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Honestly, it's not that surprising... from an outsider, Twitch has been incredibly mismanaged in the way that they treat their content creators. And now that Yo

Honestly, it's not that surprising... from an outsider, Twitch has been incredibly mismanaged in the way that they treat their content creators. And now that Youtube is robust enough to allow streaming (also with the features that streaming has) it's catching up to them. The most curious is the alienation of creators which were raking up like 60k viewers per stream by the threat of banning. If you have ever seen one of these streams, the creators are so limited in what they can do. Another shock was this new Kick platform which is managed by a creator itself, and apparently is doing quite well on the surface (wondering how their balance sheet looks) but I think this is what Twitch needs: a creator at the wheel.

Avicebron 4y ago
I think that part of what limits what creators can do on twitch comes down to what the advertisers are willing to put up with, it's likely more that advertisers are leaning on twitch who are then leaning on creators, vs just twitch leaning on creators. As for kick, they seem to be actively ignoring/rejecting these limitations (potentially because they at least partly externally funded by stake (online gambling platform) and kick was a response to most gambling being banned on twitch). I'm not sure how long they can maintain this if they want to stay profitable/attract people to their platform.
- unity1001 4y ago
  > what creators can do on twitch comes down to what the advertisers are willing to put up with Eh. Then those advertisers will have to create the content from now on...
  - echelon 4y ago
    I'm tired of advertisers being averse to content most people find unobjectionable. Advertisers need to get comfortable with nudity, swearing, and the whole range of non-abusive human behavior. They're almost as bad as the credit card companies with linking morality to commerce. YouTube is slowly starting to relax, so I'm hoping the shift is happening. It's okay if the person appearing next to the Big Mac says "fuck".
  - corobo 4y ago
    They are. Brands are starting to stream directly. Game companies especially. If not streaming directly, they're in channels where the streamer is playing their game. They'll give out DLC codes so that the streamer plays the game longer and the game studio makes a mint off the back of the viewers. Content created. A 20 quid DLC key gifted to the streamer will buy you an hour long gameplay ad easily, usually way longer. There's so many streamers out there they just sort by view count and cherry pick the brand safe ones. They don't need to change their criteria.
- sebzim4500 4y ago
  These online gambling platforms have no shortage of money, they were paying out 7 figure amounts to content creators for one stream in some cases. It's possible they can run the whole site through their marketing budget.
  - radicalriddler 4y ago
    Yep, this is my theory as well. The viewer isn't being advertised to by third parties, they're being advertised to by the owner of the platform. If they can get people hooked on gambling, they'll make just as much money as advertisement.
wlesieutre 4y ago
Isn't youtube also incredibly mismanaged in the way that they treat their content creators? For example, making up new rules about swearing too close to the intro of videos being grounds for demonetization, and retroactively applying it to everyone's back catalog from before the rule existed?
- stametseater 4y ago
  Youtube was much better before it was monetized. With monetization came the same pressure on content that had already been present on commercial television; advertisers. Advertisers are the reason television content sucks, they are the ones who demand that the content be formulaic milquetoast crap, and television sucking was the reason Youtube got huge in the first place. Now youtube is becoming the new television. Retroactive application of new standards? That's newish to youtube but standard for television. Old TV episodes that don't meet present advertiser standards don't get reruns. Thankfully there are still some video creators on youtube who don't care about money and are doing it for other reasons (passion, hobby, etc.) But youtube has lost most of their incentive to promote that sort of unmonetized content, so it's becoming harder to find.
duxup 4y ago
Is ANY platform in a position to treat creators well? I hear nothing but complaints from everywhere. I wonder if it is possible to treat creators well…? Are creators even worth much on average considering the volume of people willing to just grind out content continuously without much regard to … themselves? It seems to be an endless search for more subscribers, more views, more patrons of some type, more questionable sponsors. The the youtube, twitch, etc video creators ecosystem seems perpetually messed up, and creators seem to keep at it, sometimes seem to be flogging themselves.
- sebzim4500 4y ago
  Youtube treats creators pretty well, from what I can tell. It's just that 'influencers' like nothing more than to complain. Admittedly, Twitch is a clusterfuck though.
  - izzydata 4y ago
    How? Youtube will take automatic action against peoples channels and then there will be no way to interact with a real human to resolve the situation. The whole system seems like a random black box that does not care for its users.
    - yamtaddle 4y ago
      A channel I like is having to test various patterns of swearing and swear-bleeping to try to narrow down what exactly suddenly changed that wrecked their monetization, which had been fine for years and years. They can't just ask YouTube what they need to do to be OK again. It's really dumb. Also, creators on a platform that grew its original userbase through piracy and media re-mixes with little or no content-policing now have to be extremely careful about even very clear-cut fair-use of commercial media, or risk losing one of their copyright strikes (as in, three strikes and you're out—that is, we kill your business). It makes their videos worse—so, it's also bad for viewers—and causes them stress.
      - stametseater 4y ago
dmonitor 4y ago
From what I've heard from big streamers (Ludwig Ahgren and his gang specifically), he was incredibly out of touch with Twitch culture. Basically zero awareness of what was happening on his platform.
