Instagram wants your long videos but has no plan to pay for them

Instagram has started testing long videos meant to lure creators away from YouTube, but it has not said how, or whether, it will pay them. The new format is called Features. Instagram head Adam Mosseri announced it on Monday, and creators quickly pushed back.

What changed

Features videos can run up to 90 minutes. Reels, Instagram's short videos, top out at 20 minutes. Features also seems to favor landscape video (held sideways) over vertical, which fits TV apps. Instagram wants to catch attention on more screens. For now, only a small group of creators in the US and Brazil is testing it.

Why creators are unhappy

Creators voiced complaints on Threads and Reddit. YouTube shares ad money and offers performance-based incentives. Instagram offers nothing comparable for long videos. Creator Sidneyraz, whose real name is Sidney Raskind, said long-form creators need ad revenue to survive, yet are being asked to upload for free.

Tech creator M. Brandon Lee made a similar point. He said he cannot post links for affiliate income unless he pays for a limited number of links. His summary: "You want more but don't give more."

What Instagram says

Mosseri said Instagram is "exploring multiple options to help long-form creators get paid." He did not say what they are. On a podcast, he said ads before or in the middle of a video would be "problematic from a user experience perspective." He also said growing the small existing performance-based program makes little sense, because Meta spends more on it than it earns back.

He described three ways to get paid: by the platform, by a fan, or by a brand. On Instagram today, he said, most creators get paid by brands, and some by fans. Meta also retired its old Facebook ad revenue-sharing model in 2024.

The AI catch

The main draw of Features is Instagram's reach. The tradeoff is that Meta will use these videos to train its AI models, according to the article. Google also treats YouTube videos as fair game for AI training. The difference is that YouTube pays its creators.

What to do

If you make videos for a business or an income, Features offers possible reach but no direct pay for long videos yet. Weigh that against where your money comes from now, and whether you are comfortable with Meta training AI on your work.