I've been an avid user of Collections since it was added to Edge and, although it was always incredibly buggy, I used it anyway because it was such a useful tool!!! I was sure that it would become a main stay of Edge and it would keep getting refined as the kinks were worked out, because it is, again, so incredibly useful and time-saving to be able to save a quote that can return you to a page, rather than just a whole page, and to be able to do it from within the browser.
So, it is profoundly disappointing to see the direction that MS is going with this tool. The people who use this tool are not looking for content creator suggestions.
People use collections for their own content! My collections are the product of my own research into my own interests, and collections provides a unique, practical and highly useful solution - really the best solution - for actually retrieving information that I need and want.
It's so useful, in fact, that I would continue using Edge forever just to be able to use Collections, as long as it still functions well.
Unfortunately, the content model completely interferes with both the use-case for the product and the practical ability to use it. It seems you have all but stopped improving anything to do with the original tool. People are still having trouble with their collections disappearing, not populating properly, not showing up on right click, not sorting properly, not accepting new pages or new entries, etc. Half the time, you can't even access your collections because they're obscured by the content suggestions page with no apparent way to shut that off.
SO HERE'S A SOLUTION: You seem to really want to make something like instagram. So JUST MAKE A COMPLETELY SEPARATE TOOL for that!
The content-following model and Collections have totally different use cases. The first is about entertainment, absorbing content, and, honestly, wasting time. The latter is the opposite - it's a tool for research that allows you to make the massive amount of information on the internet usable and retrievable in ways that are helpful and relevant specifically to yourself according to your needs. These two things are completely incompatible - you will ruin the best one to achieve the other.
There is frankly no way that you could ever convince me to stay on the internet longer than to allow me to pursue my own interests. Are you really unable to find a way to monetize that without making it so awful that people like me stop using Collections altogether, as I have?
Give this product the love it deserves and stop shooting yourself and your customers in the foot.
