Instagram knows it has a Reels problem

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

The effort to take on TikTok has cost the platform millions of dollars, countless app updates, and a week-long uproar involving the most famous people on the planet. It hasn't caught up to the company it's chasing yet.

According to an internal Meta document obtained by The Wall Street Journal, the picture ofInstagram struggling to court creators is painted. According to the document titled, "Creators x Reels State of the Union 2022," the average time users spend on TikTok is 197.8 hours. According to The Wall Street Journal, the report stated that most Reels users have no engagement at all.

A document viewed by The Wall Street Journal states that the lack of original content on Reels is a major issue for the photo sharing service. Reels has been plagued by recycled TikToks for a long time, so much so that it has been said that they downrank reposted content in recommendations. According to The Wall Street Journal, Meta has earmarked $1 billion for creator payouts through the end of the year in order to entice people to make content for the two social media sites.

The time spent watching Reels compared to TikToks in the report is outdated and not global, according to the Meta spokesman.

"We still have work to do, but creators and businesses are seeing promising results and our monetization growth is faster than we expected as more people are watching, creating and connecting through reels than ever before."

Users revolted due to the fact that Meta has shaped the photo sharing service to look like TikTok. The platform was forced to roll back some changes after a post begging them to stop trying to be TikTok was reposted by two celebrities. Photographers and advocates have expressed frustration at the hard pivot to reels. According to a report obtained by The Wall Street Journal, the percentage of users who think that the company cares about them has gone down in recent years.

The figure is incorrect and doesn't reflect company data, but did not expand on it.

Meta will continue with the TikTok-ification of social media. Users will see more and more recommended content from accounts they don't follow because the company is all in on Reels.