One didn’t even notice the “View Older Posts” button, despite it being front and center. Just that photos of e.g. his grandkids were overnight replaced with nonsense.

I get that this is a natural consequence of most consumers just not valuing software very highly. Those who object would also balk at paying for Instagram, despite how much enjoyment they get from it. I personally implemented plenty of junk just like this when I worked at @tumblr

It’s a wide-reaching problem that goes well beyond this relatively benign example. Many far worse symptoms of “software/news/content = not worth paying for.”

But let’s call it what it is anyway. Instagram intentionally made their app objectively worse for you because they can.