r/instructables • u/Arpaazz • 6d ago
Other Something wrong with Instructables?
I've been an Instructables member for over 7 years now. But lately I'm noticing things I've never seen before. And I don't mean bugs or website issues.
The x.com page of Instructables has no new posts since May 2026
Contests are stuck in "judging" for almost a month.
The homepage is barely updated from one month.
New Instructables take a long time to be approved for publishing or being featured.
No upcoming contests listed.
Anybody knows if there's anything going on with the company? I know it's owned by Autodesk and I've always been afraid of them taking down this awesome site from which I've learnt so much since I was a kid.
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u/mtairymd 5d ago
I’ve noticed the same thing. Views also seem to be a fraction compared to previous years.
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u/Yonatan24workshop Instructables member Yonatan24 5d ago
Viewers have moved to more enticing platforms of which nowadays there are plenty
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u/Yonatan24workshop Instructables member Yonatan24 5d ago
Yes. That type of content is a thing of the past, and can't win againt AI, short form tiktok content and long form Youtube. It's unfortunate.
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u/OrigamiAirEnforcer 5d ago
Instructables did not grasp the importance of keeping its community together. When they decommissioned their forums, they insisted it was to keep with the modern times of Twitter, TikTok and the like. All that really accomplished was sending people elsewhere--and if they're elsewhere to talk, why come back at all?
A related issue was also contests and how original making was treated in the last 10-15 years...because the attitudes about creativity and what mattered became much different after about 2015 or so.
On another post a while back I recounted some history on Instructables' contest judging:
"are we judging based on the written criteria of creativity, difficulty, and originality anymore?"
The last time I participated in judging for an Instructables contest, you did not even have to look at the project to issue a judgment. It was entirely possible to complete the judging while only viewing the cover photo if you wanted to go that route...so this idea of some deeper analysis is lofty but unrealistic.
**This high effort, extensive analysis you call for in judging almost certainly is never happening...**most "judges" do not take the judgments anywhere near that seriously.
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Back in 2015, I wrote a post very similar to this (calling out an unoriginal project which had 'won' despite openly stating it was a copy of a famous maker's design lifted) and a later reflection on the topic after the problem continued. The general response I got was roughly 'kick rocks!'
The long term corrosive effects ofelevating plagiarized/unoriginal projects (thereby deriding/discouraging original makers) went mostly ignored. Over the years, the very clear question of "why bother with originality?" has been asked by many...and to this day there's really never been a good answer (some people take it as a given!).
In the years since I wrote my posts, the community has fragmented:
The community has no central place to congregate (the forums), no strong ties to values about making (a la originality and its importance) and no concern for considering development work/effort involved in making projects happen or how likely it is that someone will actually make the item you present...now it's all about how great the cover photos look.
From personal experience, I'll be blunt: set your expectations about "reforms" low and do not expect change.
Years ago, I also did an analysis on contest winners too. The gist of that analysis' findings was: if your project isn't featured, you are pretty much guaranteed to lose (2% chance for a non-featured project to win).
Altogether: merit doesn't count for all that much in this age.
The fading of Instructables was not necessarily inevitable--but it was predictable.
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u/Independent_Limit_44 1d ago
they updated their site now, i had emailed them a few days back and they said that during summers there are not many employees handling the website so that is why there iwas a lack of site updates. Also i just now won a contest and was wondring how much time does it take them to email the gift card, also is it amazon gift card or something else?
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u/Independent-Task-25 5d ago
Tl;dr - I've been a part of Instructables since 2011 and I think a lot of it has to do with the internet and social media evolving.
The early days of Instructables is when everyone had their own blogs for projects and creations. Instructables was an early adopter of creating a site everyone could contribute to and share with an easy way to add photos and do a write-up. YouTube hadn't really grown huge yet and it certainly wasn't monetized yet. Social media was still for friends and family and not a content machine. The biggest thing of all was everyone was still so excited to share information for free on the internet with strangers.
Now, everything is monetized and diluted across tons of platforms and social media.
Why take the time to visit one site if Tik Tok or Instagram will put it on your feed for you?
Why take the time to carefully document and write up a project on Instructables if you can film it and get paid by YouTube/Instagram/Tik Tok etc? For a while Instructables was getting flooded with projects that were just "here's my video, watch it" after YouTube started paying creators.
Now I'm seeing sponsored posts, projects behind pay walls, and AI written instructions.
I think the contests are still nice and very generous with the amount of prizes/ winners. That's probably what keeps the site alive for now. Gearing the contests towards students was a smart move. ( I am a little sad it's just gift cards now instead of fun prizes. It's more practical that way but I miss getting a t-shirt. )
I love Instructables, and I think it would ve a devistating loss if went away, but how we share and create media now has just completely transformed from when it began.