[HN Gopher] Twitch CEO Emmett Shear is resigning
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Twitch CEO Emmett Shear is resigning
        
       Author : ExMachina73
       Score  : 190 points
       Date   : 2023-03-16 16:15 UTC (6 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.theverge.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.theverge.com)
        
       | widowlark wrote:
       | I wonder if Clancy has what it takes to keep the platform alive -
       | It seems to be floundering at the moment
        
       | leesec wrote:
       | Twitch's revenue is up 5x from 2015 and 2x from 2019, and
       | generally has been on an uptick since COVID, so I doubt this is
       | anything to do with the companies stability. I think he genuinely
       | was just ready to step down and be with his family/do something
       | else
        
       | AccountAccount1 wrote:
       | 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.
        
         | PurpleRamen wrote:
         | > 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.
        
         | wsatb wrote:
         | 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 wrote:
           | 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.
        
         | Avicebron wrote:
         | 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.
        
           | sebzim4500 wrote:
           | 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.
        
           | unity1001 wrote:
           | > 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...
        
             | corobo wrote:
             | 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.
        
             | echelon wrote:
             | 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".
        
         | wlesieutre wrote:
         | 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 wrote:
           | 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 new _ish_ 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.
        
         | sanktanglia wrote:
         | 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.
        
         | duxup wrote:
         | 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 wrote:
           | 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.
        
             | whatisthiseven wrote:
             | That's weird, as my understanding of the YT creator
             | community is constant strife, ever changing rules,
             | arbitrary bans, strikes on their account for vaguely
             | matching copyrighted work, and most recently _swearing too
             | much, or too early, in a video_.
             | 
             | YT is not friendly to creators, for the same reason Twitch
             | is not friendly to creators: advertisers hate what people
             | want to watch.
             | 
             | Even Patreon, where people pay rather than watch ads,
             | repeatedly runs into issues with creators because of pay
             | schedules, amounts, percent cuts, platform features, and
             | more.
             | 
             | If its someone else's platform, creators don't win.
        
             | izzydata wrote:
             | 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 wrote:
               | 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 wrote:
               | > _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_
               | 
               | Monetization is a big part of this problem. It is
               | possible for something to be fair use and commercialized,
               | but once you've commercialized it you're fighting an
               | uphill battle to claim fair use.
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | ryandrake wrote:
               | > 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
               | 
               | This seems like such a stupid, pointless effort. Instead
               | of pentesting to find exactly where the line is so you
               | can toe it perfectly, why not... just stay far away from
               | the line and stop swearing. Wouldn't that be much less
               | effort and less risk?
        
               | yamtaddle wrote:
               | Might lose them audience & differentiation, depending on
               | what's getting people to show up. Any change in tone or
               | content would carry that risk (or, might improve it--hard
               | to say until you try)
        
               | sebzim4500 wrote:
               | If it makes the videos worse then probably not worth it
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | bluefirebrand wrote:
           | Maybe I missed it, but Wordpress seemed to handle creators
           | really well.
           | 
           | I've been saying for a while that the next big thing in
           | streaming is Wordpress but for Streamers.
           | 
           | Something relatively easy for small streamers to set up and
           | manage on their own, cheap enough to start small and scale up
           | as it starts to make money, with the ability to handle large-
           | scale streams if necessary.
           | 
           | I don't know how you would handle provisioning the servers
           | and such. Maybe it's not easy enough to automate. But I think
           | this sort of thing would take a huge bite out of centralized
           | streaming sites.
        
             | starkparker wrote:
             | > Something relatively easy for small streamers to set up
             | and manage on their own, cheap enough to start small and
             | scale up as it starts to make money, with the ability to
             | handle large-scale streams if necessary.
             | 
             | Self-hosted social networks and microblogs are all over the
             | place and have been for decades, and Twitter is falling
             | apart, but the audience is still on Twitter. Self-hosting
             | streams has never been easier, but even if it were one-
             | click it invariably costs money out of pocket for the
             | bandwidth to self-host a stream, and Twitch does not.
             | WordPress is trivial to host for nearly nothing; streaming,
             | not so much.
             | 
             | The appeal of Twitch isn't livestreaming, it's the culture
             | and existing social network of users and streamers who are
             | already there, and the ease of starting up. The
             | architecture or centralization of the next big thing in the
             | space won't matter, it's whether both the creators,
             | audience, and money will all show up at roughly the same
             | time.
        
             | Arainach wrote:
             | Could you give an example of someone who was making
             | significant money (preferably by YT/Twitch standards but
             | any example is good) on WordPress?
        
               | bena wrote:
               | This is a red herring.
               | 
               | I don't think WordPress pays anyone anything.
               | 
               | They built a platform and the will also provide hosting.
               | You can download WordPress from wordpress.org and just
               | run it. Or you can go to wordpress.com and buy a whole
               | hosting plan where wordpress.com manages the software for
               | you.
               | 
               | But WordPress doesn't give fuck number one about what you
               | do with it. So you are free to monetize it in any fashion
               | you want. They'll even help you with that. WordPress
               | doesn't have to worry about if any of the people on their
               | site are making money because they still get paid.
               | 
               | Twitch and YouTube are free for creators. You don't have
               | to pay to stream on Twitch or to post videos to YouTube.
               | All the cost of hosting and serving is borne by the
               | service. Which is why they were doing ads in the first
               | place. But with creators now needing actual production,
               | they realized they were pouring in serious money into
               | their channels, but getting none of that sweet ad money.
               | 
               | So shit got complicated. It's free to post and free to
               | watch. But that doesn't make it free to host or produce.
               | Which is why you have YouTube showing you ads and the
               | video itself being sponsored by AG1, Dollar Shave Club,
               | and Mystery Box of the Month Club.
               | 
               | I think ultimately, these places are going to need to
               | charge for hosting. And yes, that's going to kill a lot
               | of channels. But ok. You can afford overpriced, under-
               | engineered rainbow glowy keyboards, you can instead put
               | that towards a $30/month hosting fee.
        
               | keiferski wrote:
               | A sizable portion of _the entire internet_ is running
               | WordPress. That's billions of dollars a year.
        
               | luckylion wrote:
               | They're running the Software, but they're not on
               | wordpress.com.
               | 
               | If we're talking about Software, then wow, Microsoft is
               | really treating those game streamers well, because they
               | can use it to play games which they stream.
        
           | dylan604 wrote:
           | It's funny to me the "restrictions" being placed on content
           | creators like it's a new thing. It's only new in that more
           | people are being made aware of how there have always been
           | rules applied to what could or could not be "aired". Yes,
           | there were government rules enforced by the FCC and the
           | infamous stories of getting things past the censors, but
           | there were always deference paid to the corporate sponsors
           | and advertisers. This isn't unique to internet streamers.
           | 
           | If you started out without any consideration of this, then
           | you're just a babe in the woods type of situation, but if you
           | thought you could do this and "disrupt", then you're just
           | living in a delusion. You want to make money from
           | advertisers, then you're going to play by their rules.
        
         | dmonitor wrote:
         | 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.
        
         | jklinger410 wrote:
         | > 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.
        
         | jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
         | 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 wrote:
           | 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 wrote:
             | 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 wrote:
               | 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 wrote:
               | 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...
        
               | Lev1a wrote:
               | I imagine the answer to that would be one word:
               | 
               | Schadenfreude
        
           | [deleted]
        
         | HDThoreaun wrote:
         | No money no mission. If advertisers leave the ecosystem it all
         | falls apart which is why the content controls are so strict.
        
           | spyke112 wrote:
           | Make it a monthly payment like Netflix? Streaming is
           | streaming if you ask me.
        
             | sleepybrett wrote:
             | You can subscribe to individual creators on twitch. This
             | removes advertising from that streamers stream only.
        
               | spyke112 wrote:
               | 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 wrote:
               | 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
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | karmasimida wrote:
       | Is twitch still a thing? I don't think they have any significant
       | upgrades for several years now...
        
       | slater wrote:
       | Maybe now they can pump the brakes on their unwinnable game of
       | whack-a-mole against adblockers, too?
        
       | jeffwask wrote:
       | Amazon has really done a number on what was a fun and useful
       | platform for viewers and creators. It was totally "enshittened".
        
         | prox wrote:
         | It still is fun, but the constant "our creators and viewers are
         | the enemy of capitalization" is not a great tactic short or
         | long term.
        
