Note: This article refers to the historical feature of YouTube. Other than having a live chat feature, it is unrelated to Live Streaming on YouTube, which is still possible today.
Streams were a feature on YouTube revolving around creating an interactive playlist wherein anyone could add videos, and a live chatbox. The feature was removed on February 18, 2010, with Google citing a decline in usage.
History[]
Streams were one of YouTube's oldest features. Even in 2010, before their cancellation, they used YouTube's oldest version of it's player. Among community-focused users, Steams were one of YouTube's most popular features. Though Google claimed otherwise as a means of justifying their removal, many veteran YouTubers were extremely vocal in their criticism of this decision. There were plans to boycott YouTube altogether, but what, if any success this had is unknown and likely minimal.
Functionality and features[]
One of the streams' main features was the ability to chat with other users, similar to an instant messaging service. This was a large contributor to their popularity, as YouTube offered no other way of instant messaging, and some users did not wish to open another service while on the site.
The streams' main purpose was for groups of people to add videos to the stream's playlist, which would play videos in the order that they were added. The users could then watch the videos all at the same time, while talking about them or just making general conversation. The owners and moderators of the streams could ban or suspend users, and also remove videos. Permissions such as modship were granted by the stream's owner.
Other uses for streams[]
Many people made or joined YouTube streams for other unconventional purposes than to just watch videos and chat.
Some people used the streams to role play, occasionally adding music or other videos to fit the mood. There were several designated "RP" streams. This was especially prevalent during the major otaku wave of the late 2000s, with Naruto and Bleach RP being extremely commonplace.
A rather popular use for the streams was as a means to find multiplayer matches for online gaming services, such as Xbox Live, PlayStation Network, and Nintendo's Wifi(More prominent in the heyday of Pokémon Diamond/Pearl/Platinum). Many streams were, unsurprisingly, made specifically for this.
Others would join to have private discussions with people in a group they might have belonged to. This was done by setting the stream to closed after the selected people were invited. This could range from friendly, harmless things such as gaming clans, to more controversial discussions, such as organized trolling.
Stream creation and editing options[]
In addition to joining another person's stream(this could be done by following a link someone had given you, or going to the "streams main" page, which would list every active stream in order of number of users in it, and would give information about each one)a user could also create their own stream, from the streams main page as well. A user would have to set a name and description for their stream, and it could be opened and closed at any time.
A user could also make their own custom "welcome message" which would pop up within the stream in a small window.
One could also edit many aspects of their stream, such as how many users can be in at once, and whether or not adult content is allowed. They could also choose who would be an admin or moderator in the stream, as well as who was banned.
A somewhat useless or "lost" feature within YouTube streams was the ability to have a custom background, just like channels. However, you could not upload an image from your computer, rather you had to link it from an external hosting site. Due to unknown circumstances, possibly a glitch, the image used for one's background would never be visible, usually off to the side of the actual white background of the stream. It could, however, be viewed by selecting "view background image".
Removal[]
As mentioned above, the Streams feature was almost never updated Despite substantial popularity and positive reception. It was the only part of the site to still use the original version of YouTube's player, and didn't even support HQ/HD videos. One could be forgiven for thinking YouTube forgot about the feature entirely.
On February 18, 2010, without any prior warnings or updates given by YouTube, the feature was removed. Any attempt to follow a streams link would instead redirect to a YouTube channel named "whyarestreamsgone", created only for this purpose. The official statement was as follows:
| “ | "Heads up that we've retired the YouTube Streams experiment from TestTube. We've not been able to give it the time and attention to make it a more mainstream product, and while we know there's still a small, but passionate group of fans using it, it's just not practical for us to maintain it any longer. we hope you understand.
We've learned a lot with your help, and we plan to use what we've learned to help build new products in the future that make it easier for you to share and talk about videos with friends. |
” |
―whyarestreamsgone | ||
Understandably, this upset a lot of long-time users. Many found the reasoning to be flawed and insubstantial; especially the implication that it was merely an 'experimental' feature despite having ran for over four years. Even today, years later, videos can still be found criticizing YouTube's controversial decision to remove them. That said, the attempts to rally for their return were disorganized and fizzed out not long after. Despite the extremely vocal negative response to this decision, most users have since moved on, and a majority of current active users have likely never even heard of this feature. Removing it was largely just another step in shifting away focus from YouTube's social media aspect, as things like friend lists, private messages, and channel editing were removed not long after. Sites like SynchTube and InstaSynch were created to emulate the experience of YouTube streams, though it is rumored such sites existed even before the original streams were removed.
It is extremely unlikely YouTube will ever reinstate this feature, especially as the modern definition of 'Stream' has completely changed to reflect users live streaming their content. Incidentally, YouTube now has a Stream feature in the modern sense as a direct competitor to Twitch and the like, and it remains the only section of YouTube to feature a live chat.