Snapchat Stories turned vertical video into a dominant format for digital communication after launching in late 2013, according to a retrospective published by The Verge. Originally built as a private 24-hour broadcast for a user’s friends, the format included a public sharing mechanism that competitors quickly scaled, commercialized, and ultimately used to eclipse Snap’s own market share.
When Evan Spiegel introduced the feature, he described it as a totally new way to share a day with friends or with everyone. While the first half of that description focused on intimacy and close connections, the second half outlined a public broadcast model. Competitors adopted the public distribution framework, reshaping the digital media landscape across major social platforms.
The Evolution of Vertical Video Across Platforms
Instagram introduced its own version of Stories in 2016, with co-founder Kevin Systrom publicly acknowledging Snap’s role in pioneering the concept. The format shifted user habits toward full-screen, tap-to-advance vertical clips that disappeared after a day. By 2018, TikTok entered the United States market by making public distribution through an algorithmically sorted feed of strangers the default setting rather than an optional toggle.
Instagram Reels launched in 2020, followed by YouTube Shorts in 2021. According to company earnings reports and public metrics, Instagram Reels business generates approximately 50 billion dollars annually, while YouTube Shorts registers approximately 200 billion daily views. Spiegel’s initial design recognized the latent public broadcast instinct inside a private messaging app years before incumbent technology firms committed resources to the format.
Strategic Consequences for Snap Inc.
Snap’s early identification of the shift from a closed social graph to a public content feed laid the groundwork for modern social media engagement. However, the company struggled to retain ownership of the ecosystem it created. Competitors scaled the vertical video framework into multi-billion-dollar advertising engines while Snap maintained a smaller market footprint.
The trajectory of vertical video demonstrates that identifying a foundational technological shift early does not guarantee long-term market dominance. Spiegel accurately predicted the transition to full-screen vertical feeds, but the infrastructure he designed was successfully captured and monetized by larger platform competitors.
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