YouTube’s Instagram style Stories are being opened up for loads more channels whether creators care for it or not.

Last November YouTube launched their Stories feature allowing creators to upload short videos that stay online for 7 days for subscribers and non-subscribers. It allows interactions between fans and creators who can both comment and respond to each other. YouTube are now opening up Stories to any creators with more than 10,000 subscribers.

Whether creators will want to take advantage of the feature is another story as users have criticised that it’s a blatant rip off of Instagram’s Stories, which in itself was a feature taken from Snapchat. Now that it’s opened up to many more creators the uptake might be more positive as it creates more community engagement between YouTube creators and their fans. YouTube’s focus with stories seems to be to create comments and conversations between people, giving it a new take on Instagram Stories.

Whether the more disposable platform of short, temporary videos will take off on YouTube’s platform which has been built on full, proper videos for serious creators will have to be seen as it launches for wider audiences. YouTube say that Stories are “specifically designed with the YouTube creator in mind”.

Long-time YouTube creator Philip DeFranco tweeted his concerns about the feature, saying: “They stay up for 7 days, they allow comments, but you can only reply with another video/pic, and they currently lack swipe up/video linking features which to me seems like a missed opportunity. Potential, but I’m skeptical.”

If creators embrace the feature it could take off with engagement from dedicated fans but it looks like it could go either way right now.