           | jeffwask wrote:
           | I agree I still enjoy catching streams I just wish Mixer or
           | one of the other platforms had fought longer to create real
           | competition.
           | 
           | You hit the nail on the head tho "our creators and viewers
           | are the enemy of capitalization".
           | 
           | I think one of the problems with our current fiscal model of
           | "year over year growth or die" is that some products have a
           | ceiling before the only way to squeeze more is to hurt the
           | overall experience for users.
        
             | jeffwask wrote:
             | If YouTube would only give half a fuck about improving the
             | UI/UX and searchability of their streaming offerings.
        
         | quectophoton wrote:
         | As one example, I can't even login to Twitch since a few months
         | ago because "my browser is not supported". (EDIT to add: Tried
         | with Firefox and Chromium, from both v3.17 and edge Alpine
         | Linux repositories.)
         | 
         | I don't know what kind of fingerprinting are they doing, but
         | it's definitely not just user agent nor IP address nor browser
         | version. I suspect they somehow detect that I'm using Alpine
         | Linux (it's my main OS) and don't like it, because this doesn't
         | happen on different distros.
         | 
         | I think this started happening shortly after they got a massive
         | amount of new accounts being created.
         | 
         | Like, my account has existed for years, has MFA enabled, and
         | has given them money frequently. But I can't login from my main
         | device. Alright.
        
           | mcmcmc wrote:
           | You didn't mention what browser you're using, seems like a
           | key detail for "browser is not supported"
        
             | quectophoton wrote:
             | Neither Firefox nor Chromium work for me, from neither
             | stable (v3.17) or edge Alpine Linux repositories. And back
             | then when this started happening, I also could not login
             | with Firefox from FreeBSD.
             | 
             | But I can login with Firefox from my Steam Deck without any
             | problems.
             | 
             | I know musl libc has weird compatibility issues (e.g.
             | Nvidia, Widevine, etc), but as far as I can see I have no
             | other issues with the website; I can play streams, and I
             | can see chat messages and stuff. It's only the login form
             | that for some reason responds with an error when I try to
             | login.
        
           | jeffwask wrote:
           | > I think this started happening shortly after they got a
           | massive amount of new accounts being created.
           | 
           | Smells suspiciously like a hack to combat botnets.
        
       | fullshark wrote:
       | Feels like twitch, although a massive success by any reasonable
       | standard, has not really lived up to its potential. Weird niche
       | platform really, and it's the internet's goto service for live
       | feeds.
        
       | skilled wrote:
       | I've been a Twitch user since its first year. I have a select few
       | streamers I watch, and I spend more time on the platform when
       | there are new releases for games I personally like. But, I have
       | been very in-tune with Twitch culture and I know how disorganized
       | it is when it comes to "big" streamers.
       | 
       | However, my issue (and also disappointment) with Twitch right now
       | is:
       | 
       | - Softcore porn allowed on the platform. Literally, girls doing
       | ass up squats in front of the camera for a $3 donation. You
       | cannot avoid this because its part of the platforms "culture" and
       | even your favorite streamers will one day end up watching a clip
       | or something on their stream. This also breeds incels and very
       | toxic chatters.
       | 
       | - Ads. Twitch is fighting against ad-blockers. Fine by me, I can
       | bare ads, but what I cannot do is bear 5 ads in a row every 30
       | minutes. This has gotten a lot worse lately. It is annoying and
       | disruptive to the user experience, and thankfully there are
       | streamers who disable them altogether as they can sustain
       | themselves through subscriptions and donations from chatters.
       | 
       | Is there hope Twitch will fix this? I doubt it. I see them as
       | weak and irresponsible bunch that are only interested in money
       | and don't care about mixing things up in the community.
        
         | beebmam wrote:
         | Given that you have an issue with ads, how do you respond to
         | the fact you can pay $5/month to subscribe to a specific
         | streamer to avoid all ads? Would you prefer if there was a
         | platform-level subscription level which allows you to avoid all
         | platform-driven ads across all channels, similar to YouTube
         | Premium, for example?
        
           | gered wrote:
           | Isn't that what "Twitch Turbo" is?
        
           | idconvict wrote:
           | They already have a platform-level subscription. It's Twitch
           | Turbo and costs ~$10/month. Removes all ads on the site. I
           | don't think creators get any portion of it like with YouTube
           | Premium though.
        
             | Lev1a wrote:
             | IIRC I heard years ago that Turbo "pays" the streamer for
             | the non-watched ads which have been removed for the Turbo
             | user, i.e. fractions of a cent, i.e. nothing. All it does
             | is paying Twitch for doing fuck-all.
        
               | WJW wrote:
               | Rebroadcasting live video to potentially hundreds of
               | thousands of people at once is hardly "fuck-all", that
               | shit costs a lot of money to do well.
        
               | HWR_14 wrote:
               | So Turbo pays the streamer the same amount per stream as
               | the non-Turbo ad supported account? That sounds good and
               | fair. I don't know why you would expect otherwise.
               | 
               | Heck, Turbo users probably watch more videos and so are
               | better customers even at the same rate.
        
             | [deleted]
        
             | runevault wrote:
             | I thought they removed turbo for everyone outside Canada,
             | or did they bring it back at some point?
        
               | nozzlegear wrote:
               | I'm in the US and have been subscribed to Turbo for over
               | a year now, even though I rarely watch Twitch. I just
               | keep my subscription so I don't have to be bothered with
               | ads when I want to turn on a Twitch stream on my Apple
               | TV.
        
           | skilled wrote:
           | There is Twitch Turbo, which as far as I know does not
           | benefit creators, or does so on a very nominal level. I
           | subscribe to individual streamers that I wish to see continue
           | streaming. I do not care about supporting Twitch, so yes -
           | your argument is valid that money can solve my issue, but
           | then I have to choose between supporting a creator or
           | supporting Twitch.
           | 
           | I play ARPG games specifically, so I follow a lot of creators
           | for those specific games, and when new releases hit - I will
           | most definitely be trying to keep up with the latest
           | strategies and insights. And I will get that information
           | either way, but does that mean I also have to miss
           | interesting moments because I am not willing to support
           | Twitch directly?
           | 
           | All I'm saying is that ads have gotten a lot worse lately and
           | it is extremely noticeable.
        
           | NaN1352 wrote:
           | I never understood this model. Can you imagine how much it
           | would cost to support all my favorite streamers? I don't even
           | follow many. But let's say even just 5 and now we're looking
           | at 25$ / month.
           | 
           | Obviously I must be out of the loop if this currently
           | works... but I don't get it.
           | 
           | Turbo is nice, but should be just a little cheaper. YT
           | Premium Lite is 7 euros.
           | 
           | The ads are insufferable. Hate how they really want to shove
           | it down your throat even when you back out of a stream and
           | pick another.
           | 
           | Worse it's badly implemented. Countless times I'm watching
           | the same ads multiple times within 10-15 mins.
           | 
           | Only saving grace on AppleTV if you back out you can wait it
           | out while the stream is still highlighted, with the sound
           | off, then enter the stream again.
        
         | thinkingemote wrote:
         | I can recommend the unwanted twitch extension which allows a
         | user to hide selected channels, entire games and tags.
         | https://github.com/kwaschny/unwanted-twitch
        
         | AlexandrB wrote:
         | They did eventually ban gambling streams, so who knows. The
         | trouble, I think, is defining what qualifies as "software
         | porn". Do you start policing what streamers are wearing? Are
         | some activities, like squatting, disallowed? And any definition
         | will probably court controversy, especially because it will
         | overwhelmingly affect female streamers.
        
           | cubefox wrote:
           | They could add a general ban of "intentional sexual
           | behavior", which is vague enough to apply common sense and
           | affect just the people who were meant to be affected. Similar
           | to how a judge can use common sense to interpret vague terms
           | in the law.
        
