I get the same thing. I can see images for other posts, but this one just shows the link until I click to open the post

Device information

Sync version: v23.08.02-18:53    
Sync flavor: googlePlay    

View type: Slides    
Push enabled: false    

Device: cheetah    
Model: Google Pixel 7 Pro    
Android: 13

To be fair, I have to do this with Android sometimes as well

It’s working!

It feels like the same reason that Reels isn’t doing well, people who wanted TikTok would have already got TikTok, you can’t force Instagram users to like Twitter/TikTok but on their Insta account instead.

I’m never going to download or sign up for TikTok. I know Meta isn’t really that great as far as privacy goes, but at least they don’t share information directly with the CCP. Fuck the CCP. IG Reels works just fine for me. I actually can’t stand the IG home feed because of the algorithm showing me what it wants to show me instead of a chronological timeline of the posts of the people I follow, so I mostly just use IG for stories and Reels.

The main thing I use Twitter for is to follow local sports and unfortunately, only one of the local reporters has a Mastodon account

Profit might not be the point, but it is going to cost time and resources to run an instance. Unless the admin is just planning on paying for everyone’s ability to use Lemmy on their instance out of their own pocket, ads or subscriptions may be necessary. And depending on how much time and effort goes into keeping it up, it wouldn’t be unreasonable for them to want to make a profit on it so they feel like it’s worth the effort.

I’d hate for an instance to blow up in popularity only for the admin to decide it isn’t worth the time/effort/cost and shuts it down.