Head of IG reveals why they downgrade your video quality

Ever noticed your Reels (or ones made by other smaller creators) have a video quality problem?

Maybe you've got a handful of shiny 4K videos on your page, but most of them look like they were filmed on an OG iPod Touch?

You use the same device for each video and you always opt for the best video resolution. So, what gives?

Turns out, you're not making any mistakes and your phone's not bugging out.

As Instagram's head Adam Mosseri recently revealed, the app is intentionally reducing the quality of your videos - more specifically, the ones that aren't raking in the views.

Excuse me -- what?

Yes, you read that right.

Last week in a video AMA (Ask Me Anything), Mosseri addressed the user concern that some videos look more crisp than others.

He explained that Insta was prioritising the most popular videos. The platform reserves higher quality settings for those bringing in the most views.

As for Reels that aren't performing so well, including those that were once popular but now get little engagement, their file sizes - and pixels - receive some shrinkage.

'In general, we want to show the highest-quality video we can,' Mosseri said in the AMA. '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. And then if it’s watched again a lot then we’ll re-render the higher quality video.'

But don't get too upset! We understand that every Reel you make is your child. And, like with real children (I assume), you'd be furious if they got compressed when people stopped looking at them.

To these concerns, Insta has essentially said:

'It's not you, it's me.'

Mosseri's revelation might feel like a giant middle finger to less popular or growing creators. But don't tear into him just yet!

In the same AMA, he clarified this strategy has more to do with Insta's storage issues than punishing you for not going viral (yet!).

Three years back, Insta's parent company Meta projected it wouldn't be able to keep up with all the videos being uploaded to the app's servers.

To address this, Meta now processes newer Reels much faster, giving them a baseline, okay-ish quality.

When a video blows up, Meta puts it through slower, more advanced processing, giving it the best quality possible.

If you're still not convinced and believe your Reels' success relies on them looking sharp, Mosseri argues otherwise.

'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,' he wrote on Threads.

'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.'

So there you have it from Insta's head himself: quality of content is better than quantity of pixels.

We still think you should make visually striking videos where you can. But don't be offended when Instagram brings the quality down a few pegs.

Just remember: the tools used to record and distribute art aren't what matter most - the people operating them and being captured by them are!

-Devin, Copywriter