         | ilyt wrote:
         | My main problem is that frankly youtube streaming is
         | technically better, I hoped twitch catches up but I still can't
         | just pause a stream and "catch up" like on YT, watching archive
         | of currently playing channel (say esport event) is also royal
         | PITA.
         | 
         | On YT I can tune hour late, then just jump back to match that
         | happened, watch it, skip the intermissions and catch up, on
         | twitch that's much more complicated.
         | 
         | > - Softcore porn allowed on the platform. Literally, girls
         | doing ass up squats in front of the camera for a $3 donation.
         | You cannot avoid this because its part of the platforms
         | "culture" and even your favorite streamers will one day end up
         | watching a clip or something on their stream. This also breeds
         | incels and very toxic chatters.
         | 
         | I dunno, I never got suggested one of those during at least
         | last few years. If I scroll for like 3 screens I get some
         | vtubers but that's about it. I think ability to filter out by
         | stream tags would entirely solve the problem
         | 
         | > - Ads. Twitch is fighting against ad-blockers. Fine by me, I
         | can bare ads, but what I cannot do is bear 5 ads in a row every
         | 30 minutes. This has gotten a lot worse lately. It is annoying
         | and disruptive to the user experience, and thankfully there are
         | streamers who disable them altogether as they can sustain
         | themselves through subscriptions and donations from chatters.
         | 
         | On top of that they often play in absolutely wrong moments.
         | Like getting ad immediately after clicking a new stream, before
         | you even know whether you want to watch them or not.
        
           | atsjie wrote:
           | The comments and community feeling in Youtube streaming
           | sucks. Ludwig who made the switch a year ago from Twitch to
           | Youtube said that was his biggest nuisance with Youtube, and
           | I agree. I stopped watching him because of it since there's
           | more fun to be had on Twitch.
           | 
           | Twitch is more like a bunch of monkeys which is fun and
           | builds hype. Youtube is too serious and the chat is too slow
           | for the streamer to properly interact with.
        
             | enlyth wrote:
             | Something about Twitch chat is magical, even though it is
             | commonly just walls of copypasta, it feels like
             | participating in a real, authentic audience. Often times it
             | is more entertaining that the stream itself, just like on
             | HN you would rush to the comments before even reading TFA
             | to see what other people are saying.
             | 
             | I can't quite pinpoint why YouTube doesn't have the same
             | feeling though.
        
               | wil421 wrote:
               | It feels like teen chat rooms on AOL with more flair.
               | Except I don't remember the hordes ganging up on and
               | harassing people on AOL.
        
               | WJW wrote:
               | There was plenty of ganging up on AOL too, if you were
               | even a little bit outside what "mainstream AOL" people
               | thought was acceptable.
        
               | wil421 wrote:
               | You could just leave the chat or sign off. Hard to do
               | when some people are all about doxing and swatting
               | nowadays.
        
               | hbn wrote:
               | Well for one thing Twitch has the advantage of being
               | primarily gaming-focused, whereas YouTube is at its core
               | a generic video host with no particular focus.
               | 
               | But YouTube has also completely destroyed their entire
               | concept of having a "YouTube community" over the years.
               | There might be something of various creator communities
               | in various niches, but the heavy censorship, mess of a
               | comments section that does everything in its power to
               | halt any form of conversation, leaving only spam and
               | idiots in most comment sections, etc. left it with
               | nothing of a community, or any real creator/consumer
               | dynamic.
               | 
               | YouTube no longer has private nor direct messages, so if
               | people want to communicate they have to do it on another
               | platform. It's also just a bit of a mess with the
               | transition from the original idea of "everyone has an
               | anonymous handle" to "every must have their Google+
               | profile linked and use their real name" to "Google+ is
               | dead and now some people have silly handles and some
               | people are real people." The whole thing adds up to make
               | for a place with no coherent community.
        
               | starkparker wrote:
               | YouTube's UI doesn't facilitate it. YT chat is for
               | textual chat, but clunky and staid, which is a very
               | Google thing to implement.
               | 
               | Twitch chat is for emoting, especially in ways that
               | please the streamer. Trying to actually chat with someone
               | on an active Twitch channel is futile.
        
         | mrguyorama wrote:
         | Twitch will never stop the softcore porn because it's a huge
         | source of revenue and they DGAF that they are serving softcore
         | porn to teens. Honestly I don't care that teens watch cammers
         | or porn, but it's toxic to the platform to have it share the
         | same site, and that also allows payment to be shared and
         | basically makes it way easier for kids to pay cammers, which is
         | super weird IMO. I also really dislike the encouragement of
         | parasocial relationships on the platform. It's a huge problem
         | in camming in general but twitch makes parasocial relationships
         | a competitive sport through some really messed up crowd
         | psychology.
         | 
         | "Mommy give me twenty bucks for twitch bits so I can pay XQC"
         | and then becoming a hot tub stream simp is so much easier than
         | "Mommy give me your credit card so I can create an account on
         | this cam girl site"
        
           | salemh wrote:
           | I wish more in tech would stop pretending pornography is
           | something benign. This isn't the case, though I personally
           | thought the same just a few years ago. There is data, and
           | victims available to see it is not.
           | 
           | Understanding a Context of Risk: Pornography and Child Sexual
           | Abuse https://osf.io/kf4uv/download/?format=pdf _One of the
           | most troubling patterns emerging in the research relates to
           | the increasing number of younger children (under the ages of
           | 12-14) involved in perpetrating child sexual assault.
           | Clinical and legal studies are reporting greater numbers of
           | preteen children demonstrating interpersonal problematic
           | sexual behaviors that intrude on the physical space and
           | security of other children (Friedrich et al., 2006; Swisher
           | et al., 2008)._
           | 
           | <>
           | 
           |  _Most relevant to the purpose of this paper is the role of
           | exposure to sexually explicit media as one of the explanatory
           | variables in child sexual abuse. A meta-analysis of 22
           | studies demonstrates that exposure to pornography,
           | particularly violent pornography, is significantly associated
           | with increased rates of sexual aggression in the general
           | population (Wright et al., 2016). Given that the average age
           | of first exposure to pornography is age 11 (Wolak et al.,
           | 2006), it is important to begin to consider what role, if
           | any, pornography may play in child sexual abuse, particular
           | if perpetrated by children. Several studies have included
           | sexually explicit media as a contributing factor for child-
           | perpetrated sexual abuse._
           | 
           | The Association Between Exposure to Violent Pornography and
           | Teen Dating Violence in Grade 10 High School Students
           | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6751001/
           | _Exposure to pornography in general has been linked with
           | adolescent dating violence and sexual aggression, but less is
           | known about exposure to violent pornography specifically. The
           | current study examined the association of violent pornography
           | exposure with different forms of teen dating violence (TDV)
           | using baseline survey data from a sample of Grade 10 high
           | school students who reported being in a dating relationship
           | in the past year (n = 1694)_
           | 
           | A Meta-Analysis of Pornography Consumption and Actual Acts of
           | Sexual Aggression in General Population Studies
           | https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jcom.12201
           | _Is pornography consumption correlated with committing actual
           | acts of sexual aggression? 22 studies from 7 different
           | countries were analyzed. Consumption was associated with
           | sexual aggression in the United States and internationally,
           | among males and females, and in cross-sectional and
           | longitudinal studies. Associations were stronger for verbal
           | than physical sexual aggression, although both were
           | significant. The general pattern of results suggested that
           | violent content may be an exacerbating factor._
        
           | kunalgupta wrote:
           | This all sounds great for the softcore porn market though
        
           | bawolff wrote:
           | > I also really dislike the encouragement of parasocial
           | relationships on the platform
           | 
           | Isn't that the entire value proposition of twitch?
        
           | tannhauser23 wrote:
           | I've talked to my friends about this (we all have young
           | children) and they had no idea softcore porn is prevalent on
           | twitch. Not to mention actual adult stars regularly
           | streaming.
           | 
           | And before anybody replies "and whats wrong with that" blah
           | blah, parents still think of twitch as a place where kids can
           | watch minecraft.
           | 
           | Twitch is playing with fire here.
        
             | DoctorOW wrote:
             | I won't say "What's wrong with that" but I will point out
             | that Twitch has in place safe modes for "Mature" streams
             | that isn't much of a gate keeper, but neither is the little
             | M that pops up in the corner of mature TV programs. The
             | site also doesn't seem to do anything to intentionally
             | market directly to children. Not that it doesn't attract
             | kids, but so does TV. I don't think it's unfair to expect
             | parents to keep an eye on what their kids watch.
        
             | op00to wrote:
             | Not saying it's not there, but I've never seen anything
             | like soft core porn on twitch. What's wrong with me that
             | the algorithm thinks I don't like naked people?
        
             | ru552 wrote:
             | Parents are devoid of all responsibility then?
             | 
             | I don't have a stance on the Twitch/softporn thing, but
             | "think of the kids" is used too often for evil these days.
        
