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Instagram is a largely free to use platform. As such, it relies on ads to keep the lights on. Instagram has inserted ads in various places, such as in between Stories and also in between your news feed. But now according to Android Authority, Instagram is testing a new ads feature that will make it super annoying.
According to the report, Instagram is testing a new ads feature they’re calling an “ad break”. This is basically an ad that users are forced to sit through until the timer counts down to zero. It is completely unskippable which means that users have no choice but to wait for the ad to complete before they can keep scrolling.
This is extremely annoying and many users are already complaining about it. We get that ads are important and a way for Instagram to make money. But this “ad break” seems like a bad decision because it could just end up driving users away. While there are services like YouTube that have unskippable ads, it’s not the same.
Instagram thrives on users staying in the app and scrolling through their feed. If ads are interrupting the process, users might get frustrated enough to just stop using the service entirely. Whereas on YouTube, users understand that in order to get to the video they want to watch, they have to sit through ads and it might be a trade-off they’re willing to make.
In any case, it appears that these ad breaks are a test. Not all users are seeing it so hopefully Instagram takes note and come up with a better solution.
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