How has Instagram largely avoided being associated with Facebook/Meta?

I feel like it's 100% a "they don't care," the vast majority of social media users couldn't give less of a shit who runs the service, just what the service does for them.

The average person didn't quit Facebook because it was a gross invasion of privacy and FB was caught doing plenty of suspect shit - Facebook declined because it wasn't "cool" anymore and that's it. People on Lemmy are more likely to care about who's behind the service, but the average user certainly isn't going to care much or at all.

Facebook declined because they fucked up too much with the UI/UX and with how things are shown on the feed. People hated watching only useless posts by users and groups they don't even follow and finding their friend's posts days later when the algorithm decided to show them

Instagram has become more shit in that regard too. But reels really saved it
- Instagram has become more shit in that regard too. But reels really saved it
  
  Reels are their attempt at chasing TikTok, aren't they? I was of the impression some folks were being put off by them being forcefed to them?
I second this opinion as well, FB back in the day was for youths, then... My parents were on it. And the entire neighbourhood and their dog, too. I have a limit on how much crap I can see in my feed. Slowly but surely I left it.

Instagram filters out anyone who doesn't care for visual content. And it didn't start as part of FB.
just what the service does for them.

By that token, that's the other side of the question, what does Instagram do for those still using it? I've seen a few replies that give some interesting insights on this, but Instagram's never struck me as being as heavily integrated as WhatsApp given its focus, so I'd guess maybe a mix of memes and, admiration, to put it nicely?
Haha, all I know is the admins of my instances are most likely no Steve. Admins are as pseudonymous as I am, although we probably have similar hope of prospering in communities that are better than corporate-controlled ones.

Unfortunately, you could say the same about WhatsApp..

WhatsApp is more problematic to leave though. Where I live, it's the default messaging app everyone uses. I haven't texted anyone in ages. And I can also see why it's the default, WhatsApp is just better than the competition. It's end-to-end encrypted, so Meta cannot read your messages directly, it has good markdown-like formatting support, it's has a lot of features, and it's relatively stable.

I've been using Telegram and Signal with friends, but honestly Telegram doesn't exactly feel safer to me, especially with e2e encryption not enabled by default (last time I checked). And Signal is better, but sometimes just a pain to use. No Markdown-like syntax (though formatting is finally possible via GUI), it constantly keeps desyncing devices that I use once every few weeks, and we've had plenty of bugs with not seeing messages of eachother.

Now, I can accept that to a degree, in return for better privacy. But no way in hell are laypeople like my family going to switch. WhatsApp is too good and safe enough to remain dominant.
- Yep. And by everyone I literally mean everyone. Every iPhone has whatsapp installed, my workplace uses it, every single one of my friends use it, my parents use it and my both grandmothers use it. Hell my pet gerbils probably have whatsapp too.
It’s funny in a lot of conversations about RCS WhatsApp users (mostly from outside US) make fun of RCS fans as if WhatsApp is not owned by a multinational corporation!

And WhatsApp, mother of the Standby Battery Drains. Bearer of the Wakelocks. Enemy of Deep Sleep.

Whatsapp doesn't use a lot of battery at all for me.
- For me it's not a deal breaker. But in terms of standby it's number 1. (Because I deleted everything else).
  
  If I open BBS I get a mess of partial wakelocks: https://imgur.com/a/KzMQhR9

If most people answered honestly- they know it’s Facebook with the same disgusting privacy practices while using it actively funds some of the worst people on the planet… but reels are funny. Truth is they just like it and leaving it for the same altruistic reasons they’ve left other platforms isn’t as convenient because they’re addicted.

Sure they’ll have a million excuses for why they “can’t” delete their account there, but we all know it’s because reels go brrrrr. That’s the sad honest truth.

Downvote away.

Never watched a single reel/story or what ever they're called but I'm still on instagram. Why? Because it's my only social media account my friends know of. Also I met my SO there so I guess it has some sentimental value aswell. Don't use the app though.

I don't use Facebook but I have a handful of friends on Instagram that like to send me funny stuff. They all don't really know each other so I find myself passing on memes like some kind of 1930s phone operator connecting calls.

I've come across people who didn't know Instagram is owned by Facebook, and people who thought meta and Facebook were different companies. I thought the rename was the stupidest thing ever until I saw it did actually work on some people.

It's because most of them were using Instagram before Facebook acquired it and the transition was pretty seamless.

Agreed 100%

Probably because it doesn’t fit the vibe of Meta. Lots of influencers use it so people just don’t care and don’t need to step back and look at the bigger picture.

Working in the film, TV & commercial industry as production and camera crew it is impossible to not to have instagram to connect and network.

