5 ms·

The Dire, Bullshit Economics of Twitch Creators

42 points by haywirez 5y ago

erulabs 5y ago
The post ends with the term “fishpilled”, which I have never heard before and cannot find a definition for. Anyone have a definition?
- mwattsun 5y ago
  “fishpilled” means take in the wisdom of the late Mark Fisher https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Fisher https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Fisher
RF_Savage 5y ago
Damn. 0.117% of twitch streamers making even 15kUSD a year is rather bleak in terms of calling it a potential career.
- nradov 5y ago
  What is the percentage of musicians or actors or comedians making over $15K per year?
  - Barrin92 5y ago
    probably not much better, but as the article points out, influencer/streamer is now the most popular future job in the eyes of many kids. "People have always invested incredible amounts of their youth into pursuing dead-end career choices. But we deserve to do so for the right reasons and to channel our creativity towards better goals." These new platforms are unique in that they give a widespread young audience the idea that this is some sort of ordinary career. Nobody ever believed that about comedians.
    - nradov 5y ago
      I'm not too worried. When I was a kid some of my peers invested incredible amounts of their youth into pursuing professional sports careers. None of them succeeded, but I think most of them eventually did fine in other fields.
- danudey 5y ago
  0.117% of everyone who streams on Twitch, even people who just stream one game to some friends every now and then.
- coldtea 5y ago
  It looks like a huge number to me. More than the percentage of people who play music making that money even, and music has been with us since the dawn of time, and has a huge industry. Twitch is just a streaming service.
paulryanrogers 5y ago
Describing the shove sellers as LARPing content creation is very incisive. Funny how often the most successful are often selling "how to sell/create" or some fictional image of creation.
- nsonha 5y ago
  even the word "creator" these days often means someone making a podcast/youtube channel/mail list, instead of... you know someone who creates things those people talk about (engineers, film makers etc) Related https://www.swyx.io/meta-creator-ceiling https://www.swyx.io/meta-creator-ceiling
- choclice 5y ago
  See also: * passive income folks whose business is to teach passive income * van lifers who earn by... selling the van life. Ultimately they're profiting on the difference between reality and people's wishful thinking.
  - danudey 5y ago
    I knew a guy ages ago who wrote blog posts and ebooks and gave talks, all about how to "get famous on the internet". He started making them back when no one had ever heard of him. His Twitter bio even said "I got famous on the internet telling people how to get famous on the internet".
aahortwwy 5y ago
A somewhat disingenuous article discussing a problem as old as the entertainment industry and painting it as Twitch being somehow uniquely exploitative. > I hope I convinced you to mentally categorize the average hard-working streamer’s career hopes accurately — well into the lottery ticket territory. 98% of channels on Twitch aren't monetized. They don't get revenue share because they don't generate any revenue. The bar for monetization on Twitch is very low. So low that "the average hard-working streamer" should be able to meet it pretty easily. Among monetized channels the percentage making minimum wage is closer to 1.5% - very low, but not what I would call "lottery ticket territory". It's also worth noting that at the time of the leak about 50% of active channels on Twitch were about a year old. It takes years to start seeing any sort of "real" money from entertainment, and that's not unique to streaming. The chart in the article showing distribution of earnings seems to show a pretty typical power distribution, which is to be expected in entertainment media.
- jimmydorry 5y ago
  Thanks for sharing your critical thinking. These kinds of puff pieces get eyes, but are pretty deceptive.
- nekcihc 5y ago
  I suppose, that in terms of Twitch monetization we can talk only about revenue from: 1. subscriptions it takes only 250 tier 1 subscribers to reach that 15 000$/year, if we take into account, that twitch is taking 50% from charges 2. ads This actually turns away all the casual watchers, who are not subscribing, but only donating. Subscribers do not see ads in most cases anyway, so there is not that much income for streamer. 3. bits They were implemented to take away cut from donations. Not really useful, compared to other types of donations from paypal, patron or from donations that are going into cryptocurrencies wallets. I'm very sceptical about that twitch streamers who do streaming as a serious job only get 15 000$/year(more like 15 000$/month would be more realistically, otherwise there would be not that many twitch thots who have switched from streaming in adult industry to twitch - their income numbers from streaming on twitch were posted to be in range of 60 000$ - 90 000$ per month, so they are not nowhere that poor, as those who are donating to them). For a well established streamer donations are rarely less than 100$ per stream. That makes very decent salary even for US. PS only insane person can write with green ink article, to irritate anyone else who is trying to read that BS crap article.
TheRealNGenius 5y ago
That's a very visually repulsive website with titles for graphs/charts made for Antman and co.
vintermann 5y ago
> In this model, even a 10x increase in payouts would not broaden the base significantly. I wonder if this isn't true of e.g. Spotify as well.

