It was a brief life, but it won’t be forgotten. It’s time to say goodbye to one of the most interesting and bizarre online platforms that has entertained millions of users each month, for the past four years: Vine is closing down.

Who killed Vine?

Twitter acquired Vine in 2012 and introduced it to the world hoping to benefit from the simplicity of its 6-seconds video, which resembled that of a tweet. But both Twitter and the world were soon to realise that there was very little simplicity in Vine. Those endless loops and the time limitation inspired its users to produce unusual (and very far from simple) videos. Entertaining, creative and at times even genius, Vine was changing the rules and a new trend exploded, the short-video sharing. 

In no time Vine rose to success, becoming a popular video sharing app that encouraged creativity among its members. (It takes a lot of it to tell a story in a looping 6-seconds video!) But the world was up for the challenge, millions of people turned to Vine to laugh at loops and see creativity unfold. Its monthly user base continued to rise. Until, well, it stopped.

And it was the lack of precisely what was once in abundance that finally killed Vine: its creativity.

How can a young tech company launch a ground-breaking product (bought by Twitter) and not focus its efforts on innovation? From 2014 to 2015 the app was unable to acquire new users and, ultimately, both user base and revenues began to fall while the competition (like Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube) offered new features and more updates.

After the management called on Vine’s Top creators in an attempt to save the app, the inability/unwillingness to listen to its biggest contributors brought us to last week’s Twitter announcement.

It’s time to say goodbye to Vine.