YouTube ditches Stories feature

Image: YouTubeYouTube is scrapping Stories, a feature that let users post temporary updates, starting in June. From June 26 onwards, users won't be able to create Stories and existing ones will vanish after a week.

Stories debuted in 2017 as Reels and were only available to users with more than 10,000 subscribers. They were similar to Instagram's Stories (which copied Snapchat's idea), and allowed YouTube creators to share updates or behind-the-scenes content to promote their channel. However, the feature never really took off. It had limited access, few creators used it regularly, and YouTube didn't promote it much.

Instead of Stories, YouTube is encouraging creators to use other features on the platform: Community Posts and Shorts. Community Posts are text-based updates that can also include polls, quizzes, images, and videos. They appear on a channel's tab and can be set to expire after a certain time. YouTube recently made Community Posts available to more users.

YouTube is betting on short form video with its TikTok rival, Shorts. It is trying to persuade long form video creators to make shorter content as well. In February, YouTube introduced a new monetization plan that would share ad revenue from Shorts with creators.

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