My curmudgeonly self would prefer if the stories were off by default. It's not a feature I'm even remotely interested in, and feature creep really isn't a positive thing.
I've tried snapchat and Instagram stories, and I hate that the messages disappear with time. It seems counter-intuitive for an asynchronous communication method, and that doesn't even count how it always feels like another FOMO marketing gag to keep you engaged with the app.
Just let people delete posts (and really delete them to boot).
I think you don’t quite have the right mindset for the purpose of stories. The point is “this is not important enough to interrupt my friends; but here’s what I’m up to if you’re interested”. It doesn’t matter that it expires, because it’s only relevant to what is happening now.
Of course it still has all the usual social media failings where it is used to make the senders life seem more exciting and fun than it really is but I see the point of having the option.
I especially like signal’s groups implementation. I have a couple of large group chats where I am happy to share my day with people but it’s not important enough to notify everyone’s phone and it doesn’t matter if they miss it.
See - that's the part I don't get. Photos, to me, are not ephemeral. They are valuable, even if you don't think they are at the time. I've lost too many photos because I considered them to be ephemeral, and I regret that loss because I now only have vague memories of the events they captured. My only remaining memories of some of my oldest friends who are no longer with me are captured in those "irrelevant" photos.
Future you will thank you for keeping photos of your friends.
I mean the person who took the photo still has it and you can still ask for it if you like it? If anything stories make you likely to see more photos of your friends, not less.
I've tried snapchat and Instagram stories, and I hate that the messages disappear with time. It seems counter-intuitive for an asynchronous communication method, and that doesn't even count how it always feels like another FOMO marketing gag to keep you engaged with the app.
Just let people delete posts (and really delete them to boot).