               | ChickenNugger wrote:
               | I think it's more that twitch sells itself as a gaming
               | platform but it's honestly closer to chaturbate than a
               | gaming site.
               | 
               | Sure you _can_ see gaming there, but it 's not what
               | dominates and is pushed by the platform.
        
               | red-iron-pine wrote:
               | Strongly disagree. There are lots, LOTS, of game streams.
               | Definitely outnumbering the chaturbate angle.
               | 
               | But how many people want to log in to watch someone with
               | a face for radio and a voice for silent movies narrate
               | some random game?
               | 
               | By comparison, the chaturbate crowd is far fewer in
               | number but has an outsized impact.
        
               | ChickenNugger wrote:
               | Lots of game streams with no one watching them, sure.
               | Meanwhile "Just Chatting" is by far the largest category.
               | And the biggest channel on right now is a pretty young
               | woman in pajamas.
        
               | op00to wrote:
               | I blame my parents for allowing me to corrupt myself by
               | watching the spice channel through the scrambler
               | squiggles.
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | tannhauser23 wrote:
               | Of course we do! That's why we're talking to each other
               | about it. Twitch risks a backlash from parents if adult
               | content comes more prevalent on the site.
        
           | SpaceManNabs wrote:
           | Twitch walked so that onlyfans could run.
           | 
           | not even a joke. a lot of OF performers use their twitch as a
           | marketting arm.
        
         | i_love_cookies wrote:
         | [dead]
        
         | isk517 wrote:
         | The big issue with ads is that only 'partners' are allowed to
         | turn off pre-roll ads, and in order to become a partner you
         | need meet certain requirements all based around getting people
         | to watch your channel, which is difficult because most people
         | (me include) will not sit through ads in order to watch some
         | small streamer for a minute or two to see if they are
         | interesting. Twitch seems to actively work against small
         | streamers trying to grow their brand.
        
         | jklinger410 wrote:
         | > but what I cannot do is bear 5 ads in a row every 30 minutes
         | 
         | This is basically how Television used to operate. I think it
         | was more like, 4 ads every 15 minutes. So way more actually.
        
           | corobo wrote:
           | Yeah and we ditched TV for YouTube and Twitch!
           | 
           | It's definitely about time for a new long form media
           | company.. maybe one that doesn't sell itself to Microsoft
        
           | daniel_reetz wrote:
           | They had carte blanche and they literally made a worse
           | version of the television model. The staff don't get paid for
           | their work, and we have to watch more ads that watch us.
        
         | dejawu wrote:
         | The most infuriating thing about Twitch ads is that it insists
         | on running a _thirty-second_ pre-roll ad. This is a platform
         | where the focus is on liveness and immediacy, where you 're
         | very likely to open a stream because what's happening right
         | this moment is interesting (e.g. a speedrunner on world-record
         | pace), and then that same platform forces you to miss out on
         | that live moment.
         | 
         | Literally any other form of advertising would fit Twitch better
         | than pre-roll ads. Even a shorter pre-roll ad would be better
         | (and probably lead to better retention). Gating people for a
         | whole half-minute from a live event like that implies, at least
         | to me, a company that doesn't understand their own platform.
        
           | blsapologist42 wrote:
           | I just close it immediately when there is a preroll.
        
           | phatfish wrote:
           | I'm sure it's been mentioned somewhere already, but the
           | "plixltris/TwitchAdSolutions" repo on Github has a working
           | blocker that switches the steam to an ad-free 480p version
           | for in-stream ads. I think it can block the pre-roll ones
           | somehow or reduce them because i hardly see any. Personally I
           | use the Ublock script they have.
           | 
           | And PurpleTV is a modified Android Twitch app that is just
           | like Youtube (Re)Vanced. Obviously use with caution, with an
           | account you don't have any personal info linked to, because
           | unlike YouTube you are forced to log in to the Twitch App.
           | Pretty sure the Gitlab "twitchmod/orange-tv" repo is the
           | official source.
        
         | atsjie wrote:
         | To countercomment:
         | 
         | - Softcore porn (I would not call it porn at all, search online
         | for softcore porn and you get something completely different).
         | You don't have to watch it and I never see it in my feeds, you
         | have to actively search for it to find it. So I'm wondering how
         | you notice it for it to be a problem? Yes; I'm calling you out.
         | 
         | - Ads: youtube has a LOT more ads, and a lot of twitch
         | streamers don't do the ad program. So here too I'm not as
         | convinced it's a problem, I definitely don't see many ads and
         | usually if there are any the streamer is aware and takes a
         | break or something so you don't miss much.
        
           | skilled wrote:
           | - It is literally everywhere you look on the site. Do you
           | think the worst of them just open their stream in their
           | bikini and do it that way? The smart ones and the ones
           | willing to do thong squats on screen will also do things like
           | cooking streams, yoga sessions, playing random games (5%
           | playing, 95% baiting chatters). Please don't try and argue
           | with me on this because clearly I understand it better than
           | you.
           | 
           | - Read what I wrote again. I don't have an issue with ads on
           | Twitch, I have an issue with them enforcing more ads as of
           | late, 4-5 ads in a row every 30 minutes on a live streaming
           | platform is dumb and there has to be a better solution.
        
           | cyberlurker wrote:
           | Anecdotally, I see it recommended a lot in my feed and I
           | don't search for it. I know not to go to "Just chatting"
           | basically.
           | 
           | But this doesn't prevent the other problem where streamers
           | will watch those others on their stream.
           | 
           | I'm not that bothered about it but I think it might be a
           | problem that it's a part of twitch culture.
        
           | [deleted]
        
         | ipaddr wrote:
         | 5 ads every 1/2 hour? Stay away from tv you see 5 ads every 10
         | minutes.
        
           | olyjohn wrote:
           | Have you seen YouTube ads lately? When I stream a video to
           | the "app" on my TV, I get 1 minute 30 seconds of ads at the
           | beginning. Then about 1:20 into the video, I get 2 more 30
           | second ads. Then at 3:00 into the video, 2 more ads come on.
           | Sometimes there are more ads than content. Ads come on
           | literally less than 5 minute intervals, and the part that
           | really drives me nuts is that it's always the same 2 ads over
           | and over. There are even ads that are 5 minutes long. So far
           | at least, I haven't seen a 5 minute ad that I can't skip.
        
             | ipaddr wrote:
             | Don't get me started on youtube ads. Youtube will punish
             | you for logging in with more ads. They punish you for
             | watching popular content. I can accept 5 ads totaling 2
             | minutes every half hour
        
             | plorg wrote:
             | This is what turned me off to YT Music. When they migrated
             | users from Play Music I tried it once, it took 10 clicks
             | (including the dismissal of two interstitial modal ads) to
             | get to a song that I own, and I still had to wait through a
             | minute of ads to listen to it. I can't remove the app from
             | my phone, but I haven't opened it in the 2-1/2 years since.
        
           | skilled wrote:
           | Well, I haven't watched TV for over 20 years now, so I
           | wouldn't know.
           | 
           | Anyway, the issue is that it is a _live_ streaming platform.
           | 
           | In comparison to last 5 years, in the last year I can recall
           | at least 5 times where I missed significant moments because
           | the platform automatically ran ads.
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | ilyt wrote:
           | I did for like 15+ years now ? It's terrible medium
        
             | ipaddr wrote:
             | The ads can be interesting they tell me about the culture
             | of the local tv channel city. There are many behind the
             | scene messages and things you pick up on. Understanding who
             | is advertising can tell you who the show is written for or
             | why they made certain choices and that can change as a show
             | evolves.
             | 
             | You get cultural references more memorable than the shows
             | they prop up. Where's the beef still rings strong, wwwhat's
             | up is a universal greeting.
             | 
             | Advertising can bring feelings of connectiveness to people.
             | A familiar verizon song at Christmas makes life a little
             | bit less sad for a solider in the battle field or a parent
             | who is spending Christmas alone.
             | 
             | Advertising in many ways is more dynamic, interesting and
             | long lasting compared to the shows they put on. Watching
             | shows without them hollows out the experience.
        
           | potatolicious wrote:
           | > Stay away from tv you see 5 ads every 10 minutes.
           | 
           | Funnily that's exactly what everyone is doing[1].
           | 
           | [1] https://www.fiercevideo.com/video/linear-video-
           | subscriber-lo...
        
