YouTube is getting rid of Stories, a feature for temporary posts, beginning in June. Users won’t be able to post Stories starting tomorrow, and existing posts will expire after seven days.
Stories were first introduced in 2017 under the name Reels and were available to users with over 10,000 subscribers. Similar to Instagram (which in turn lifted the concept from Snapchat), YouTube Stories disappeared after a set amount of time; creators could use Stories to post updates or behind-the-scenes content to promote their channel. But looking around today, it doesn’t seem to have caught on — access was limited, few creators seem to be regularly posting Stories, and the feature doesn’t get much promotion even from YouTube.
In the absence of Stories, YouTube wants creators to instead post content to other surfaces on the platform: Community Posts and Shorts. The company recently expanded access to Community Posts, a text-based updates feature, and added the ability to have posts expire after a certain period. Creators can also share polls, quizzes, images, and videos as Community Posts, which appear in a tab on channels.
YouTube has also been working to funnel the popularity of short form video into its TikTok competitor, Shorts, and trying to convince traditional long form video creators to start making shorter content as well. In February, YouTube began sharing ad revenue from Shorts with creators under a revamped monetization plan.
Though many platforms have adopted the story format first popularized by Snapchat, YouTube isn’t the first to axe its version. Remember Fleets, the ephemeral posts on Twitter that were gone within a year?
