After Twitter announced its new Super Follow feature, Instagram is taking the same path and is working on an “Exclusive Stories” function with a similar purpose. Over the past few weeks, reverse engineer and leaker Alessandro Paluzzi was able to show firsthand how the Exclusive Stories feature will work. Similar to Close Friends but in purple instead of green, this function will probably be only available for creators.
To TechCrunch, Instagram confirmed it’s working on the feature, although the company declined to share any specific details about its plans. The report says “the company is not at a place to talk about this project just yet.”
When a user interacts with a Story that is only available for subscribers, Instagram will show a message saying “Only members of this user can see this story.” And when the creator shares its first-ever Exclusive Story, Instagram will show a message encouraging the user to save this to a highlight for their fans:
Twitter Super Follows, for example, will be a monthly subscription that allows users to get exclusive content, deals, and community access to creators for $4.99/month.
“Well done on your first exclusive story! Save it as a highlight so fans always have something to see when they join.”
Now, we have to wait and see when Instagram is going to publicly reveal Exclusive Stories and how it will handle Apple’s 30% cut. Twitter, on the other hand, will use Apple’s payment system with purchases inside the iPhone.
Early this month, Facebook criticized Apple’s App Store cut, saying it would launch a platform where creators could see how much each company charges from the users:
We’re also launching a new payout interface so creators can see how different companies’ fees and taxes are impacting their earnings. More to come soon.
#Instagram is working on stories for fan clubs, exclusive stories visible only to fan club members 👀
ℹ️ It is not possible to take screenshots of exclusive stories. pic.twitter.com/GAYvRFVBss
— Alessandro Paluzzi (@alex193a) June 21, 2021