HDThoreaun 4y ago
No money no mission. If advertisers leave the ecosystem it all falls apart which is why the content controls are so strict.
- spyke112 4y ago
  Make it a monthly payment like Netflix? Streaming is streaming if you ask me.
  - sleepybrett 4y ago
    You can subscribe to individual creators on twitch. This removes advertising from that streamers stream only.
    - spyke112 4y ago
      Really should be a monthly subscription, that will get shared by all creators based on minutes of view time, or some other metric. Then maybe gate it behind some artificial limit, so that only serious creators will get a cut. I mean Spotify can share profits between every single artist, why cant twitch do the same? It would benefit both the consumer, higher likelihood of subscribing, and also the creators. They could also keep running ads on a free tier. It’s not exactly rocket science.
      - corobo 4y ago
        They already have this, although it only pays the streamer for ads the viewer would have seen rather than split across view time. https://www.twitch.tv/turbo https://www.twitch.tv/turbo
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
wsatb 4y ago
It seems all YouTube has really done is offer massive contracts to Twitch streamers to poach them. It’s still a terrible streaming platform. Unless you already have a well established audience, you’re not going anywhere there. As for Kick, that is not a legitimate business. One, they’ve ripped off the entire UI from Twitch. Two, the anything goes attitude is not going to fly if they ever get real advertisers.
- Asikaim 4y ago
  They didn't just "rip off the entire UI". Couple of years ago the entire sourcecode of Twitch leaked along with user data, SDKs, security tools etc. They used all that to create Kick after Twitch banned slots. Last time I checked, Kick still mostly used Twitch logos and their policy documents were still talking about Twitch, since they didn't even bother looking at them.
  - wsatb 4y ago
    > Last time I checked, Kick still mostly used Twitch logos and their policy documents were still talking about Twitch, since they didn't even bother looking at them. While I have not spent enough time on Kick to confirm this, that seems 100% on brand. Again, it's not a legitimate business and likely never will be.
    - jimmydorry 4y ago
      It sounds legit, yet I haven't seen any proof of it. Kick uses a different technology stack, different frameworks and libraries... so I wonder how much really can be stolen? I wouldn't doubt boilerplate legaleese getting copied from Twitch though.
jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago
Way to gloss over those streamers you're mentioning were streaming gambling. Kick is a front for Stake the bitcoin casino, not a legitimate streaming site. It exists purely because Trainwrecks wanted to keep making money streaming bitcoin slots. It's been an utter shit show with people streaming porn, sex, the super bowl, incredible amounts of racism... Twitch absolutely is not going that direction with good reason.
- jsheard 4y ago
  Indeed, browsing Kick right now shows gambling is the biggest category by far with 42k viewers. Chat streams are second with 6k viewers, and the most viewed (non-gambling) game has a mere 1.6k viewers. I can't imagine why anyone would stream games on there unless they're banned from Twitch.
  - capableweb 4y ago
    Not knowing, understanding or having any experience of the "streaming" community of the internet. What is the purpose/fun with watching someone not just gamble as in playing poker or whatever for money, but slots specifically? Feels like watching someone rolling a dice by themselves, but with fancier graphics.
    - episteme 4y ago
      People get a second hand buzz when they see people win and the streamer will react in a way that gets people excited. This naturally leads to playing slots yourself and feeling like you are part of a community. It's incredibly lucrative for gambling sites.
      - jsheard 4y ago
        My favourite example of this was seeing a popular gambling streamer who had a permanent overlay reading "DO NOT GAMBLE, YOU WILL LOSE", but still raked in sponsorships from gambling sites regardless. Maybe the overlay helped him sleep at night but the sites know that wasn't actually going to deter anyone. Then there's the shadier casinos that provide fake balances to streamers so they're never at risk of going bust, and can keep perpetually hitting the big jackpots that entice the audience...
PurpleRamen 4y ago
> And now that Youtube is robust enough to allow streaming (also with the features that streaming has) it's catching up to them. Do you have some up-to-date numbers for this? Because YouTube has streaming since 2016, and they never caught up to twitch. Not in the pandemia, when Twitch was growing like crazy. And also not when they bought some big Streamers from Twitch. IIRC, at some point they were even worse than Facebook Gaming for some while. Though, I haven't seen the numbers for 2023 yet. > Another shock was this new Kick platform which is managed by a creator itself, and apparently is doing quite well on the surface Kick seems to be 99% bots. I wouldn't call that doing well.
sanktanglia 4y ago
I worked at twitch for almost 5 years and they had no idea what they were doing at all. Emmett was eternally condescending to staff and continuously listened to whoever was playing politics best. His replacement dan was equally checked out and they had no good tech or content ideas. Tech was a joke, spending 50-80% of some teams time on checking off items in huge spreadsheets to be compliant with new systems and processes that were regularly replaced by new requirements and often required rewriting services that were not in use/working just fine in new languages and frameworks to check new boxes and then the cycle repeated itself.
jklinger410 4y ago
> And now that Youtube is robust enough to allow streaming (also with the features that streaming has) it's catching up to them. YouTube does not want you to be able to search Live content because they want to sell you YouTube Red or YouTube TV. I can't possibly agree that they are anywhere close to Twitch. Unless you are already following a creator, or see their published content on the platform, you wouldn't even know live streaming existed on the platform.

