As a service available for anyone, Instagram is open for everyone. One of the benefit was that, people who weren't logged in had the unlimited access to public-facing profiles.
But since those people can benefit the platform and all its glory, Instagram isn't happy. With an update, the photo- and video-sharing platform started locking itself down after signed-out users browse a handful of photos and posts from public profiles via mobile or desktop web.
This way, wandering web visitors who aren't yet logged in, won't be able to see many things, as Instagram will prevent them from continuing, by prompting them to either sign up or log in.
According to an Instagram spokesperson:
There is no way to bypass this restriction, or to navigate around the login screen that appears.
This move makes sense, because as a social network, it would rather keep its content behind login barriers, instead of having anyone from anywhere using its resources to do nothing beneficial for the company.
By cutting down on the amount of content people can see without logging into the Facebook-owned photo- and video-sharing network, Instagram can also make sure that more people would sign up to its service, if they haven't already.
With over a billion monthly active users, Instagram has quickly become the major source of revenue for Facebook. So it's no surprise that it's looking for ways to ensnare more people into its ecosystem.
The change marks Instagram’s continued evolution since co-founder Kevin Systrom left Instagram.