Instagram has fixed one of the most annoying quibbles with its popular social media app. The “rug pull” feature, which caused posts to suddenly disappear, has officially been removed. While that may seem like a slight change, it’s one that will likely bring a more pleasant experience to anyone who currently uses the platform.
What Is Rug Pull?
Rug pull is a feature Instagram implemented to offer you the most recent content as soon as you opened the app. In theory, it sounded like a good way to feed you the absolute freshest Instagram posts quickly.
However, the feature unexpectedly cast some content into the void of the internet. In fact, triggering rug pull often ignited the desire to bounce your phone off the pavement, especially if what you were watching was particularly interesting. And because of how it worked, finding that content became almost impossible.
Rug Pull Increased Engagement
While it might seem like rug pull was an unfortunate programming bug, Instagram head, Adam Mosseri, confirmed it was installed to increase user engagement and minimize content loading times. But Mosseri acknowledged how detrimental rug pull felt as part of the overall Instagram user experience.
“It’s really annoying,” stated Mosseri in a Reels video originally posted to his Instagram account. “So we stopped doing it. So basically, what we do now, is we load new content, and we will not show it until you scroll, and we’ll insert it below. We actually took a little bit of an engagement hit for this, but it is a much better experience for the average user.”
Instagram isn’t the only social media platform to use a rug pull feature as a way of increasing engagement. The X app (formerly Twitter) has a similar approach to its For You feed. When you open the feed, content will immediately disappear, and more recent content will emerge in its place. And yes, it’s similarly rage-inducing.
Instagram’s abandonment of rug pull to focus on the user experience certainly adds allure to the platform, especially in light of some recent negative press. We recently criticized Instagram for admitting it offered improved video quality for more popular posts.
However, the company’s elimination of the rug pull feature suggests a shift that prioritizes the user over simple engagement metrics. It’s a welcome change, but whether it will inspire other social media players to do the same is still yet to be determined.