Avicebron 4y ago

I think that part of what limits what creators can do on twitch comes down to what the advertisers are willing to put up with, it's likely more that advertisers are leaning on twitch who are then leaning on creators, vs just twitch leaning on creators. As for kick, they seem to be actively ignoring/rejecting these limitations (potentially because they at least partly externally funded by stake (online gambling platform) and kick was a response to most gambling being banned on twitch). I'm not sure how long they can maintain this if they want to stay profitable/attract people to their platform.

unity1001 4y ago
> what creators can do on twitch comes down to what the advertisers are willing to put up with Eh. Then those advertisers will have to create the content from now on...
- echelon 4y ago
  I'm tired of advertisers being averse to content most people find unobjectionable. Advertisers need to get comfortable with nudity, swearing, and the whole range of non-abusive human behavior. They're almost as bad as the credit card companies with linking morality to commerce. YouTube is slowly starting to relax, so I'm hoping the shift is happening. It's okay if the person appearing next to the Big Mac says "fuck".
- corobo 4y ago
  They are. Brands are starting to stream directly. Game companies especially. If not streaming directly, they're in channels where the streamer is playing their game. They'll give out DLC codes so that the streamer plays the game longer and the game studio makes a mint off the back of the viewers. Content created. A 20 quid DLC key gifted to the streamer will buy you an hour long gameplay ad easily, usually way longer. There's so many streamers out there they just sort by view count and cherry pick the brand safe ones. They don't need to change their criteria.
sebzim4500 4y ago
These online gambling platforms have no shortage of money, they were paying out 7 figure amounts to content creators for one stream in some cases. It's possible they can run the whole site through their marketing budget.
- radicalriddler 4y ago
  Yep, this is my theory as well. The viewer isn't being advertised to by third parties, they're being advertised to by the owner of the platform. If they can get people hooked on gambling, they'll make just as much money as advertisement.

