Instagram Reels trade-off: a few viral reels or a long tail of small ones

As the product manager for Instagram Reels, which world would you rather have: 100 reels that each get 1 million views, or 1 million reels that each get 100 views? Explain your reasoning. ```hint Do the math, then look past it Work out what the two worlds have in common first. Then ask how creators, viewers and advertisers would each experience the difference between them. ``` ### Clarifying Questions - Over what window are the views counted: a single day, or the lifetime of each reel? - Do both worlds have the same viewers, and does the number of creators differ (at most 100 in one world, up to a million in the other)? - What counts as a view: any play, or a full watch? Is anything known about likes, shares or watch time? - Is Reels at launch and still building supply, or mature and competing for creators with other short-video apps? ### What a Strong Answer Covers - Comparing the totals and reframing the choice as concentrated versus spread-out attention - The effect on each side of the platform: creator motivation and supply, freshness and personalization of viewers' feeds, ad inventory and brand safety - How Reels' stage and strategic goals change the preferred answer - A clear decision with the conditions under which it would flip - Metrics that would confirm the decision, and the risks of each extreme ### Follow-up Questions - If you could pick any distribution of views between the two extremes, what shape would you aim for, and how would you measure it? - Suppose the 100 hit reels come from a handful of creators who also post on competing apps. Does that change your answer? - The ranking team proposes guaranteeing every new creator's first reels a minimum audience. How would you test whether that helps creators without hurting viewers?