Instagram is reserving the best video quality for high-performing posts. Company head, Adam Mosseri confirmed this in an AMA video over the weekend. While answering questions, Mosseri explained that some videos have lower quality compared to others because the company wants to “show people the highest-quality content we can.”

As spotted by The Verge, in a video reposted by a Threads user, Mosseri said: “In general, we want to show the highest-quality video we can… But if something isn’t watched for a long time – because the vast majority of views are in the beginning – we will move to a lower-quality video. And then if it’s watched again a lot then we’ll render the higher quality video.”

In a follow-up reply to provide further clarification, Mosseri added, “We bias to higher quality (more CPU intensive encoding and more expensive storage for bigger files) for creators who drive more views.” The comment caused concerns for some creators who feel they are already at a disadvantage. Mosseri clarified that the shift in video quality “isn’t huge” and that people’s interaction with videos is “way more based on the content of the video than the quality.” Mosseri’s comments align with what Meta shared previously about using “different encoding configurations to process videos based on their popularity” to manage computing demands.

In a blog post, Meta wrote there are more than 4 billion video views per day on Facebook alone. The company explained that managing computing resources is crucial for delivering a good video viewing experience (even on low-bandwidth networks).