wlesieutre 4y ago

Isn't youtube also incredibly mismanaged in the way that they treat their content creators? For example, making up new rules about swearing too close to the intro of videos being grounds for demonetization, and retroactively applying it to everyone's back catalog from before the rule existed?

stametseater 4y ago
Youtube was much better before it was monetized. With monetization came the same pressure on content that had already been present on commercial television; advertisers. Advertisers are the reason television content sucks, they are the ones who demand that the content be formulaic milquetoast crap, and television sucking was the reason Youtube got huge in the first place. Now youtube is becoming the new television. Retroactive application of new standards? That's newish to youtube but standard for television. Old TV episodes that don't meet present advertiser standards don't get reruns. Thankfully there are still some video creators on youtube who don't care about money and are doing it for other reasons (passion, hobby, etc.) But youtube has lost most of their incentive to promote that sort of unmonetized content, so it's becoming harder to find.

duxup 4y ago

Is ANY platform in a position to treat creators well? I hear nothing but complaints from everywhere. I wonder if it is possible to treat creators well…? Are creators even worth much on average considering the volume of people willing to just grind out content continuously without much regard to … themselves? It seems to be an endless search for more subscribers, more views, more patrons of some type, more questionable sponsors. The the youtube, twitch, etc video creators ecosystem seems perpetually messed up, and creators seem to keep at it, sometimes seem to be flogging themselves.

sebzim4500 4y ago
Youtube treats creators pretty well, from what I can tell. It's just that 'influencers' like nothing more than to complain. Admittedly, Twitch is a clusterfuck though.
- izzydata 4y ago
  How? Youtube will take automatic action against peoples channels and then there will be no way to interact with a real human to resolve the situation. The whole system seems like a random black box that does not care for its users.
  - yamtaddle 4y ago
    A channel I like is having to test various patterns of swearing and swear-bleeping to try to narrow down what exactly suddenly changed that wrecked their monetization, which had been fine for years and years. They can't just ask YouTube what they need to do to be OK again. It's really dumb. Also, creators on a platform that grew its original userbase through piracy and media re-mixes with little or no content-policing now have to be extremely careful about even very clear-cut fair-use of commercial media, or risk losing one of their copyright strikes (as in, three strikes and you're out—that is, we kill your business). It makes their videos worse—so, it's also bad for viewers—and causes them stress.
    - stametseater 4y ago

dmonitor 4y ago

From what I've heard from big streamers (Ludwig Ahgren and his gang specifically), he was incredibly out of touch with Twitch culture. Basically zero awareness of what was happening on his platform.

HDThoreaun 4y ago

No money no mission. If advertisers leave the ecosystem it all falls apart which is why the content controls are so strict.

spyke112 4y ago
Make it a monthly payment like Netflix? Streaming is streaming if you ask me.
- sleepybrett 4y ago
  You can subscribe to individual creators on twitch. This removes advertising from that streamers stream only.
  - spyke112 4y ago
    Really should be a monthly subscription, that will get shared by all creators based on minutes of view time, or some other metric. Then maybe gate it behind some artificial limit, so that only serious creators will get a cut. I mean Spotify can share profits between every single artist, why cant twitch do the same? It would benefit both the consumer, higher likelihood of subscribing, and also the creators. They could also keep running ads on a free tier. It’s not exactly rocket science.
    - corobo 4y ago
      They already have this, although it only pays the streamer for ads the viewer would have seen rather than split across view time. https://www.twitch.tv/turbo https://www.twitch.tv/turbo

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

wsatb 4y ago

It seems all YouTube has really done is offer massive contracts to Twitch streamers to poach them. It’s still a terrible streaming platform. Unless you already have a well established audience, you’re not going anywhere there. As for Kick, that is not a legitimate business. One, they’ve ripped off the entire UI from Twitch. Two, the anything goes attitude is not going to fly if they ever get real advertisers.

