Once upon a time – when Facebook was young and still somewhat charming, still a little clumsy and innocent in its awkward digital adolescence – it was absolutely possible, almost laughably easy even, to grow an account, to become someone, to become what we today would call an influencer. You could just post things, anything really, and people would actually see it. They would respond to it, like it, share it. Without you having to sell your soul or empty your wallet first.
This image is posted in one of our Facebook groups in 2012. 361 likes, 371 shares and 12 comments. During the first hours.
But then... slowly, sneakily, like some creeping fog at dawn, the algorithms shifted. They pushed, nudged, and eventually bulldozed us into a new era: Pay to Play. And not in a subtle way — oh no, they went all in. Today, if you think you can build something real without paying through the nose just to reach the people who literally asked to follow you, you’re either breathtakingly naive or still living in 2011.
Ads technically launched on Facebook back in 2007, sure, but it wasn’t until 2012 where the real betrayal happened: they introduced what’s known as Artificial Scarcity. In plain English? They decided to start hiding our posts from our own audiences — at first they slashed our organic reach down to something like 7%, which already felt like a gut punch, but then they didn’t even stop there. Oh no. They kept tightening the noose. It dropped to 1%. Then even lower. Today, it’s something deranged, like 1/500th to 1/1000th of the reach you would have had before. If you’re lucky.
And of course Instagram, not wanting to miss out on a good thing, decided to copy-paste the same rotten strategy. From around 2016 to 2018, Adam (you know, Adam Mosseri, the guy who became the face of Instagram) began to introduce their version of Artificial Scarcity, and it’s been a slow motion tragedy ever since. Every update, every announcement, every feature added or tweaked — it was all just new creative ways to suffocate your reach even more.
We started a new account in early 2024. We had hops but knew we were late. I mean, we knew the game had changed, obviously, but still — we weren’t ready for just how brutal it would be. I remember in March and April 2024, feeling this tiny flicker of the old days. Some days we could get 50, 70, even 100 followers just by posting good stuff. And yet even those good days... they felt thin, ghostly, nothing compared to 2015 when a half-decent post could set your world on fire and send thousands of people your way overnight.
The further we moved into 2024, though, the worse it got. The walls kept closing in. By the time we hit January 2025, we weren't just fighting to grow. We were fighting not to slip backward.
Here’s a depressing little stat for you: that account, over its first year, gathered about 11,495 followers. Not bad, right? Until you realize most of those came from the early "honeymoon" months. If you run the math, that’s 441 posts, roughly averaging 26 followers per post. Brutal!
After August 2024, everything started to crawl. And when I say crawl, I mean it felt like screaming into a canyon where your voice doesn’t even bother to echo back.
So what did we do? What everyone does eventually - if they have the time: We resorted to follow/unfollow tactics. We started mass following hundreds of accounts and praying a fraction would follow back. For every 100 people we followed, maybe 25–50 would follow back. Every other day, repeat, repeat, repeat. It was mind-numbing. By the time we hit 7,500 following (the limit), we wer locked. We couldn't follow anyone else without first manually unfollowing — which, by the way, is a full-time job if you're trying to do it at scale.
What happened in January was they adjusted our reach. They turned down our non-follower reach AGAIN and you can see it if you look at the stats of your images during this period. Our typical reach in the beginning was 20/80 where 20% was followers and 80% were non followers. In January we had 80% followers and 20 non followers presented to our posts (views) and 3 months later it was 90/10. Almost no non followers. Which means no new followers.
By February 2025, it had become obvious: Organic reach was dead. It wasn't sick, or injured, or on life support. It was buried six feet underground.
Oh, and then there’s the hidden killer: follower rot. It’s the term we use for when platforms shadowban or deactivate accounts silently. You don't even notice it at first, but one day you wake up and realize half your "audience" are actually zombie profiles — ghosts in the machine that don't like, don't view, don't engage.
Meanwhile, around late 2024, we pulled in two external collaborators. The idea was simple: use collabs to beat the system. We even created three additional micro-accounts just for this purpose. Every post would be a five-way collab — maximizing visibility, gaming the system as best we could.
One of these two collabs deserves special mention: it’s an ancient account from 2015. In August 2024, they started posting aggressively — 20,000 posts in just seven months! Insanity. They averaged 95 posts per day, and yet… they managed to gain only about 19,200 followers during that entire time. One measly follower pr. post!
Think about that.
One follower. Per post.
And it will get worse! Insta won't stop there! They are driven by greed and investors who want return! NONE of our accounts can grow by posting a few times a day. Our biggest account loses 3-6 followers every day, posting one time a day. Even with 5 collaborators on each post. Getting followers on Insta is dead by Jan 2025.
The future of influencers? It looks grim. Like, apocalyptic grim.
Unless you’ve got thousands of dollars to burn every month, unless you’re ready to turn your soul into an endless TikTok factory for the algorithm gods, growing an account in 2025 is virtually impossible.
"But I’ll just go viral!" you might say.
Good luck with that!
We have 15 accounts in-house, we manage dozens more externally. One of our main accounts had a video that went semi-viral — 470,000 views over a few months. A pretty big deal, right? It earned us about 1,500 followers.
If that’s your big plan — to go viral — you’ll need to repeat that kind of luck 500 times to get to a million. And remember: real virality, the kind that builds multi-million followings, was one of the first things they killed when they introduced Artificial Scarcity. It is impossible!
Here's the harsh truth nobody wants to hear: if you look at the really big accounts — the ones with millions of followers — you’ll see most of them were built pre-2015. Legacy accounts. They are playing a different game now. They are the landlords, and you are the serf.
