Even Instagram and Substack are TV now
Social media is the next streaming service.
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Earlier this month, I wrote that “Social media dies in 2026.” My “evidence” was the many, many people who used the new year to declare that they would be spending more time offline, whether that be through analog hobbies or thanks to tools like Brick. Not only is social media no longer compelling or addictive enough to continue taking up so much of our time, it is becoming an easier habit to kick.
Shortly after publishing that piece, I joined the great people at Day One agency to discuss it on their podcast, and we ended up taking the conversation a step further: Social media is no longer addicting because we’re no longer scrolling social media. We are, as Derek Thompson recently wrote, watching TV.
I don’t actually believe there’s a world in the next five or even 10 years in which Instagram or TikTok suddenly disappear. The apps will always be on our phones—we’ll just be opening them for different reasons. We already are.
The clues were there as early as 2020. The rise of TikTok completely altered how we post, and what we expect to consume, online. We stopped posting for the people we know from real life, and began posting to anyone who would watch. Our content is designed primarily to appeal to an audience of strangers, and the bigger the better. If our friends see it, well, they better like and comment so it can reach more people. That’s what friends are for!
Now that every platform has adopted a discovery-first approach and become dominated by brands and creators (the only ones with any reason to optimize their content for an algorithm), we’re well past sharing things like “Make Instagram Instagram Again” and thinking Adam Mosseri will do anything about it. These are not social platforms anymore—they are streaming services.
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To start your own free trial on Squarespace, head over to this link and use the code “embedded” for 10% your first purchase of a website or domain!Instagram basically admitted this when they began testing “Instagram for TV” last month. “Reels are grouped into channels that match your interests, including new music, sports highlights, hidden travel gems, trending moments, and more,” the press release reads, describing what the rest of us know as “cable.” “Over time, we’re exploring new features, including using your phone as a remote, intuitive ways to channel surf, shared feeds with friends, and making it easier to keep up with your favorite creators in one place.”
The lines are blurring in the other direction, too. Starting in 2029, the Oscars will move to YouTube after over 40 years on ABC. I’d also do what I could to sidestep the mess of every single TV studio and streaming service merging and rebranding and kowtowing to the FCC. Perhaps that’s why talk shows, too, are being rebranded as “podcasts”—that, plus the fact that it allows them to skirt paying union rates.
And then there’s Substack. Last Thursday, the platform announced the launch of a Substack TV app on Apple TV and Google TV. From what I can discern, this basically just allows users who previously watched Substack video content on their phones or laptops the option to also do so on TV. This makes sense to me, in the context of how the rest of the social media landscape is shifting. Video is a big part of many people’s creative brands and can be a great tool for discovery. The new app just allows those who do use these tools to keep up with the rest of the industry. (Embedded’s Screen Time Diaries maybe coming to a screen near you?)
But I understand being tired of keeping up with the industry. We’re in our fourth or fifth “pivot to video” rotation as social media makes its long trip around the sun, but there isn’t a final destination for any of this. Media will always be changing and adapting to its audience. Just be thankful that, in this phase, all we have to do is sit back and watch.
Substack tv is just idiocy. It’s an app for reading!
Similar Letterboxd started renting movies to users. This kind of makes more sense but I still hate it
Great post. Yes to all this. Also, what’s happening on Substack with this streaming is what Corey Doctorow calls in his book of the same title: Enshittification.