Asikaim 4y ago
They didn't just "rip off the entire UI". Couple of years ago the entire sourcecode of Twitch leaked along with user data, SDKs, security tools etc. They used all that to create Kick after Twitch banned slots. Last time I checked, Kick still mostly used Twitch logos and their policy documents were still talking about Twitch, since they didn't even bother looking at them.
- wsatb 4y ago
  > Last time I checked, Kick still mostly used Twitch logos and their policy documents were still talking about Twitch, since they didn't even bother looking at them. While I have not spent enough time on Kick to confirm this, that seems 100% on brand. Again, it's not a legitimate business and likely never will be.
  - jimmydorry 4y ago
    It sounds legit, yet I haven't seen any proof of it. Kick uses a different technology stack, different frameworks and libraries... so I wonder how much really can be stolen? I wouldn't doubt boilerplate legaleese getting copied from Twitch though.

jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago

Way to gloss over those streamers you're mentioning were streaming gambling. Kick is a front for Stake the bitcoin casino, not a legitimate streaming site. It exists purely because Trainwrecks wanted to keep making money streaming bitcoin slots. It's been an utter shit show with people streaming porn, sex, the super bowl, incredible amounts of racism... Twitch absolutely is not going that direction with good reason.

jsheard 4y ago
Indeed, browsing Kick right now shows gambling is the biggest category by far with 42k viewers. Chat streams are second with 6k viewers, and the most viewed (non-gambling) game has a mere 1.6k viewers. I can't imagine why anyone would stream games on there unless they're banned from Twitch.
- capableweb 4y ago
  Not knowing, understanding or having any experience of the "streaming" community of the internet. What is the purpose/fun with watching someone not just gamble as in playing poker or whatever for money, but slots specifically? Feels like watching someone rolling a dice by themselves, but with fancier graphics.
  - episteme 4y ago
    People get a second hand buzz when they see people win and the streamer will react in a way that gets people excited. This naturally leads to playing slots yourself and feeling like you are part of a community. It's incredibly lucrative for gambling sites.
    - jsheard 4y ago
      My favourite example of this was seeing a popular gambling streamer who had a permanent overlay reading "DO NOT GAMBLE, YOU WILL LOSE", but still raked in sponsorships from gambling sites regardless. Maybe the overlay helped him sleep at night but the sites know that wasn't actually going to deter anyone. Then there's the shadier casinos that provide fake balances to streamers so they're never at risk of going bust, and can keep perpetually hitting the big jackpots that entice the audience...

PurpleRamen 4y ago

> And now that Youtube is robust enough to allow streaming (also with the features that streaming has) it's catching up to them. Do you have some up-to-date numbers for this? Because YouTube has streaming since 2016, and they never caught up to twitch. Not in the pandemia, when Twitch was growing like crazy. And also not when they bought some big Streamers from Twitch. IIRC, at some point they were even worse than Facebook Gaming for some while. Though, I haven't seen the numbers for 2023 yet. > Another shock was this new Kick platform which is managed by a creator itself, and apparently is doing quite well on the surface Kick seems to be 99% bots. I wouldn't call that doing well.

sanktanglia 4y ago

I worked at twitch for almost 5 years and they had no idea what they were doing at all. Emmett was eternally condescending to staff and continuously listened to whoever was playing politics best. His replacement dan was equally checked out and they had no good tech or content ideas. Tech was a joke, spending 50-80% of some teams time on checking off items in huge spreadsheets to be compliant with new systems and processes that were regularly replaced by new requirements and often required rewriting services that were not in use/working just fine in new languages and frameworks to check new boxes and then the cycle repeated itself.

jklinger410 4y ago

> And now that Youtube is robust enough to allow streaming (also with the features that streaming has) it's catching up to them. YouTube does not want you to be able to search Live content because they want to sell you YouTube Red or YouTube TV. I can't possibly agree that they are anywhere close to Twitch. Unless you are already following a creator, or see their published content on the platform, you wouldn't even know live streaming existed on the platform.