YouTube quietly discontinues Stories feature to prioritise other offerings

A popular feature will be discontinued on YouTube, the streaming platform has announced.

YouTube Stories — videos which expire shortly after they are uploaded, in a similar vein to Snapchat — were axed on Friday.

The move makes way for the platform to focus on other video formats which have incorporated elements of the since-scrapped feature, it said.

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“There are many ways to create on YouTube – from Community posts to Shorts, to long-form and Live. To prioritise these key features, Stories are going away,” YouTube announced on Thursday.

These other video formats were called “great alternatives” by the platform, and are said to “deliver valuable audience connections and conversations”.

“YouTube Community posts are a great choice if you want to share lightweight updates, start conversations, or promote your YouTube content to your audience,” YouTube said.

“Amongst creators who use both posts and Stories, posts on average drive many times more comments and likes compared to Stories.”

The Community posts feature was recently expanded by YouTube to embody aspects of the now-axed Stories feature.

Users can now set the posts to expire within 24 hours.

There are also editing tools and engagement features including polls, quizzes, filters, and stickers that can be used with the posts.

YouTube Shorts, another YouTube video format, also allow for text and filters to be overlaid on content, which can now also be “remixed”.

“We’re continuing to bring more engaging features to the Shorts experience, most recently launching the ability to reply to comments with Shorts,” YouTube said.