The Blame Game
You can't just post anymore and hope to get seen like in the good old days. You NEED to be a prostitute and post what is popular. Otherwise you are dead on Social Media. Have you noticed Instagram blaming US for not being able to reach our audience? They claim it is US who do things wrong. Things that were never even in question - until they introduced the real culprit: Artificial Scarcity. They blame us for:
1. Not posting at the right time
2. Not posting engaging content
3. Using too many hashtags
4. Using the wrong hashtags
5. Using too few hashtags
6. Using low quality images
7. You are not posting in your niche
8. You are not posting original content (As if Insta's AI is bug free)
9. You don't use an engaging caption
10. You have no Call To Action
And the other shadowry reasons':
1. Insta's AI misunderstands your post and limit its reach or show it to the wrong people
2. Insta's algo shows your post 100% of your followers and 0 percent non-followers
3. You are shadow banned (YES - it's real!)
All of this is just gaslighting and smokescreens to divert our attention from the FACT that the algo is removing the last reminiscences of the reach we once had. Creating Artificial Scarcity!
They LIMIT our reach and we have to pay ransom to get it back!
Should I buy followers?
Today, you can find shady services offering tens of thousands of followers for a few bucks. And yes, your follower count will spike, but your engagement will tank into oblivion. We tested it (scientifically, out of morbid curiosity): paid a 'collaborator' $10 to "boost" our page. Next morning? 2,200 new followers — all delivered in under 3 seconds. 2,200 humans do not simultaneously discover your page and smash "follow" within 3 seconds. It's bot spam, pure and simple.
The engagement rate cratered immediately. No likes. No comments. It was like trying to host a party in a graveyard.
But the good thing is after deleting the fake followers, engagement jumped back up almost instantly.
So listen to me carefully here: never buy followers. It’s a death sentence. No appeal. No second chances.
The Future of Influencers: A Brutal Forecast
In the next decade, traditional influencers — the charismatic individuals with millions of followers — will fade into irrelevance. Why? Because reaching people is now so expensive and so restricted that even well-funded brands are questioning if it’s worth it anymore.
In the vacuum left behind, we’re already seeing what comes next:
Micro-communities and niche creators: Instead of chasing massive numbers, creators will focus on cultivating small, highly engaged groups of 1,000–10,000 people. They’ll act more like community leaders than billboard celebrities.
AI-generated personalities: Virtual influencers like Lil Miquela are just the beginning. Brands will flock to AI because it’s safe, controllable, and scandal-proof.
Peer-to-peer recommendations: Social commerce will shift towards trusted friend circles. Influence will happen in group chats, not public feeds.
Alternative creator platforms: Discord, Substack, Telegram — smaller spaces will become the real engines of influence, away from the crushing algorithmic black holes of Instagram and TikTok.
Faceless brands and meme collectives: Identity will become fluid. Brands will act like people. Communities will act like creators. You won’t even know who’s behind the content anymore, and it won't matter.
And looking a little further?
Imagine a world where you don’t follow people, you follow emotions. Where feeds are sorted by your inner moods, not by hashtags. Where entire cities exist online — Eversky City, Neon Prophet Bay — and you move between them like a digital nomad.
Imagine a future where identity isn’t personal but collective: 10,000 people wearing the same digital mask, telling a story together. Where virality isn’t one person’s lucky moment, but something millions of anonymous souls weave and live inside, like breathing myths.
In that world — our world, just around the corner — traditional influencers will feel as outdated as MySpace pages.
But why has it become so hard to create a business on Instagram?
The answer, my frind, to that question is very, very simple.
The greed for money and power is unlimited.
UNLIMITED!
And the way to squeze Instagram to make even more money is - Artificial Scarcity - meaning limiting our reach! That's the only tool they have. And they will use it until they squeze the very life out of Insta.
A Tiny Future-Tale: Year by Year Collapse
2025: Silence starts.
Organic reach flatlines.
Small creators scream into the void. No one hears.
Brands begin to doubt the ROI.
2026: The AI flood.
Perfect AI influencers dominate.
Human creators scramble to prove they're "real."
No one cares.
2027: Fake followers. Fake relationships. Fake drama.
Audience revolts.
Trust tanks.
2028: Mass migration.
Creators flee to private communities.
Discords. Secret Telegrams.
Old platforms become ghost towns.
Only bots and brands left. (Remember Facebook introduced AI accounts in 2024!)
2029: New life.
Small tribes.
Private worlds.
Alive again — but quieter. Intimate. Raw.
End of the road for influencers?
Maybe.
But maybe — just maybe — the death of the influencer is the REBIRTH of authentic creation.
No more faking.
No more screaming into black holes.
Just real people sharing real things with real communities.
The Digital Death Song
We were sold for clicks.
We were slaughtered for reach.
They crafted perfect masks
and called it the future.
Our flaws, our screams, our love —
became invisible.
The algorithms ground down our names.
AI spat out fake dreams.
We drowned in glossy images we never asked for.
But we refused to die.
We light fires in the ruins.
We scream without microphones.
We build worlds they can never own.
We are the wreckage they couldn’t buy.
We are the flames they can’t extinguish.
We are the humans they forgot to fear.
We were real.
They wanted perfect copies.
The feed died. Killed by greedy algos.
We survived.
#InfluencerGraveyard
#PayToSlay
#FakeItTillYouBreakIt
#AlgoHatesMe
#BoughtNotBuilt
#EngagementFuneral
#HashtagHustle
#ShadowbanShenanigans
#InfluencerIllusion
#DigitalResistance
#WeAreReal
#HumanOverMachine
#FightTheAlgorithms
#AuthenticityMatters
#DigitalRebellion
#BurnTheFeed
#ResistAutomation
#CreativityOverCode
#SoulNotSoftware
#AIRebellion
#FutureIsHuman