Mindlessly browsing Instagram may become more difficult, as Meta is reportedly testing unskippable ads in the social media app’s feed.
TechCrunch Reports say ads have been shown to some users. As you scroll down the page, you encounter what the site calls an “ad break,” which locks scrolling and requires the user to watch an ad that takes several seconds.
Non-skippable ads are common on YouTube, but this is the first time they’ve been inserted into a social media channel in a scrolling format. (The Reels section of Instagram has had ads for a while, but those ads are still skippable. The new ads are part of a user’s main feed.)
Users who click the message icon next to an ad will see a message: “You’re seeing an ad break. Ad breaks are a new way to view ads on Instagram. Sometimes you may need to view an ad before you can continue browsing. .
Unsurprisingly, the reaction from users who saw these ads was negative.
“I absolutely hate this new ‘feature’ – it’s right in front of you and feels like a bad business decision to me,” one user wrote on Reddit. “The entire platform is basically “soft advertising” already, its revenue is based on the fact that people stay there for a long time, consuming content without thinking too much about it, and now they force users to stop scrolling and draw attention to them” is being developed An app designed to sell them things. So far I just close the app as soon as the ad pops up and if this continues I will unsubscribe.
Instagram’s financial health has barely been affected. Court filings in April revealed that the Meta unit was already making more money from advertising than YouTube. Documents show that Instagram’s advertising revenue in 2020 was $22 billion, while YouTube’s advertising revenue was $19.7 billion. In 2019, Instagram’s revenue was $17.9 billion. YouTube made $15.1 billion.
However, Instagram accounts for about a third of Meta’s revenue, which may be why the company is looking to increase revenue.
