Well, kinda yes, but not really.

Concept of SNS changed from “audience of my friends and acquaintances” to “audience of potentially anyone in the world” around 2017ish, when every feed became algo-feed. And users like it, because it is akin to “endless Reddit scrolling”, but more tailored to things you might find interesting. And posters like it too, because of potential reach and attention.

Instagram Reels has 2B+ monthly users. Even if we say 50% are bots, not active and etc., that’s still roughly 1B users. It really tracks if you stand up on a busy subway train, almost in any city, and just look around. You’ll see full screens of TikTok, IG, YouTube shorts. The younger generation’s “private group chats” aren’t some sort of replacement to endless scrolling. A good chunk of messages are links to posts in one of those platforms.