         | Covzire wrote:
         | The UX for Twitch is downright awful right now. Browsing
         | through multiple streamers almost always results in an ad being
         | played for every streamer you check out, it's so bizarre, they
         | actively punish you for trying out new streamers unless they're
         | very small who don't have ads yet.
         | 
         | The workaround is to 'pre-browse' by opening multiple streamers
         | in new tabs, muting their tabs and then checking them out a
         | minute or two later, but that's quite a PITA.
         | 
         | Twitch could disappear today and I don't think I'd care, I
         | couldn't say the same thing five or ten years ago.
        
         | ChickenNugger wrote:
         | Alternate Player for Twitch.tv:
         | https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/alternate-player-f...
         | 
         | It can't skip ads completely, but it will prevent showing them.
        
       | lol-dot-jpeg wrote:
       | FWIW this coincides with a pretty important Amazon-internal
       | announcement about return to office details. That, plus new kid?
       | Yeah, I'd quit my job too.
        
       | 0000000000100 wrote:
       | If there was one thing I wish Twitch would change, it's the entry
       | ads to streams. I can't tell you how many times I've closed the
       | tab while browsing for something to watch because I get an
       | unskipable 30 second ad before I even get to see if there's
       | something worth watching.
       | 
       | For reference, Twitch has invested very heavily in anti
       | adblockers and it's pretty difficult to sidestep the ads these
       | days without paying $5/month for a subscription.
       | 
       | Compare this to streaming on YouTube, which has a (much) worse
       | UI, but tolerates ad blockers and lets you watch the parts of the
       | steam you missed. I'm not optimistic that Twitch will be able to
       | survive if YouTube manages to get their shit together and make a
       | half decent UI.
        
         | prox wrote:
         | They don't tell you this on the whole, but there is an adfree
         | turbo subscription: https://www.twitch.tv/turbo
        
           | Lev1a wrote:
           | Which does nothing [1] for the streamers you actually watch,
           | only for Twitch itself.
           | 
           | "Paying" the streamer for the ad(s) being not shown due to
           | Turbo, i.e. fractions of a cent. If you're mainly watching
           | 1-2 streamers subscribing directly to them does more for them
           | for almost the same money. The streamer is still only getting
           | 50% of the sub fee but at least that's ~ $2.50 rather than a
           | few cents per month for many hours of watched content.
        
         | anthonypasq wrote:
         | If you think UI is whats holding Youtube back you dont
         | understand anything about the space.
        
         | jonlucc wrote:
         | I know this isn't going to be the most popular solution, but I
         | find that Twitch Turbo isn't much discussed. I think it's $8
         | and eliminates ads from all channels. It may make more sense
         | financially for some viewers, but it doesn't support any
         | streamers.
        
         | jsheard wrote:
         | The worst part is they put more effort into stopping adblockers
         | than they do into actually selling ads, so the ads they force
         | you to watch are endlessly repeated from a tiny pool. It's just
         | Squarespace ad after Squarespace ad after Squarespace ad,
         | punctuated by filler ads for other Amazon properties like
         | Audible because they haven't sold enough real ads to fill the
         | space.
        
           | Liquix wrote:
           | FWIW there is a GitHub repo [0] which keeps track of
           | currently-working ways to block Twich ads. If you don't need
           | chat, ff2mpv [1] can be used to send streams directly to MPV
           | by right clicking on them in the browser. This bypasses the
           | entire proprietary Twitch frontend and displays a silent
           | purple screen during ad breaks.
           | 
           | [0] https://github.com/pixeltris/TwitchAdSolutions
           | 
           | [1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ff2mpv/
        
         | com2kid wrote:
         | I stopped using it when my Prime subscription no longer removed
         | ads.
         | 
         | I was a very regular user, 2-4 hours a day, then boom, forced
         | ads, and I never went back.
        
       | Venn1 wrote:
       | I've been streaming our Linux gaming show on Twitch since the
       | Justin.tv days. Not much has changed from my POV.
       | 
       | Granted, I treat Twitch as a CDN that occasionally cuts me a
       | cheque.
        
       | tempsy wrote:
       | What I don't understand about Twitch is how it became a bizarro
       | cesspool of leftist extremism, incel culture, and softcore porn
       | for tweens.
       | 
       | At some point you must ask yourself if you're the CEO or work
       | there how it is you came to be in a position to spend your day
       | working on something that has become as dystopian as Twitch has
       | become.
        
         | sleepybrett wrote:
         | lost me at 'leftist extremism' imma need some examples.
        
           | corbulo wrote:
           | Hasan isn't an extremist?
        
             | notbuyingit wrote:
             | Sure, let's explore that. What are Hasan's extremist views?
             | And keep in mind that I'm gonna cite Aden, Sneako,
             | Trainwrecks, Mizkif and more in response.
        
               | corbulo wrote:
               | I don't care who you cite. I'm not playing some dumb 'my
               | team' game lol
               | 
               | He used to work for The Young Turks, hosts streams with
               | AOC and Ilhan Omar, is quoted as saying, "On Crenshaw,
               | Piker said, "What the fuck is wrong with this dude?
               | Didn't he go to war and like literally lose his eye
               | because some mujahideen, a brave fucking soldier fucked
               | his eye hole with their dick?"
               | 
               | And
               | 
               | "In the same stream, Piker criticized American foreign
               | policy and made controversial comments relating to the
               | September 11 attacks, including "America deserved 9/11,
               | dude.""
               | 
               | This is literally just skimming his wiki. Do you know
               | anything about the guy? He's a gigantic PoS. The fact
               | that Twitch doesn't permaban him is insane, they've
               | banned many other people for far less.
        
             | jkeat wrote:
             | yeah extremely reasonable
        
           | wnevets wrote:
           | They probably banned him for saying certain words, shall we
           | guess which words?
        
           | tempsy wrote:
           | Twitch was at the center of the Hogwarts Legacy game
           | controversy because people were mad that certain streamers
           | were playing a game because something something JK Rowling is
           | an "anti trans TERF."
           | 
           | And if you ever looked through videos of TwitchCon you would
           | not question what I'm saying at all. This is the event that
           | still required everyone to wear a mask late 2022 only after
           | Twitch was guilted into it.
        
             | [deleted]
        
             | wnevets wrote:
             | > This is the event that still required everyone to wear a
             | mask late 2022 only after Twitch was guilted into it.
             | 
             | Not spreading a deadly virus at a convention filled with
             | strangers from all over the world is now considered
             | "leftist extremism". The last 8 or so years really have
             | done a number on people.
        
             | vinicky wrote:
             | The funniest part of that was how it entirely backfired,
             | their trantrums just got more people interested in the game
             | and pissed off at these activists.
             | 
             | We're also seeing more people rallying behind JK Rowling
             | these days too, perhaps after seeing through the lies and
             | realising that, actually, she bravely put herself out there
             | to stand up for women's rights, knowing this would make her
             | a lightning rod for the abusers and harassers of the pro-
             | gender movement.
        
             | jedberg wrote:
             | > This is the event that still required everyone to wear a
             | mask late 2022 only after Twitch was guilted into it.
             | 
             | Oh no, they bowed to people whose livelihoods depend on
             | staying healthy and realized that masks actually do help
             | when everyone wears them.
        
               | bacchusracine wrote:
               | >masks actually do help when everyone wears them.
               | 
               | Could I get a citation for this please? Just about every
               | source I've seen has since admitted that masks did
               | absolutely nothing for the purposes for which they were
               | advised to be used.
        
               | hellomyguys wrote:
               | When you dig into those studies, they aren't that great
               | either fwiw.
        
               | misssocrates wrote:
               | How so? There's no evidence for that with respect to
               | respiratory viruses.
               | 
               | > Wearing masks in the community probably makes little or
               | no difference to the outcome of influenza-like illness
               | (ILI)/COVID-19 like illness compared to not wearing masks
               | (risk ratio (RR) 0.95, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.84
               | to 1.09; 9 trials, 276,917 participants; moderate-
               | certainty evidence. Wearing masks in the community
               | probably makes little or no difference to the outcome of
               | laboratory-confirmed influenza/SARS-CoV-2 compared to not
               | wearing masks (RR 1.01, 95% CI 0.72 to 1.42; 6 trials,
               | 13,919 participants; moderate-certainty evidence).
               | 
               | https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858
               | .CD...
        
