Instagram Lowers Video Quality of Stories and Reels That Do Not Fetch Views, Says Adam Mosseri
DA Gadgets 
Instagram
lowers
the
quality
of
videos
that
do
not
get
a
lot
of
views,
Instagram
Head
Adam
Mosseri
said
on
Friday.
The
social
media
platform’s
head
executive
revealed
this
during
an
ask-me-anything
(AMA)
session
held
on
Instagram
Stories.
As
per
him,
this
applies
to
all
video
formats
on
the
platform
including
Stories,
longer
videos,
and
Reels.
The
decision
is
taken
to
ensure
that
the
videos
watched
by
a
lot
of
users
and
are
getting
a
high
volume
of
traffic
are
prioritised
in
terms
of
encoding.
Instagram
Reduces
Quality
of
Videos
That
Get
Less
Views
In
a
Threads
post,
a
user
posted
the
video
where
Mosseri
answered
a
question
about
why
older
Stories
which
are
saved
as
Highlights
turn
to
a
lower-quality
version
of
the
fresh
upload.
The
Instagram
head
said
that
the
platform
has
algorithms
that
automatically
check
older
Stories
and
Reels
which
do
not
get
many
views
and
reduce
their
quality.
This
is
done
to
reserve
the
computation
resources
for
videos
that
are
being
watched
by
a
large
number
of
users.
This
would
explain
why
the
Highlights
and
Reels
of
smaller
creators
appear
slightly
grainy
when
viewed
after
a
certain
period.
Mosseri
highlighted
that
quality
reduction
is
applied
after
the
interest
cycle
of
a
recent
upload
dies
down.
This
could,
in
theory,
take
between
a
few
days
and
a
few
weeks.
Some
users
raised
concerns
over
this
move,
especially
the
transparency
about
such
a
decision.
People
also
asked
about
the
breakdown
highlighting
if
a
certain
number
of
views
is
required
to
maintain
the
video
quality.
Mosseri,
replying
to
the
Threads
post,
said,
“It
works
at
an
aggregate
level,
not
an
individual
viewer
level.
We
bias
to
higher
quality
(more
CPU-intensive
encoding
and
more
expensive
storage
for
bigger
files)
for
creators
who
drive
more
views.
It’s
not
a
binary
threshold,
but
rather
a
sliding
scale.”
When
a
user
suggested
that
such
a
move
makes
it
difficult
for
smaller
creators
to
compete
with
larger
creators,
Mosseri
explained
that
based
on
the
analytics,
users
tend
to
interact
with
videos
based
on
the
quality
of
content
rather
than
the
quality
of
videos.
He
also
claimed
that
the
quality
drop
of
the
video
is
not
significant
enough
to
be
a
concern
to
users.
