Instagram Tests Videos Up to 90 Minutes Long and Goes After YouTube: How Much Creators Will Earn, Meta Won't Say

Instagram is testing a new format called Features: videos up to 90 minutes long. The platform that spent years teaching people to scroll through short clips now wants to keep them in front of the screen for the length of a whole film. The test started in Brazil and is expanding to a small group of users in the US.

The idea isn't new. Instagram already had IGTV, a long-form video product that was shut down. Instagram chief Adam Mosseri admits he was against long videos on the platform for a long time, and that product vice-president Tessa Lyons persuaded him to try again. Reels remains the main format, Lyons says, but creators should be able to go deeper.

Other features are being tested alongside Features. With "Clips as Reels", creators cut short Reels from a long video that link back to the full recording, and viewers can send the long video to the Instagram TV app. Work is also under way on better discovery for live streams and on episodic playlists made of Reels.

The most important question remains: who pays? Instagram usually doesn't pay creators per view. Their main income is brand deals, plus subscriptions and a small performance-based programme that Mosseri himself says costs more than it earns, so for now there's no point expanding it. YouTube, by comparison, gives creators in its Partner Programme 55 percent of ad revenue and says it paid out over 100 billion dollars (about 86 billion euros) to creators, musicians and media companies over four years.

Meta's answer is a classic corporate "maybe". A spokesperson says it's "too early to share a long-term monetisation model" and that the company is exploring ways for creators to earn from brands, from fans and from Instagram itself. So creators are supposed to make 90-minute films and wait for the money.

The platform that got everyone used to short clips now wants an hour and a half of attention. How many creators, here in the Balkans too, will film that long for a platform that won't say how much it will pay?