               | notbuyingit wrote:
               | And googling the key line there reveals a full page of
               | Google results with articles explaining how both the
               | initial assumptions and methodology was flawed. It was
               | surprising even to me how easy it was to find rebuttals.
               | 
               | https://www.gavi.org/vaccineswork/yes-masks-reduce-risk-
               | spre...
               | 
               | https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/10/opinion/masks-work-
               | cochra...
               | 
               | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/02/16/cochra
               | ne-...
               | 
               | At least, unlike the other person in this thread, you
               | didn't do the gaslighty thing of acting like 'we all
               | know' masks don't work.
        
               | timr wrote:
               | Speaking as someone who actually has an advanced degree
               | in science and understands how to read papers and
               | interpret medical evidence ( _unlike_ Tufecki, who has
               | literally zero scientific training or understanding of
               | statistics) has read ~every paper on masks ever
               | published, the  "rebuttals" there are nonsense.
               | 
               | The Cochrane review was not incorrect; it was not
               | retracted. The "apology from Cochrane" was not about the
               | paper itself, and they _didn 't_ say that the conclusions
               | were wrong. The NY Times and the Washington Post and Gavi
               | are just wrong, and they're lying. Full stop. By
               | _literally_ the same standards of evidence they are using
               | ( _" the lower bound of the confidence interval crosses
               | 1.0, so we can't exclude the possibility of benefit"_),
               | Ivermectin and HCQ "work" against Covid. So you either
               | accept both claims, or you reject both.
               | 
               | We have two political teams, each advancing separate-but-
               | equal forms of pseudo-sciencey twaddle, and neither side
               | is willing to admit that the actual data doesn't back
               | their opinions:
               | 
               | https://sensiblemed.substack.com/p/the-cochrane-mask-
               | fiasco
        
               | notbuyingit wrote:
               | Gonna go with "wearing a mask to stop particulate spread"
               | is not separate but equal from taking horse dewormer.
               | (And it's not an exaggeration to characterize it as such
               | when they're literally buying drugs from farm suplly
               | stores and injecting amounts meant for livestock over the
               | course of a few days.)
               | 
               | Similarly, I don't know anyone who has died from wearing
               | a mask.
               | 
               | This is not even to mention the numerous other studies,
               | experiments, and demsonstartsions of all sorts of
               | respiratory protective gear that show effectiveness
               | against particulates smaller even than COVID-19.
        
               | Manuel_D wrote:
               | As per your first link, rate of infection with masks was
               | 90% the rate of infection without masks. I mean,
               | technically it "works" even if reduces the rates of
               | infection by 0.0000001%. But most people are not going to
               | see much benefit in masking if it only reduces the rate
               | marginally.
               | 
               | The intensity of the push for masking was not at all
               | matched by the effectiveness of masking. From most
               | people's perspectives, if the rate of infection with
               | masking is 90% the rate with no masking then masking
               | doesn't work in layperson's terms.
        
               | yamtaddle wrote:
               | Hell, I kinda wish we'd kept it up everywhere. Not having
               | anyone in my house get so much as the flu for about 2.5
               | years was kinda awesome. I think we had a single mild
               | cold go through our house, that entire time.
        
             | [deleted]
        
           | redox99 wrote:
           | Leftist extremism: depends on your definition, but see AI
           | generated Seinfeld banned because of a joke[1]
           | 
           | Incel culture: I don't agree with this one, I don't think
           | it's something widespread
           | 
           | Softcore porn: The whole hot tub/asmr categories. Amouranth
           | herself says she uses twitch as a billboard to get people to
           | her onlyfans[2]
           | 
           | [1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/feb/06/nothing-
           | fore...
           | 
           | [2] https://twitter.com/jappleby/status/1597327662644858880
        
         | misssocrates wrote:
         | Sounds like Reddit. Perhaps one could ask the same question of
         | that and get to the same root cause?
        
           | pvarangot wrote:
           | Conservatives where saying Netflix was doing this when they
           | released that weird show about girls that were dressed up
           | very suggestively on their platform. We probably went through
           | the same for broadcast TV, cable, video stores, etc, etc...
           | 
           | The root cause I don't want to speculate short of getting
           | banned from HN also for having opinions about when people
           | should start having sex or be allowed to watch videos of
           | adults having sex.
        
         | aliasxneo wrote:
         | I don't watch Twitch...but what??
        
           | tempsy wrote:
           | Which part are you confused by?
        
           | colpabar wrote:
           | I can't speak for the first two, but as for the softcore porn
           | bit - there are a lot of very popular streamers who are just
           | hot women that wear bathing suits or less and either do
           | something mundane while looking hot or "exercise" or
           | something that is also mostly just them looking hot. Maybe
           | softcore porn is a bit much since there is no nudity, but
           | it's close.
        
             | nagyf wrote:
             | To add to this: Some other hot women are using 3D*
             | microphones and they do nothing but moan into the mic (like
             | if they were having sex or similar), and making "licking
             | noises" and other similar stuff.
             | 
             | * Edit: no idea what are these called, but sometimes they
             | moan and lick the left side, sometimes the right so you can
             | hear it in your corresponding ear.
        
               | jaywalk wrote:
               | Stereo microphone is the term you're looking for.
        
               | cinntaile wrote:
               | ASMR (autonomous sensory meridian response)
               | 
               | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASMR
        
             | prox wrote:
             | It's not even close to softcore porn. I can go to any beach
             | and see the same thing, or a nudie sauna, and that is
             | hardly sexual.
             | 
             | Hot is probably the right word. Well done if they make
             | money from that I guess.
        
               | tempsy wrote:
               | softcore porn is "softcore" because it doesn't involve
               | nudity or explicit intercourse
               | 
               | the fact wearing a bikini at the beach is not sexual does
               | not mean streaming yourself wearing a bikini in a hot tub
               | while making moaning noises is not softcore porn. the
               | intention is what matters eg attract teenage simp boys.
        
               | philwelch wrote:
               | Traditionally I think the line with softcore was that it
               | didn't directly show penetration or fluids.
        
               | colpabar wrote:
               | It seems like you're talking about something you've never
               | seen. If you saw what I'm referring to outside of twitch,
               | you'd immediately assume it was an onlyfans video or
               | something. You can absolutely not see the same thing at a
               | beach or a sauna, and if you did, the person would get
               | kicked out.
               | 
               | I'm not commenting on whether it's good or bad, I'm just
               | stating something that anyone who has ever been on twitch
               | is well aware of and would never argue. It's a thing.
        
               | yamtaddle wrote:
               | It's the difference between being at a beach with people
               | in bathing suits and just doing normal beach stuff... and
               | one of those people moving their beach towel and umbrella
               | so that they're directly in front of you, while making
               | hard eye contact, then proceeding to stretch
               | suggestively, wink at you occasionally, moan from time to
               | time, and "accidentally" drop things in front of you with
               | _bizarre_ frequency so they just  "have to" keep bending
               | over in such a way that you get a great view.
               | 
               | One's not sexual. The other one _super-duper obviously_
               | is, to everyone involved, even if the bathing suit stays
               | on.
        
           | [deleted]
        
       | kmnc wrote:
       | One thing I have noticed with twitch is how stagnant viewership
       | seems to be for most streamers. It seems like once you hit your
       | peak in growth.... there is just nothing after that, no growth at
       | all. Most streamers I watch have been on a slow decline in
       | viewership and subs... Without "oilers" (people who gift a ton of
       | subs or money) most streams would die completely. One main reason
       | for this in my opinion is how terrible ads are on twitch. I watch
       | a lot of GTA RP on twitch... and ads completely destroyed it from
       | a viewer perspective. Steaming in general lends itself well to
       | collaboration... but, when I want to check out a different stream
       | and am met with 2 minutes of the most repetitive and annoying
       | ads.. I quickly go back to my main streamer who I use my twitch
       | prime on so I don't get ads.
       | 
       | I got so fed up with twitch ads that I actually use twitch turbo
       | now.. which isn't marketed at all for whatever reason. My viewing
       | experience is so much better now, and I am checking out a larger
       | variety of streamers.
       | 
       | Ads on twitch are so horrendous that pretty much every streamer I
       | watch apologize to their viewers about it.
       | 
       | Twitch's second failure is that it is so incredibly out of touch
       | with what viewers want to see. Twitch run events are abysmal, yet
       | they give no help or support to the creators who are actually
       | making good events or shows. The fact that twitch didn't become a
       | big player in e-sports is such a massive failure. Look at what
       | happened with Chess... it exploded and is still in a pretty good
       | position all because some smart people decided to run some
       | actually entertaining events. Twitch could of easily dominated
       | the e-sports market by partnering and helping the smaller
       | tournament orgs... yet now those orgs are failing and the
       | e-sports scene is once again cratering to the ground. If it
       | wasn't for the surprise success of Valorant.. e-sports would be
       | dead right now.
        
