This _isn’t_ the core mechanism of social media. When social media took off, Facebook and Instagram that really did allow you to connect with people that you knew from real life. Twitter was different, and more like microblogging, but I still see the real value of social media to be what the un-shitty versions of Facebook and Instagram were.

Twitter was amazing, not because of people microblogging about breakfast, but because it gave people/companies/orgs a way to interact directly with their audience. If you want to know what Kix cereal had to say - you could follow Kix.

I always wondered about this.... in the beginning of instagram, i would follow maybe 30, 40 people, open it 2-3 times per day, and every time there would be 3-5 new photos of random stuff taken by those people (lunch/dinner plates, views from the window, beer glass on the bar, whatever).

Years later, i would follow 200 people, and i would open instagram once per day and all i'd see were random peoples photos and videos (reels? i don't know what they're called anymore), some from international influences, some like stuff that can be found on 9gag, etc. Even if i switched to "following", there would maybe be 1 photo made by a person I actually followed.

Did the algorithm make people stop posting their personal daily stuff? Did people change?

I guess it's even worse now, but i've uninstalled it a few years ago.