If you haven’t noticed yet, since you haven’t gone to the Explore page in *years*, Instagram has updated its Explore page algorithm. This page has featured only photos with the most likes. This led to poor quality photos by brands and celebrities always being on the Explore page. Thanks to some algorithmic curation, it seems that you get a curated Explore page that shows photos very similar to the ones you’ve liked in the past.
This has 2 impacts.
1) People will start clicking on the explore page again.
2) Users that otherwise would never get any attention, now do.
Great job Instagram!