         | corbulo wrote:
         | E sports is heavily investor dependent. Which means rates go up
         | and itll dry up. I would be really surprised if any of it
         | directly generated a profit. Its for game sales long term.
        
       | hoseja wrote:
       | NOT replaced by a brahmin? Weird.
        
       | elicash wrote:
       | Am I the only one who takes it at face value that somebody would
       | quit being a CEO because of the birth of their first child? Even
       | if the platform has all the issues folks are saying?
        
         | Sebb767 wrote:
         | Getting into a position like this (and keeping it!) requires an
         | extreme amount of dedication and sacrifice. People who are
         | willing to go to such lengths are unlikely to be the kind of
         | person to give up all that for their child.
         | 
         | Additionally, you rarely hear the actual reason for someone
         | quitting from a position like this; there will nearly always be
         | a nice cover story. Being honest this time around, especially
         | given the actual problems the company has, seems unlikely.
         | 
         | I'm not saying the child was no factor, but intuitively it
         | seems quite unlikely that this is the full story.
        
           | whatshisface wrote:
           | They don't have to say why.
        
           | ticviking wrote:
           | But a firstborn is a good way for everybody involved to save
           | face
        
           | ericd wrote:
           | I don't know why you'd say that, for a lot of people, the
           | birth of their first child changes their priorities very
           | fundamentally, especially if they have the luxury of being
           | able to do so. Like, for example, if they had sold their
           | company to Amazon for a _literal dump truck of money_. I just
           | calculated it, it went for about 11 tons of $100 bills (the
           | capacity of a large dump truck is about 14 tons, apparently,
           | 7 for some smaller ones).
           | 
           | I don't know Emmett, but if he was totally set in terms of
           | wealth, and if the main thing keeping him there was because
           | it was satisfying work, well, then he could quite reasonably
           | decide that doing something less demanding so that he could
           | have the spare time and energy to be a very good father to
           | his child might be more satisfying. That's certainly the
           | decision I'd make.
        
             | teachrdan wrote:
             | > for a lot of people, the birth of their first child
             | changes their priorities
             | 
             | CEOs are not a lot of people. By definition they are
             | extremely few in number, and those who become CEOs of top
             | companies have a perhaps pathological drive to get there.
             | For someone like that, an entirely predictable event --
             | like the birth of a child -- is the last thing that would
             | make them sacrifice the position they've worked so hard
             | for.
             | 
             | Now would I quit my job for $100 million? Absolutely! But
             | maybe that just means I'm most people...
        
               | ryandrake wrote:
               | I honestly don't understand the mentality that drives
               | someone to keep working after they've made, say, $100
               | million. Maybe that's why we're all not that person. Even
               | if you're the most single-minded, driven person ever,
               | once you get that much wealth you've pretty much won the
               | game. You did it, you're done. The show's over.
               | 
               | It's like continuing to play your Civilization game for
               | "Just... One... More... Turn..." after you defeated
               | everyone and you're the only civ left.
        
               | Sebb767 wrote:
               | > I honestly don't understand the mentality that drives
               | someone to keep working after they've made, say, $100
               | million.
               | 
               | Most people reading this site are in the 1% of the world
               | and could easily retire to a lower cost of living area
               | right now or after a few years of saving. They usually
               | don't: Firstly, because the drive that gets you to earn
               | that kind of money also keeps you going. If you're used
               | to and can handle 80 hour weeks, going to 0 is likely to
               | make you feel unfulfilled quite fast (which is also why I
               | don't fully buy the child story). Secondly, you always
               | judge yourself in regards your friend group, and usually
               | quite badly. This might seem absurd to us, but they might
               | be looking at their friends with private jets, yachts and
               | paintings valued more than their total net worth and not
               | feel like they are at the top.
               | 
               | There are exception, of course, but I doubt you'll find
               | many of them in the extreme environments at the top of
               | the business hierarchy.
        
               | ryandrake wrote:
               | I don't think we're talking about the same group of
               | people. A highly paid tech worker who makes, say $250K a
               | year, and maybe has a little $800,000 retirement account?
               | Sure, they could retire in Kazakhstan or something, but
               | there's still something to work for (maybe they want to
               | step up and retire in Thailand or heaven forbid the USA).
               | 
               | But if you've banked $100 million, that's a totally
               | different world. You have wealth that grows by itself
               | passively, and you'll never be able to spend it. You can
               | live wherever you want in the world and never have to
               | work, and neither will your offspring for multiple
               | generations. Any work you do at that point is firmly in
               | the "Play the video game after you won" territory.
        
               | tmpz22 wrote:
               | I imagine the work gets less stressful when you have FU
               | money. As a CEO you're delegating a lot of the day to day
               | work, and as a subsidiary of Amazon they're probably
               | giving a lot of the macro direction.
               | 
               | So you get into the office (maybe) at 10am (maybe),
               | reading some emails, firing off some responses, maybe
               | taking a call or two. Then a ritzy lunch for an hour.
               | Coming back to some more emails and meetings.
               | 
               | Some days you will be putting out fires all day. But the
               | more mature the company is the less you have to do that.
               | After 15+ years the company should have a mature
               | executive team that can handle all but the biggest fires
               | by themselves.
        
               | jonasdegendt wrote:
               | Paul Graham wrote an article [0] on this that provided
               | some insight into this for me. I still don't completely
               | get it but that's probably because I'm not that kind of
               | person either, or maybe we just haven't found the thing
               | yet that is able to drive us on all cylinders with no
               | brakes.
               | 
               | [0] http://www.paulgraham.com/ace.html
        
               | ericd wrote:
               | If you read the article, or know the story of Justin.tv
               | (one of the very earliest YC startups, from before YC was
               | a big thing), you'll know that he's a cofounder, not
               | someone who climbed up the ranks via ruthless political
               | maneuvering to get there.
               | 
               | It's not the "position" he worked so hard for, it was to
               | build a company. Being CEO is a means to doing that, not
               | the end goal. He did that, it is extremely successful, it
               | will probably continue to be successful without him.
               | 
               | He even says it in the article - that for a long time, he
               | wasn't sure if he could leave and have it continue to
               | function well. As someone who started, ran, and sold a
               | (much, much smaller) company, I understand that
               | viscerally. If you're somewhat tired of it, it can feel
               | like you're trapped. But then you work on that, making
               | sure that the things you do get well covered by someone
               | else. And then, one day, there's nothing it needs you for
               | anymore, and you're finally free.
        
               | adamwk wrote:
               | He's been at twitch since 2006. How many founders stay
               | that long? Mark Zuckerberg I guess? I just don't think
               | the numbers back up your premise that being a CEO of a
               | top company requires a pathological drive to stay there
               | until death
        
           | garciasn wrote:
           | Definitely not when it's "effective immediately".
        
             | ericd wrote:
             | The person who's stepping into his spot has been President
             | for three years, and has been attaching his name to public
             | communications/policy, this doesn't seem like a rushed
             | replacement.
        
           | Vespasian wrote:
           | I don't disagree, but quitting from a position is certainly a
           | sacrifice.
           | 
           | I'm certain it happens once in a while when someone has a
           | personal realization and decides to change their life's
           | trajectory fundamentally. Maybe their own (role model)
           | parents died and they discovered that time with your children
           | cannot be substituted with gifts and money.
           | 
           | Now in this case it's unlikely given Twitch problems but
           | sometimes important humans are just humans.
        
         | MichaelZuo wrote:
         | It does seems plausible.
         | 
         | Maybe there are those who can simultaneously raise a baby and
         | be the successful CEO of a sizeable operating unit, but in
         | practice usually one or the other is prioritized.
        
         | hangonhn wrote:
         | Both can be true, especially since they don't contradict each
         | other. When it comes to human decisions, it's usually a
         | multitude of reasons. It could be that Twitch is in trouble and
         | he has a child and maybe a host of other factors. I too take
         | what he said at face value while allowing other things people
         | have said about the platform to be true too.
        
