On Oct. 27, Twitter announced  that the Vine mobile app will be discontinued.

The platform, known for it’s six-second format, is coming to an end, but the content will live on in the web version.

Content creators from the platform have voiced their sorrow at this unexpected end. Though, all the signs were there. 

Even though some creators are upset about Vine’s demise, most of them have already transferred their content to other platforms like Facebook and Instagram – where they can get paid.

This was vine’s biggest mistake; They were unable to come up with a way to pay creators for posting their content to the app.

On platforms like YouTube, creators get paid in AdSense and through sponsorships.

So, regardless of the sponsorships, the creator still gets a certain amount of money per view.

Vine did not have any kind of program like this, so aside from sponsorships  – which can be few and far between – the creators were essentially posting their content for free. This is what lead to the biggest creators shifting to other platforms.

Not long after the announcement that Vine was being discontinued, information from secret meetings that Vine held with 18 content creators was released to the public.

In fall of 2015, these creators met with Vine executives to try and save the app, which was already seeing a steady decline in engagement.

In these meetings, the Vine stars asked for $1.8 million each, bug fixes and a direct line of communication in exchange for 12 posts a month and, presumably, their undying loyalty.

The idea was that this deal would increase engagement in the app while Vine executives tried to figure out something more permanent and effective.

People have been calling those creators entitled and ridiculous for thinking they are worth so much money.

Vine must have agreed, because the deal ultimately fell through and here we are: Vine is dead.

However, Vine’s relationship with its creators is not their only fault. For the last few years, Vine has been devoid of meaningful updates or changes.

They only included a feature allowing videos longer than six seconds in June of this year. That’s three years after Instagram’s inclusion of video to their platform.

So, Vine’s update was just too little too late.

Vine will live on in the web version, and your favorite creators will move on to platforms where they don’t have to create for free.

Let this be a lesson to other platforms to value their creators. Without creators there is no content, without content there is no platform.