42 points by haywirez 5y ago

The post ends with the term “fishpilled”, which I have never heard before and cannot find a definition for. Anyone have a definition?

mwattsun 5y ago
“fishpilled” means take in the wisdom of the late Mark Fisher https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Fisher https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Fisher

RF_Savage 5y ago

Damn. 0.117% of twitch streamers making even 15kUSD a year is rather bleak in terms of calling it a potential career.

nradov 5y ago
What is the percentage of musicians or actors or comedians making over $15K per year?
- Barrin92 5y ago
  probably not much better, but as the article points out, influencer/streamer is now the most popular future job in the eyes of many kids. "People have always invested incredible amounts of their youth into pursuing dead-end career choices. But we deserve to do so for the right reasons and to channel our creativity towards better goals." These new platforms are unique in that they give a widespread young audience the idea that this is some sort of ordinary career. Nobody ever believed that about comedians.
  - nradov 5y ago
    I'm not too worried. When I was a kid some of my peers invested incredible amounts of their youth into pursuing professional sports careers. None of them succeeded, but I think most of them eventually did fine in other fields.
danudey 5y ago
0.117% of everyone who streams on Twitch, even people who just stream one game to some friends every now and then.
coldtea 5y ago
It looks like a huge number to me. More than the percentage of people who play music making that money even, and music has been with us since the dawn of time, and has a huge industry. Twitch is just a streaming service.

paulryanrogers 5y ago

Describing the shove sellers as LARPing content creation is very incisive. Funny how often the most successful are often selling "how to sell/create" or some fictional image of creation.

nsonha 5y ago
even the word "creator" these days often means someone making a podcast/youtube channel/mail list, instead of... you know someone who creates things those people talk about (engineers, film makers etc) Related https://www.swyx.io/meta-creator-ceiling https://www.swyx.io/meta-creator-ceiling
choclice 5y ago
See also: * passive income folks whose business is to teach passive income * van lifers who earn by... selling the van life. Ultimately they're profiting on the difference between reality and people's wishful thinking.
- danudey 5y ago
  I knew a guy ages ago who wrote blog posts and ebooks and gave talks, all about how to "get famous on the internet". He started making them back when no one had ever heard of him. His Twitter bio even said "I got famous on the internet telling people how to get famous on the internet".

aahortwwy 5y ago

A somewhat disingenuous article discussing a problem as old as the entertainment industry and painting it as Twitch being somehow uniquely exploitative. > I hope I convinced you to mentally categorize the average hard-working streamer’s career hopes accurately — well into the lottery ticket territory. 98% of channels on Twitch aren't monetized. They don't get revenue share because they don't generate any revenue. The bar for monetization on Twitch is very low. So low that "the average hard-working streamer" should be able to meet it pretty easily. Among monetized channels the percentage making minimum wage is closer to 1.5% - very low, but not what I would call "lottery ticket territory". It's also worth noting that at the time of the leak about 50% of active channels on Twitch were about a year old. It takes years to start seeing any sort of "real" money from entertainment, and that's not unique to streaming. The chart in the article showing distribution of earnings seems to show a pretty typical power distribution, which is to be expected in entertainment media.

jimmydorry 5y ago
Thanks for sharing your critical thinking. These kinds of puff pieces get eyes, but are pretty deceptive.
nekcihc 5y ago
I suppose, that in terms of Twitch monetization we can talk only about revenue from: 1. subscriptions it takes only 250 tier 1 subscribers to reach that 15 000$/year, if we take into account, that twitch is taking 50% from charges 2. ads This actually turns away all the casual watchers, who are not subscribing, but only donating. Subscribers do not see ads in most cases anyway, so there is not that much income for streamer. 3. bits They were implemented to take away cut from donations. Not really useful, compared to other types of donations from paypal, patron or from donations that are going into cryptocurrencies wallets. I'm very sceptical about that twitch streamers who do streaming as a serious job only get 15 000$/year(more like 15 000$/month would be more realistically, otherwise there would be not that many twitch thots who have switched from streaming in adult industry to twitch - their income numbers from streaming on twitch were posted to be in range of 60 000$ - 90 000$ per month, so they are not nowhere that poor, as those who are donating to them). For a well established streamer donations are rarely less than 100$ per stream. That makes very decent salary even for US. PS only insane person can write with green ink article, to irritate anyone else who is trying to read that BS crap article.

TheRealNGenius 5y ago

That's a very visually repulsive website with titles for graphs/charts made for Antman and co.

vintermann 5y ago

> In this model, even a 10x increase in payouts would not broaden the base significantly. I wonder if this isn't true of e.g. Spotify as well.