> The UX was extremely confusing as there was no scrolling, swiping changed stories, and tapping went to the next page. The content was 90% image and 10% text and was extremely annoying to read.

Yup, as much as I also hate the format, that's the format of stories as popularised by Snapchat/Instagram/TikTok etc. Keep it all very slick, but devoid of content.