It seems very few people are using Stories on YouTube. YouTube has decided to kill the Stories feature. Starting on June 26, YouTube users will no longer be able to post new Stories. The company wants to focus on Shorts, Community posts, and live videos along with its original long-form content option. Creators will get in-app messages and reminders about this news.
YouTube originally launched the Stories feature in 2018 and only allowed creators with over 10,000 subscribers to use it. The company wants creators to use the Stories feature for sharing behind-the-scenes updates, vlog updates, and sneak peeks at upcoming videos. Unlike other social media apps where Stories disappear after 24 hours, YouTube Stories disappear after seven days.
After the launch of Shorts, YouTube creators were more interested in sharing short content in the form of vertical videos on Shorts. Shorts was doing better that Stories for Creators. Shorts also helped them in getting more views and subscribers.
YouTube wants users to use Community Posts and Shorts in the absense of Stories. It also recently expanded the access to Community Posts and added the ability to write posts that expire after a certain time. Creators can also create posts with Polls and Quizzes.
The stories feature was initially introduced in Snapchat but later was copied by nearly every social media app. Some social media apps succeeded with Stories while others couldn’t convince their users to use it. YouTube is not the only one that failed with Stories. Netflix also tested a similar feature with the name ‘Extras.’ LinkedIn also closed its Stories feature in 2021.
