Dear millennials: Instagram doesn't owe you anything

It's time to stop freaking out about your Instagram feed. 

Yes, Instagram has started rolling out its new algorithmic-based feed, which may make posts appear "out of order." Yes, it's a big change and yes, people are freaking out about it.

But they shouldn't. Complaining on social media about an Instagram update is about as pointless as expecting your iPhone battery to last all day.

Losing it

As with any big change to Instagram (or Facebook or Snapchat or Twitter), the new Instagram feed was barely a few minutes' old before a wave of white hot social media rage flooded the Internet.

SEE ALSO: Your Instagram feed will never be the same again

"It's just sad. I don't enjoy the time I spend on the app anymore and the creators don't listen to their users, which is the saddest part of all. It's truly a disappointment," one iTunes reviewer wrote. 

"This new system where it's all out of whack is garbage and who ever came up with it should be fired. Fix it back now or I will stop using," another one threatens. 

Others still remain outraged — actually outraged — over the photo sharing app's logo redesign. 

Instagram owes you nothing 

Look, we get it — it's annoying when an app you love changes something you never asked to be changed. It's tempting to invoke the tired adage that instructs things that aren't broken shouldn't be fixed.

But the reality is that that's not how tech companies work.

When Facebook first introduced News Feed in 2006, its college users revolted — to the point where Mark Zuckerberg himself penned a blog post titled "Calm down. Breathe. We hear you." 

"We're not oblivious of the Facebook groups popping up about this (by the way, [our news feed product manager] is not the devil). And we agree, stalking isn't cool; but being able to know what's going on in your friends' lives is," Zuckerberg wrote at the time, referencing the many Facebook groups that sprang up in protest of News Feed.

People did, eventually, calm down and accept the change. That is until 2011 when Facebook changed News Feed to an algorithm-based one and everyone panicked again. (Sound familiar?) Now imagine what Facebook would look like if it had never changed any of the features people once complained about losing. 

The fact is that technology companies need to innovate — even if it's at the expense of what users think they want at the time (and yes, sometimes they do get it wrong.) Their job is to predict what users want before they know they want it, if they have any hope of staying relevant.

Furthermore, it's time to give up on this idea that Instagram (or Snapchat or Facebook or any social media company, for that matter) somehow owes you something because you consider yourself a "loyal" user. It's a photo sharing app, not a public service. (You'd be better served by spending some time learning how to earn likes the old-fashioned way: by making your posts better in the first place.) 

Yes, Instagram's 400 million+ users help make the company (and its advertisers) a lot of money, but that doesn't disqualify the company from making significant, or even controversial, changes to its service. Demanding otherwise is short-sighted, entitled and, well, millennial.

We don't mean to pick on millennials (a group to  which this writer, admittedly, belongs) — other generations also complain about these things. But dredging up that righteous social media outrage every time an app changes a pixel (or, God forbid, a font) only reinforces the very worst stereotypes about a generation. You know, the ones that say we're all entitled, social-media obsessed, self-absorbed, hoverboard-riding, lazy snake people who complain about literally everything. 

It's time to stop whining because Instagram has a new icon, or because Snapchat took away your means of stalking friends or because social media feeds everywhere are moving away from chronological order. 

Just stop — and give algorithms a chance. Besides, this may all just be an elaborate simulation anyway.