Replacing the lock icon with a neutral indicator prevents the misunderstanding that the lock icon is associated with the trustworthiness of a page, and emphasizes that security should be the default state in Chrome. Our research has also shown that many users never understood that clicking the lock icon showed important information and controls.

You can look at an interface and see it as a clearly signposted user journey you should follow. Or you can see it as a collection of functions and affordances to repurpose. As raw material, rather than a guided path.

In other words, when Kylie Jenner posts a petition demanding that Meta “Make Instagram Instagram again”, the honest answer is that changing Instagram is the most Instagram-like behavior possible.

The first trend is the shift towards ever more immersive mediums. Facebook, for example, started with text but exploded with the addition of photos. Instagram started with photos and expanded into video. Gaming was the first to make this progression, and is well into the 3D era. The next step is full immersion — virtual reality — and while the format has yet to penetrate the mainstream this progression in mediums is perhaps the most obvious reason to be bullish about the possibility.

The second trend is the increase in artificial intelligence. I’m using the term colloquially to refer to the overall trend of computers getting smarter and more useful, even if those smarts are a function of simple algorithms, machine learning, or, perhaps someday, something approaching general intelligence.

The third trend is the change in interaction models from user-directed to computer-controlled. The first version of Facebook relied on users clicking on links to visit different profiles; the News Feed changed the interaction model to scrolling. Stories reduced that to tapping, and Reels/TikTok is about swiping. YouTube has gone further than anyone here: Autoplay simply plays the next video without any interaction required at all.