the video by addressing the concerns that people aren't seeing enough of their friend's content in their feed.

"I'd love for there to be more friend content in feed, but all the growth in photos and videos from friends has been in stories and in DMs," he tweeted.

"We will continue to show photos and videos from friends towards the top of feed whenever we can, but the best way to keep up with friends seems to be with the other parts of Instagram.

"That said, if you want to make sure to never miss anything from a friend, or from any account for that matter, add that account to your Favorites and we will show their feed posts at the top of feed."

However, that didn't stop more people from expressing their disdain for the changes.

"Adam Mosseri would piss on you and tell you it's raining," one wrote.

"Honestly I'm hoping a photo-focused app comes along and overtakes Instagram. I hate it more and more every day," offered a second.

The feelings were perhaps best summed up by one user, who concluded his comment with the poop emoji.

"Instagram is crap now," he wrote.

"Literally joined to look at photos and now I'm being forced to watch stupid reels from people I don't know or targeted marketing for shopping I'll never do! We need a new photo only type app."