The current state of Instagram

π•±π–Žπ–—π–Šπ–œπ–Žπ–™π–ˆπ–@lemmy.world to Mildly Infuriating@lemmy.world – 629 points –

I'm a performer, so I need my account for work and to book gigs. I've been locked out for almost a month due to a platform bug, and have tried and exhausted every possible avenue of support.

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That seems about right for Meta. They probably broke it on purpose to see how many times you'll try to log back in before giving up. They do these types of tests to determine how much of a hold they have on their userbase.

This is a conspiracy I can 100% get behind.

Oh this one isn’t a conspiracy it’s actually a real life fact. Bonafide.

Wait, is that why I randomly got locked out of my Spoofy account and despite submitting multiple password reset requests, nothing was ever sent to my email?

I get this kind of shit dealing with LG and Samsung support too. It's like customer experience doesn't matter in this day and age. They've cornered the market

DeWalt too. Got a table saw that shipped with a broken part, and their contact us form was broken. Eventually gave up and bought a replacement part off Amazon. Someone got a promotion for reducing claims.

Home Depot as well. I ordered a custom door that arrived 2 inches too short, only realized it when I got home (should've checked in the store I'll admit). Called to get it replaced, manager said no due to "buyer's remorse." They ended up refunding it when I initiated a chargeback.

If you can document the issue, how could they deny you like that. Are they claiming you took it home and cut it to then try to get a refund?

Home Depot hasn't changed. It's been a shit hole since its inception.

In Canada buyers remorse is a valid reason for return. I'm pretty sure you get 2 weeks.

Even on custom order items?

I'm totally wrong. Its for door to door salesmen I guess

In most provinces – including Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta, and Quebec, if you buy services or products from a door to door salesman at your home, you have 10 days from receipt of your written agreement to cancel the purchase.

There's a 30 day return policy buying from stores, I guess I thought they were both the same thing. No word about custom stuff. As a custom fabricator I'd want them to buy the materials at least.

I googled it and this is the source I found https://www.spergel.ca/learning-centre/general/buyers-remorse-laws-how-they-can-save-you-from-debt/

Here's the government page- https://www.ontario.ca/page/your-rights-under-consumer-protection-act

Quite specific.

Fucking UPS with the same garbage, the form for changing your address was broken and would display an error, the phone call support refused to help and told me to "just use the online form". I wocked around it by opening the form, pressing the back button, opening it again, and then it would display properly... Just to change a single fucking number in the apartment unit category. Those are 2 hours of my life I'm never getting back.

I've had only 1 interaction with DeWalt so far on a defective battery that was still under warranty and was actually impressed.

Used the contact form and exchanged 2 or 3 emails with service rep on a Saturday and had a new battery the following week

Yeah, broken support needs to be illegal. You can't even do a credit card charge back sometimes because you've had an item too long.

All companies are shit. I think companies in general should be fucking banned.

Customer experience jobs are often sent off-shore or cut entirely. Executives see it as a cost-saving measure.

ERROR,

An error has occurred attempting to display the error message.

Do you use a VPN? I use Proton VPN and it doesn’t like logging me in when using the VPN. When I’m logged in, the VPN works fine though.

And try to disable any adblockers, to at least eliminate that potential issue during login.

So many people write to when they mean too… also many use no punctuation… so I stopped after β€˜adblocker’ to try and assess if you mean

β€œAnd try to disable any adblocker too, at least eliminate the potential issue during login”

Then went, uh may be not. Reread the whole thing again, as written, to see you actually don’t have an intellectual disability.

I hate people sometimes.

It's like trying to complain about god's unfairness to an non-existing higher authority.

I'm not surprised. The only meta thing I use now is Insta in the mobile web, and they're clearly ignoring that trying to get you to switch to the app at any cost. They won't be reviewing this, or any bugs around it. Their solution is "JuSt tRY OuR aPP". Pass. When mobile web dies I'll be out for sure

All tickets go directly to /dev/null.

Thank you and have a nice day.

@Witchfire I used Instagram from 2016-2022, and it consistently got worse. Bugs that you’d expect to be patched quickly lingered for years as features like Stories, Reels, and now Threads get higher priority. DMs would consistently show me messages from 37 weeks ago that were supposed to expire after I viewed them the first time. The last straw was when they moved the Activities tab to the top so that Reels could have its own place at the bottom. I’m not surprised that they don’t even maintain the login page these days.

Might be a good time to dip a toe in the waters over at Pixelfed, if you haven't already.

How good is Pixelfed at handling adult content? I'm not even talking porn/full nudity, I'm talking things like blood, fire performance, and nipple pasties.

Instagram is terrible with anything that isn't kid friendly. For example, the #horror hashtag is banned and will get your post automatically flagged.

It would vary by server, but pixelfed.social and pixelfed.art just require sexually explicit or violent images to be marked sensitive.

Edit: I think sensitive images or specific tags might not appear on the daily trending list though. For a while it was just a wall of dicks and now it's not. But those posts wouldn't be deleted and people wouldn't be prevented from seeing or boosting them either.

Well it is... Better than what you describe at the very least, given that it is federated using activity pub. You're pretty much guaranteed to find some place that shares your proclivities I'd wager.

You know how social media copy each other?

Meta has dived in head first to beat X.

At this point I'd suggest that you make a new account.

I did a little while ago just so I can keep up with my friends, shows, etc. It just feels like I'm left picking up the pieces though, and it has no reach :/

My main account is also still active and appears before my backup, so people are still trying to contact me via an account I have very limited access to.

You need to go through the meta profile centre

Already tried that multiple times. Even dug up old Reddit posts where people describe how to reach them via privacy and security. Along the way I found posts from other users who have the same problem with no solution.

I've spent countless hours on chat and on the phone (you know how hard it is to get a phone call going with a Meta rep???), and have even spent 90ish minutes sharing my screen with two different reps. They supposedly filed a bug with the internal team but nothing came of it.

Meta for Business has basically zero ability to do anything on Instagram that isn't listed in the help articles. The whole ecosystem is basically a Frankenstein monster of technologies that can barely talk to one another. Instagram is basically running on its own.

Not trying to be an ass here but if you rely on services like this for your living, having the rug pulled from under you shouldn't come as a surprise.

Whether it's a surprise or not, users don't have a choice of what platform is most popular or effective at getting work. Many applications for gigs ask for links to your social media, it's the default portfolio that many clients look for.

All that artists can do is diversify to other platforms which have the same issues, and make a personal website which will probably get almost no traffic.

All that artists can do is diversify to other platforms which have the same issues

But not all at the same time. No single point of failure is the point.

Not trying to be an ass

You may not be trying, but I'm afraid you are succeding. It is surprising when basic functionality like logging in, doesn't work.

Unfortunately Facebook and Instagram is almost essential for small businesses to get off the ground. It's not that they rely on the service, they rely on word of mouth, and word of mouth spreads better on mass social media than anywhere else.

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