Mosseri confirms that Instagram lowers video quality for posts that don’t generate views

In an AMA this weekend, Instagram head Adam Mosseri shared details about why some videos on the site seem to be reduced in quality after being posted, and it all boils down to performance. In response to a question about old stories that look “blurred” in the highlights, Mosseri said, “Generally, we want to show the highest quality video we can see. But if something is not viewed for a long time – because many views are in the first place – we will move to a lower quality video.” If the video later grows in popularity again, “then we will offer a higher quality video again,” he said in a reply, which was also posted by a Threads user (seen by. The Verge).

However, elaborating on the next answer, Mosseri added, “We bias high quality (more CPU encoding and expensive storage for larger files) on creators who drive more views.” The comments sparked concern among smaller creators in response who said it puts them at a disadvantage in competing with others with larger platforms. Meta has said it uses “different encoding settings to process videos based on their popularity” as part of how it manages its computing resources.

The operating system “operates at the aggregate level,” Mosseri said, “not at the individual viewer level… [sic]but a sliding scale.” In response to one user who questioned its suitability for small creators, Mosseri said the quality change “doesn’t seem to matter much” in terms of performance because it is “not that big” and viewers seem to care about video content more than quality. “Quality seems to be more important to the original creator, who is more likely to remove the video if it looks bad, than to its audience,” he said. Understandably, not everyone seems convinced.