After killing off its attempt at its own social media hub, the Google+, the American company looks set to shut down another offering. This time around, its YouTube Messages that is being canned this September 18 and we’re not surprised.
YouTube Messages is a private messaging app that allowed you to send text messages as well as share YouTube videos with your friends. But the main cause of its downfall we guess would be that its linked to a platform most people use to consume videos, not chat with their friends.
For that, we have WhatsApp, arguably the most used messaging app today – you can send texts and share videos there too. Plus, people would’ve already built their friends or contact list there already, so there’s no need for a second, separate messaging app to complicate things.
Although clearly underutilised, Tech Crunch reports that the announcement of YouTube Messages’ closure was surprisingly met with some backlash. Tech Crunch highlights however, that the complaints mainly come from presumably your children or teens who aren’t allowed to have a social media account. But that’s about it for the service’s userbase.
That’s not to dis on Google – it’s just that other messaging options have been around longer and offer the same, if not more features YouTube Messages does.
If for some reason you use the service and would like to back your chats, YouTube has posted instructions on how you can do so.