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Comment by mfontani | Hacker News Reader

> we immediately present users with a cached copy of their previous feed and stories tray, and then replace it with fresh data once it’s available

I vehemently HATE this pattern.

I'm on a slow connection, and I open the app.

Yay, I see some (cached) content. I start reading.

After a random amount of time EVERYTHING CHANGES, and I can't get back to it. It's gone, for all intents and purposes, forever.

I'd love to have a something which tells me there's fresh content to be had, and that I could - if and when I so wanted - CHOOSE to see it.

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(Author here) To clarify, we don't actually replace it automatically - we show a pill notification that new stories are available. You can either choose to tap it and see the new feed, or ignore it and continue with what you were doing

I have definitely had the "the thing I was looking at right after the app opened disappeared after a few seconds and I can't find it again" experience /u/mfontani describes.

Might have been an earlier version we were testing before we built out the new posts pill, this feature went through several iterations.

I just loaded Instagram and it did this. It’s probably not something you see because you open the app multiple times a day. You definitely run into it when you only open the app a few times a week.

This article is about the instagram.com website, not the mobile app. Are you talking about the website or the mobile app?

Why should it be different?

Great for the web team if they are doing a better job than the mobile team I guess.

I saw it the other day, but I might not have the most up-to-date copy of the app

I see the "new posts" pill if I've scrolled down into the cached content at all, but if I'm just looking at the first post I see the behavior everyone else is describing. It's still pretty annoying.

I have the latest version of the app (on iOS) installed and this literally just happened to me. I run into it nearly every time I open the app.

I also see if it the app is running in the background and I switch back over to IG. I can be in the middle of my feed and scrolling and after a few seconds it refreshes and I lose my spot.

seems broken on my copy. I see the same as the GP post a lot. Maybe this is not the cause.

same here. Older android version.

I think it will be better if you remove unread posts from the bottom (keep everything till the scroll point) and append new posts, so, the user won't notice them.

Latest version, and I just tired the beta on Android 10. No pill, no hover button, just here's a post you were looking at aaaaand it's gone.

I don't use instagram, but I use FB mobile and this same behavior exists on there, and I echo this sentiment.

I have 1000+ connections on FB, built out over the past 15 years (I started using FB in college when it was a college network); which is to say, I'd never be able to fully read everything every one of my connections have posted because there are too many. Sometimes I see an interesting post as I'm scrolling, start reading it, and everything changes (sometimes it waits until I click into the comments of a post, and go back, and then everything changes, which is arguably worse because now I can't refer back to the original post...). If I didn't make a mental note of who created that post, it's lost forever. If I remember who posted it, at least I could search for that person, and scroll down on their feed.

Yeah, I experience the same thing. The back button is entirely broken on Facebook. When going back, other stuff is loaded. It's hard to find the same post twice.

I only have like 150 friends on FB and it's already hard to find something.

I am astonished by how any organization with considerable resources to solve these things could arrive at this solution.

If its good enough to show, it's good enough for me to look at. If it's good enough to look at, don't fucking rip it from my eyes.

Do not touch the viewport after content has been loaded. Hydrated into the feed only below everything the user might currently be looking at.

This constantly annoys me on the shield TV. The YouTube recommended items will change while I'm scrolling through them. Something will look interesting and before I hit OK the item I'm currently on disappears. Unless I remember enough about it I can't find it again.

Yes, I would rather the page be blank and load correctly rather than having content replaced while I'm actively looking at it. This pattern should be an anti-pattern, but I would assume they probably have a KPI to decrease site load time by a percentage versus a better product experience.

I'm pretty sure if you touch the feed at all, or it detects you haven't seen the content before it'll put a button there that won't move you to the top of the feed until you tap on it for that very reason.

You have to scroll past the first post.

Similar to Twitter and other social apps. Agreed that it's a very annoying experience.

The worst possible implementation of the “Loading” screen.

It’s like Flash of Unstyled Content, but instead it’s Flash of Useless Content Killed.

Or something with a similarly appropriate acronym.

And the Guardian app as well. Opens to the last front page headline, and then refreshes after a few seconds.

I agree, and this happens on an even not-slow connection. I would be interested in seeing the testing studies that made them go with this change. (I’m sure they did some.)

The Google Feed on Android phones does something similar but presents a "Refresh Feed" "pill" button when it detects that there's fresher content to pull. Surprised Instagram doesn't do this.

this, every single time I open instagram on a browser, the icon for broken picture appears.

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