You never really know just how popular a feature is on a social media platform, website or app until user access is revoked.
Last week, YouTube announced it would be removing its private messaging feature from its mobile app.
The messaging feature was originally rolled out in 2017, giving users the ability to send private messages to their friends’ videos and communicated via text directly within the mobile app.
According to TechCrunch YouTube now plans to remove the feature on Sept 18, meaning video fans will no longer be able to communicate via direct message with their fellow YouTubers and fans.
TechCrunch speculates that Google (who owns YouTube) is having issues with “too many messaging apps.”
According to The Verge “ . . even after discontinuing Allo, Google still lets people communicate over Duo, Hangouts, Meet, Google Voice, and Android Messages (including the new RCS protocol). Having one extra private messaging service that (presumably) few people were using risks confusing matters further.”
Despite the number of comments replying to Google’s post about the feature’s closure (TechCrunch reports there were approximately 500), it makes sense for the video-sharing platform to focus their efforts on other aspects and cut their losses on a less-than-well-known feature on the platform.
What are your thoughts? Let us know in the comments below.
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