YouTube’s answer to Instagram stories, YouTube Stories, is being killed off.
In a blog post announcing the move, Google said that starting June 26 users will no longer be able to post Stories, and their existing posts will expire seven days after that.
Stories, which were initially called Reels, launched in late 2017 to YouTube users with over 10,000 subscribers. Like the Instagram and Snapchat stories it was inspired by, users with access to Stories were able to post content that disappeared after a set amount of time.
As it closes down Stories, YouTube seeks to promote the use of Community posts. As the blog post notes, YouTube recently expanded access to the feature, which it says “drives many times more comments and likes compared to Stories” while still offering similar features, such as the ability for posts to expire after 24 hours. Aside from expiring posts, creators are able to share polls, images, and quizzes that show up as a tab on channels.
Shorts, YouTube’s TikTok-style short video offer, is another feature that the platform is trying to shift attention to and grow. It recently added the ability to reply to comments with Shorts, and YouTube is now sharing ad revenue from Shorts with creators, The Verge notes.
