Facebook-owned platform Instagram is focused on offering monetization tools for users.
Instagram’s goal is to financially capitalize on users’ content, and it is making this known again with a new feature of exclusive stories for users who pay a subscription.
The renowned engineer Alessandro Paruzzi, who is dedicated to filtering information on social networks, shared on Twitter a reference to this feature in Instagram’s codebase.
#Instagram is working on stories for fan clubs, exclusive stories visible only to fan club members 👀
ℹ️ It is not possible to take screenshots of exclusive stories. pic.twitter.com/GAYvRFVBss
— Alessandro Paluzzi (@alex193a) June 21, 2021
For its part, on Wednesday, the company told U.S. media outlet TechCrunch, that the screenshot shows an internal prototype working behind the scenes. However, Instagram did not reveal any other details about the project.
What is known about Instagram premium stories?
According to the leaked screenshots, when a regular user comes across an exclusive story, Instagram tells them that “members only” can view the content.
The company also appears to prevent people from trying to take screenshots of what they see. At the same time, it encourages creators to save their exclusive stories in highlights, allowing new members to see something when they subscribe.
The company is thinking about how to keep creators on the platform. If that means adopting features from one of our rivals, so be it. Facebook and Instagram have done it many times in the past.
Changes are coming to video on Instagram 📺
At Instagram we’re always trying to build new features that help you get the most out of your experience. Right now we’re focused on four key areas: Creators, Video, Shopping and Messaging. pic.twitter.com/ezFp4hfDpf
— Adam Mosseri (@mosseri) June 30, 2021
This information comes in a week where Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri noted that Instagram no longer wants to be considered “the photo-sharing app”.
As a function of this change, the platform’s CEO commented that the shift is aimed at entertainment and videos, thus approaching the proposals of other services such as YouTube and TikTok.
