YouTube Stories, which are not Shorts, are going away

YouTube is doing away with one feature next month that just might be all but forgotten – Stories. How big of an effect this will actually have on creators is unknown.

In contrast to YouTube’s Shorts feature, Stories were almost a direct copy of Instagram Stories. Depicted by a small ring red ring around a YouTube Channel’s profile image, a story contained a set of images or videos posted by the creator. What the story contained was up to the creator, whether that meant an actual Channel update or some other content.

Eventually, YouTube introduced Shorts, which poised the platform as a direct competitor to TikTok. While the two video forms – Shorts and Stories – were different, there was undeniable overlap in the two formats.

Citing that it wants to promote its other features, YouTube announced that Stories will be going away starting on June 26. Any Stories posted before that date will be live up to seven days afterward. After that period, users will no longer see Stories from any creator, and the option will be gone forever.

It’s a little hard to remember the last time we saw a Story in action on YouTube, with the feature being almost completely overshadowed by Shorts. With Shorts having its own button at the bottom of the mobile app and dedicated carousels throughout YouTube, Stories have fallen by the wayside. The cherry on top is that YouTube now monetizes Shorts, which takes any incentive away from the hidden Stories.

Of course, there will be a subset of channels that use the feature often. Unfortunately, that’ll no longer be possible for those creators.

In its announcement, YouTube goes on to advertise that users opt for Shorts and Community Posts, citing that posts drive more audience interaction while Stories reach more people in general. The success of Shorts is apparent with it being hard to browse the platform without coming across and clicking a few from unfamiliar creators, though it’s uncertain how much things will actually change when June 26 comes around.

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