So I got the message from instagram about either paying or using it free (at the cost personalised ads) just now.
Doesn’t this go against the GDPR? Either way, is there a FOSS alternative for instagram like piped is to youtube? It seems like a good opportunity to stop using the official app, even though it would be better to not use instagram at all (sadly not an option for me right now).
Any suggestions, and if so, are there any that provide functionality for: stories, posts, dms? Those are the 3 things I use instagram for.
Many thanks!
Edit: For messaging I do use beeper, though some media like carousels and posts sent to my dms cant be shown in there, so for those cases I open the official app.
Edit 2: many people have suggested pixelfed. Ive heard of it, and want to use it, but unfortunately the only reason Im still sticking with instagram is because I have very dear friends who would never change to anything non-mainstream. Theyre important enough that im willing to not delete it just yet, but I dont want to agree to either pay or pay with my data.
What im looking for is more like a piped for youtube, thing. So a frintend that has instagram content/features, but isnt the main app and avoids the problems I listed above
Edit 3: I ended up installing the site as a PWA on my phone as thats the only device I use it on, and uninstalled the official app. Thanks to everyone for all your input!
“Your info won’t be used for ads”
But we’ll still be tracking everything you do and selling that on to everyone who wants it.
They get to show people the words “your info won’t be used” to make you feel safe, with the caveat that they will use it for literally everything and anything else.
Very cool of them
Wouldn’t they just skirt the technicalities with just showing targeted sponsorships anyways?
Should have posted that chain-text to my Facebook wall years ago so my profile would be blue and safe…
Please forgive me,… I failed you all… 😭
I swear these specific copypastas are started by grad school sociology students for their thesis research or something.
Those, and the copypastas that end with “I want to see who’s brave/caring/proud enough to repost.”
Hermit app make PWAs a realistic alternative
Seems like a very interesting app. Is it open source by any chance?
No idea, didn’t really care.
Im trying it out even though its closed source
I setup my own pixelfed instance to share pictures of my kids and family. I own and control all the data on my server and no one gets to monetize pictures of my children.
Not many of my family members are on there but I still prefer it to Instagram
Ive heard of it, and want to use it, but unfortunately the only reason Im still sticking with instagram is because I have very dear friends who would never change to anything non-mainstream.
This is called the network effect, it’s a social problem and no amount of technology will solve this. So your choices are either to stop using apps where you are the product, and obviously convince your friends to stop that as well, or grin and bear it. Maybe think about what you did 20 years ago and do that instead.
I’ve given an ultimatum to friends and family, switch to fediverse or our interactions will be reduced to in person encounters.
instander
Is there an open source alternative?
There’s proxygram which is still a work in progress, but it’s already looking pretty good for now imo
Just STOP using their service.
This situation isn’t getting any better. After this they will regularly up the price and take out features that you are used to and charged you extra.
They are still gathering and selling your information. Meaning you might not get ads on instagram but your digital fingerprint is still being used literally on every other website that FB works with.
Corporate social media is a toxic parasite that’s only going to enshittify more and more while people are willing frogs boiling themselves slowly.
Join mastodon, pixelfed and peertube. That’s the future of consumer rights and clawing away from billionaire ownership.
It’s just more enshittification
It absolutely is not. You are using enshitification incorrectly. This is the core business model of facebook since the very beginning. They don’t give a shit about people spending $13/mo. They absolutely do not want people to choose that option. This is literally about about a legal loophole they think they have found to get around GDPR and have people “opt-in” to the same kind of data collection their business is based on.
It’s linked to the same thing though. Investor pressure to produce a profit or sink. It’s the service getting worse. And Facebook wrote the book on enshittification- think 2006 Facebook.
Im already on mastodon and i use piped, but sadly I cant leave insta yet because i have very dear friends on there who i chat with, and they’d never switch to something else (… And meta knows this btw)
I had to do the same thing. If they are dear friends then they shouldn’t have a problem getting a free app to chat with you. Otherwise sms is always an option.
Someone has to be the catalyst for change. Otherwise the corporate grip is only going to get stronger and soon enough all corporate social media will be subscription only.
Your first mistake was making real friends >:C
If he only follows them through Instagram it’s most likely a para-social relationship, and not a real friend at all.
Or friends who’ve decided that their “one app” for messaging is Instagram? I think something like that is a possibility.
Well someones gotta go first. Nah, I’m kidding and I get it. I tried it myself with Snapchat and Discord and it was a very slow and tedious process. But I got it done. Migrated to SMS for the people that refused to adopt a new platform and since SMS is …quite bad it does get easier to convince once you’re there. Feel somewhat guilty for bothering people but I sure don’t miss the old platforms. Good riddance.
13€? Are they insane? If I were to use the platform I’d be willing to pay 3€ at most. 13€ is just ridiculous.
The call to action button is the free plan, with subscribe having a secondary button style. That alone makes it clear they want to show you ads more than they want you to subscribe.
They don’t want you to choose the paid option. They make more in the ads and info.
It’s on purpose. They know most people won’t pay, so now it’s carte blanche to their data. And if somebody’s desperate enough, they’ll pay 13€ and meta will make more money on the user than with ads.
They will collect and sell your data either way. They just won’t force ads down your throat if you pay them. This is what billionaires have done to our beloved internet.
Pixelfed it is then
Is pixelfed an entirely different platform? Sadly i have many good friends on insta who i talk with, and they wouldnt ever switch to anything else, so because of that im stuck with meta. Otherwise i would 100% leave it
It is Instagram but federated in a nutshell. Just like Lemmy is similar to Reddit but federated. Whoah, wait I saw your profile and you do not know about Pixelfed?
Ahh i see. Im going to edit my post now to specify that Im looking for an alternative frontend to instagram, such as piped is for youtube. Sadly i have friends on insta that I cant stop using it for now because of
Edit: haha ive heard of it, but its not really what im looking for sadly
Doesn’t exist.
Just switch to Pixelfed.
Good friends will talk to you elsewhere like Telegram or Signal.
Wait, so it’s either targeted ads or pay? Damn… Silly me thinking if you don’t pay you still could opt out of targeted ads.
But yeah, isn’t this against GDPR?
Nope, the GDPR allows data collection as long as the user explicits concents to it, and it doesn’t say services can’t be fee based. It’s not a workaround.
Better question is why is a privacy advocate using a platform owned by Meta in the first place.
Plus, although still stupid, you could simply connect from a US IP address, and since people that care about privacy already have VPNs, pretty trivial to do.
The sane choice would be to leave.
It seems like a nice idea that they offer a paid option for an ad free internet
Still a privacy nightmare, with and without ads.
I’ll just stop using it if they tell me this. You can sign up for pixelfed. It’s a part of the fediverse, too. You can transfer all of your Instagram photos to it very easily. They even have instructions on how to do it. I moved all of my 650 photos in about 20 minutes. Just in case.
I dont have many photos, but thats not the issue. Its that all my friends are on it, and until I leave after my bachelors and need to have contact with them often im stuck with it. After i leave to a different country once i get my degree itll be easier, but for the next year or so im stuck with instagram because i dknt want to lose contact with them. As most people, they would never leave the mainstream thing behind, so no chance of converting them as well
Ok then, run it in a browser, instead of the actual app, to give them less of your data. I have it installed on my phone as a webapp on Firefox with ublock origin and TrackerControl app
Thats pretty much what I did :)
You need to make a choice, Mr Anderson…
Loving the username and matrix reference :)
Im reading 1984 right now, i like it so far.
