Diagnose Falling Instagram Daily Actives While Monthly Actives Stay Flat

You are the product manager for Instagram. Monthly active users (MAU) have held steady, yet daily active users (DAU) have gone down. Walk through how you would investigate the decline and what you would do about it. ```hint Compare what each metric counts Before listing causes, work out which change in individual users' behavior would lower the daily count while leaving the monthly count where it was, and ask whether a flat monthly number really means the same people are still there. ``` ### Clarifying Questions - How large is the DAU decline, over what period, and did it start suddenly or build gradually? - How are DAU and MAU defined here: any app open or a meaningful action, and do they include the web as well as the mobile apps? - Is the decline global, or concentrated in certain countries, platforms or app versions? - Has time spent or the number of sessions per daily user moved along with the drop? ### What a Strong Answer Covers - What flat MAU with falling DAU implies about visit frequency and the DAU/MAU ratio, including whether churn could be hidden behind newly active users - Ruling out logging, definition and data-pipeline changes before looking for product causes - Segmenting the drop by timing, geography, platform and app version, user type, entry point and surface to localize it - Internal and external hypotheses, each paired with the data that would confirm or reject it - A response matched to the confirmed cause, a judgment on whether the decline is acceptable, and guardrail metrics ### Follow-up Questions - The drop traces back to a change that cut push notifications, which also reduced notification opt-outs and complaints. Do you roll it back? - No internal change explains the drop, and it is concentrated among younger users. How would you test whether a competitor is pulling daily usage away? - Why can MAU lag behind DAU, and what would you watch to predict whether MAU is about to fall too?