Instagram Reduces Video Quality for Less Popular Content

Instagram lowers the video quality on less popular posts that aren’t amassing as many views.

This weekend, Instagram head Adam Mosseri confirmed that the popularity of an Instagram video can affect its actual video quality.

He confirmed that Instagram displays popular videos in higher quality, while less popular ones are shown in reduced quality.

In an Ask Me Anything (AMA) this weekend that was spotted by The Verge, Mosseri explained that the reason some videos appear in lower quality after posting comes down to their performance on the platform.

Mosseri gave the insight while responding to an Instagram user’s question about why old stories look “blurry” in highlights.

“In general, we want to show the highest-quality video we can — with someone who is watching a story or a Reel or a photo.” the Instagram head says.

“But if something isn’t watched for a long time — because the vast majority of views are in the beginning — we will move to a lower quality video.”

However, he revealed that when the Instagram video becomes popular again and starts getting more views, the platform “will re-render the higher quality video.”

The Instagram head described the system as “dynamic” and explained that the platform does this in order to “show people the highest-quality content we can.”

A social media user questioned Mosseri on Instagram’s policy of lowering video quality on less popular content and asked whether this made it harder for smaller creators to compete and breakthrough on the platform.

However, in a reply on Threads, Mosseri argued that people interact with videos based on its content — not its video quality.

“It’s the right concern, but in practice, it doesn’t seem to matter much, as the quality shift isn’t huge and whether or not people interact with videos is way more based on the content of the video than the quality,” Mosseri writes.

“Quality seems to be much more important to the original creator, who is more likely to delete the video if it looks poor, than to their viewers.”

 
Image credits: Header photo licensed via Depositphotos.