How popular a video is can actually impact its video quality according to Instagram head Adam Mosseri.

Mosseri explained in a recent video that Instagram aims to display videos in the highest quality possible. But if a video isn't racking up views early on, the quality can dip as time goes on.

Instagram algorithms are changing fast these days, and being able to stay on top of changing dynamics is essential.

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This isn’t breaking news—Meta has been upfront about using different encoding based on video popularity. But Mosseri’s clarification stirred up a conversation after it was posted on Threads, with some users criticizing the approach as “truly insane.” 

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This is clearly overreacting, as it makes sense that the platform needs to adjust resources according to what people are engaging with the most.

Also, it doesn’t mean that videos that have lower video are going to look horrible, video compression is pretty good these days, and most users won’t even be able to see the difference.

Mosseri clarified that these quality decisions happen at an aggregate level, not individually, so it’s not about single-viewer engagement.

He also pointed out that quality favors high-traffic creators because their content gets more CPU-intensive encoding and more storage investment. While some argue this gives popular creators an edge, Mosseri says the quality shift isn’t a huge factor in viewer engagement—it’s all about the content, not the pixels.