India, Oct. 27 -- Picture a second-year college student on a Sunday evening. Her phone says storage is full, again. A friend has just sent a link to a funny Spotlight clip from the hostel trip, and everyone in the group chat is already laughing. She does not want to delete a single photo, and she definitely does not want to wait for another app update. So she taps the link, and the video simply plays in her browser.

That small moment says a lot about how young Indians now use short video. The app is still where many people post, but the watching, sharing and saving often happen somewhere else.

Two formats, two very different lifespans

Snapchat's Stories and Spotlight look similar on a screen, yet they behave differently. A Story is mea...