I did ditch Facebook years ago though and recently reddit for lemmy. I am interested in pixelfed in general, but it will not replace instagram at the moment for my work relations unfortunately.

I think it has a lot to do with Instagram esthetics and (under-the-radar-proposed) user behaviour.

You are encouraged through suggested posts on insta to make everything about you look perfect, so your ig becomes in a sense your own advertisment. That is not so much on FB. FB was always life as it is.
Instagram users are somehow not encouraged to post comments that much, rather to like, which reduces the likelihood of anyone ruining that image of yourself you are creating. Again, this is different on FB.
Also, there are no groups, no communities on Insta, so users cannot connect in the same way like on FB, so there is no negative political or other association to it.
Lastly, if you think about it, Mark always was and by this day remained the face of Facebook and Facebook only. Rarely anyone ever mentions he is also behind ig. And we know people - they tend not to think about stuff which aren't mentioned.

For the record, I deleted both at the same time 2 years ago. WA I still have but prefer Telegram. Wish I could ditch WA as well. Telegram is far more advanced.

Yea, I wish I could delete WhatsApp. But everyone and their cat has WA so I'm planning to get another phone just for QA and other info harvesting application social medias.

Because it got popular when it was it's own independent company, and THEN Facebook bought it.

And that purchase happened in 2012, well before Cambridge Anylitica broke as a story.

It's more that people saw no reason to leave, and by the time there were good reasons, Instagram was too large and established to easily dump for most people.

I think people underestimate the scale of surveillance/tracking. People lump it in with “oh it’s just advertising”, similar to all the commercials you watch on tv. But it’s a completely different beast. Personally my eureka moment was when I set up a pi-hole and saw the staggering amount of creepy tracking on my devices.

Pi-hole? Pardon my ignorance but could you elaborate?
- https://pi-hole.net/
  
  It's a network level ad-blocker by blocking at the DNS level.
  
  It was originally meant to run on a raspberry pi, but will run in docker or other Linux os as well. Very light weight and a great self-host project. Been running for years and support via patreon.
- Pi-hole is software that runs typically but not necessarily on a raspberry pi. It maintains a list of known advertising and tracking servers and blocks them by rerouting at the DNS level. For example an embed in a page tells your computer to contact tracking.facebook.com pihole tells your computer that that website is at 0.0.0.0 instead of it's real IP address. Nifty thing is that you can redirect all of your DNS queries at the router so even devices that can't normally run ad blockers can take advantage of it.

I'm no longer on FB but still use Instagram because their use cases and the type of content being shared are completely different, I don't share anything there I don't care about the discovery page or reels I'm only there for the few stories and posts that the people I'm following posts basically I'm using it for what it was built for in the 1st place it is great at it it no longer feels like I'm wasting my time on it and this is partially thanks to Aeroinsta blocking all the ads and trackers

My younger sisters (22and 23) have never had a Facebook account but are into Instagram and Snapchat. To some degree an age difference is at play. I'm 30 and it's crazy how differently we're involved with the internet.

I do use instagram, since a lot of local information is only shared there.

I have to use whatsapp, since badically everyone uses it as main messenger. Many frriends are also on signal though. But group chats are still often on whatsapp.

I don't use facebook dince the content is just crap.

I hate to use any of them...

TLDR: It doesn't matter who makes the platform, rather what the platform is like. Insta isn't great but it's so much better than FB.

I use Instagram a little bit. I've ditched Facebook a very long time ago, at least 7 years if not more. Whether or not it's from Meta never made a difference.

Things were different when I joined Insta, it was a passable way to find art and collect images and follow artists. I was never a fan, but considering I had to abandon DeviantArt (similar story to Reddit) Insta was the next best option available back then. Artstation was too CG and just getting started.

So yes, the reason I keep using it is because there isn't really anything better when it comes to finding visual art in a broad variety of media. It's a shit app, it has too much of things I don't care about, but it is less stupid than FB so it gets a pass.

If there was a solid artist focused platform available today, that would let you follow art and artists of absolutely any media/genre, collect images and communicate etc, I'd jump in a heartbeat. I'd still keep insta solely for the chat, as over the years it became the only communication channel I have with some people.

Who still uses this shit. People bitch about zuck and musk while riding their dicks using Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to complain.

I use Instagram on occasion because it's something almost everyone my age has and when your meeting new people, you often have to meet them where they're at (digitally). I barely touch Facebook anymore because the interface is cluttered and half the features broke and were never fixed , like searching for events. I tried Pixelfed, but after a month, only one person has liked a single photo I posted. The app itself is great.

The reason I prefer Instagram over Facebook is universality in my age group and, as you pointed out, it cuts a bunch of the crud from FB and I actually see pictures of my friends rather than a bunch of stupid disguised ads and political BS.