If you’ve logged back into Instagram recently and thought, “Why is nobody seeing this?” — you’re not imagining it.
After taking almost a year off social media, I came back and watched my feed posts underperform immediately. Lower reach. Fewer likes. Minimal comments. On paper, it looked like Instagram was done.
But here’s the part that matters: my stories still performed — and they still made money.
This article breaks down what that taught me about Instagram in 2025, why likes are no longer the metric that matters, and how founders can still use the platform profitably even when visibility feels harder than ever.