         | PurpleRamen wrote:
         | Platforms always have issues, that will never change. Despite
         | that, Twitch is doing pretty well. Most of the complaints are
         | saying that it could be better, not that it's bad. Though,
         | there is the problem that Amazon is juicing the platform, and
         | that's also something that won't change. And I would say Emmett
         | Shear generally did improve the platform over the years. So he
         | is going on a height.
        
         | thenerdhead wrote:
         | What's wrong with that? Working since 2006 watching some dude
         | named Justin livestream his life to what it has become is quite
         | an accomplishment that seems justified for an early retirement?
        
           | elicash wrote:
           | Why would you possibly think I'm against this?
        
         | willio58 wrote:
         | Nope, I totally agree. Most of the complaints I'm seeing are
         | valid, but a lot of people see Twitch as a dying platform when
         | in reality it's just getting bigger and bigger. There was a
         | momentary huge spike in viewership during covid, but I believe
         | viewership in total is still climbing.
        
         | legohead wrote:
         | Quitting because of family is the standard "everything is fine
         | stockholders, don't freak out" message. Same message from Susan
         | Wojcicki and countless other execs.
        
         | jedberg wrote:
         | I've known Emmett for many years and I 100% believe it. He was
         | working because he enjoyed it. Now he has something else to
         | enjoy more.
         | 
         | Couldn't be happier for the guy!
        
         | GenerocUsername wrote:
         | As the father of an 11 month old, yeah, I don't see how many
         | human could be a CEO and an involved parent.
         | 
         | Now if twitch were a perfect turnkey operation the CEO could
         | step away for a few weeks here and there... But also maybe
         | that's just not realistic
        
         | RandallBrown wrote:
         | If I was worth ~100 million dollars, I would definitely quit my
         | job to have fun with my family.
        
           | SketchySeaBeast wrote:
           | If I was worth ~100 million dollars, I would definitely quit
           | my job.
        
             | beebmam wrote:
             | If I was worth ~100 million dollars, I would definitely
             | quit my job AND my family
        
             | fabiensanglard wrote:
             | If I was worth ~100 million dollars....
        
               | knodi123 wrote:
               | All day long, I'd biddy biddy bum
        
               | gooseyman wrote:
               | Well I'd buy you a K-Car (a nice Reliant automobile)
        
               | SketchySeaBeast wrote:
               | Inflation has not been kind to the dreams of BNL.
        
               | RandallBrown wrote:
               | It still probably works, but you won't have much left
               | over.
               | 
               | https://www.reddit.com/r/theydidthemath/comments/7dyi7r/r
               | equ...
        
       | Google234 wrote:
       | He's been so absent.
        
       | madrox wrote:
       | As a former Twitch staff, I wish Emmett luck. Twitch is faced
       | with several challenges right now: increasing competition from
       | all sides, perpetually disgruntled creators, and pressure from
       | their parent company to hit aggressive revenue targets while
       | shilling for Amazon Games. This is all nothing new, and Emmett
       | has been navigating it for years. I'm ready to believe it just
       | doesn't seem as important now as it did a year ago. Having a
       | child will do that.
       | 
       | I think Twitch could benefit from a breath of fresh air. I'm a
       | little surprised it's Dan and not someone else from Amazon, but I
       | think that speaks to the fact Emmett went on his own terms on not
       | theirs. Dan knows what he's doing and he'll walk the line between
       | doing what's good for Twitch and doing what's best for creators.
        
       | noncoml wrote:
       | Twitch CEO be like, we are just a gaming streaming platform. We
       | don't like soft-porn and gambling but WE LOVE their revenue.
       | 
       | Sorry, you cannot have your cake and eat it too. You have to make
       | some hard decisions as a CEO.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | dlevine wrote:
       | I worked for Dan many years ago when he was an engineering
       | director at Google. He's a sharp guy and has a lot of experience
       | in the industry. I hope he does well at his new role.
        
       | minimaxir wrote:
       | What _has_ Twitch actually done new business-wise in the past 5-6
       | years? Every typical user still uses the same StreamLabs widgets
       | and alerts for years without many new ones, and most of the
       | streaming workflow improvements are upstream in OBS itself.
       | 
       | I honestly pegged things like Twitch Plays Pokemon back in 2014
       | would be the future of Twitch, and Twitch did allow _some_
       | developer tools for interactivity between players and games, but
       | very very few devs make use of it outside of an intentional
       | gimmick because there 's a massive chicken-and-egg problem there
       | that Twitch hasn't facilitated.
        
         | arkitaip wrote:
         | Most of the innovation is driven by the streamers and target
         | viewers anyways. Just check out the events that people like
         | Ibai are doing - bigger and more fun than anything Twitch has
         | done.
        
           | Avicebron wrote:
           | Which is probably part of the charm of twitch and part of the
           | reason it stays relevant and people often complain that
           | Youtube's implementation is limited (mostly because of how
           | the chat communities work).
           | 
           | I find it difficult (outside of adding more dev tools and
           | allowing for things like twitch plays pokemon as someone
           | mentioned earlier in this thread) that a corporate
           | implementation of a new "thing" will be as successful, partly
           | because of the vicious backlash against whatever corporate
           | sanitation measures would have to be implemented just to
           | allow it on the platform.
           | 
           | I think there's a fundamental disconnect in what is most fun
           | and engaging about watching and commenting in chats on twitch
           | and what twitch as a company would allow if they tried to
           | invasively step in an manage the product.
           | 
           | A good example of this was a few years ago, there was almost
           | universally panned attempt to create some form of "moderation
           | council" which turned out to be absurdly tone deaf and I
           | haven't heard anything since.
        
         | jazzyjackson wrote:
         | Moving all the thirst traps to a "hot tubs" channel was pretty
         | innovative.
         | 
         | https://www.pcgamer.com/twitch-addresses-hot-tub-streaming-c...
        
           | jeron wrote:
           | real innovation would have been to spin it off as a separate
           | streaming website that allows paywalled subscription and
           | creating an OF competitor
        
             | unethical_ban wrote:
             | Horrible idea!
             | 
             | By keeping softcore erotica nudge-nudge on their video game
             | streaming site, they allow viewers to tell their parents
             | and girlfriends that they're watching games and chat.
             | Spinning it off would kill the market for that content
             | without doing anything for the video game side of the
             | house.
        
             | mjr00 wrote:
             | Sexual content on platforms is in such a weird place. It
             | gets tons of views, but you can't have a platform that's
             | _only_ adult content or it scares off advertisers. But if
             | you have a successful platform that has adult content and
             | you try to remove it, the platform becomes nearly
             | worthless: see Yahoo and Tumblr. A mainstream brand like
             | Visa has no issues advertising on Twitter, despite the
             | massive amounts of adult content on Twitter. Yet you 'd
             | never see a Visa advertisement on Pornhub.
             | 
             | If you're running an ad-driven platform, you need to be in
             | this weird Goldilocks zone where your platform _has_ sexual
             | content but isn 't really _known_ for sexual content. That
             | 's where Twitter, Twitch, Instagram and Reddit are, and
             | it's why OnlyFans tried to push the "not just for porn"
             | angle so hard for a while.
        
             | ChickenNugger wrote:
             | They deliberately don't want that.
             | 
             | Twitch is the top of the "marketing funnel" to onlyfans for
             | a plethora of onlyfans streamers:
             | https://i.imgur.com/jeOq6ek.png
             | 
             | OF spammers have also completely ruined NSFW reddit,
             | because the simp mods do nothing about it.
        
               | jazzyjackson wrote:
               | Same with instagram. I actually find it kind of shocking
               | how obvious sex work is on twitter and instagram, it's
               | generally frowned upon to pay for sex in the progressive
               | circles I'm used to, but I guess on the internet we all
               | live in San Francisco.
        
             | yamtaddle wrote:
             | Eh--the draw of putting that content on Twitch is siphoning
             | off part of a huge audience by sharing space on a popular
             | non-porn platform. Separating the two would remove the
             | reason people are streaming there instead of OF in the
             | first place.
        
             | cinntaile wrote:
             | Amazon doesn't want to get into the adult industry.
        
               | vkou wrote:
               | It also doesn't not want to get into it, because it could
               | have banned hot tub streams, but chose to quarantine them
               | instead.
               | 
               | As sibling posts explained - it wants to be in a one-
               | foot-in-one-foot-out sort of position on the question.
        
               | philwelch wrote:
               | Maybe I'm missing something about "hot tub streams", but
               | cute girls in bathing suits sitting in a hot tub doesn't
               | quite meet my definition of "adult content". It might be
               | unhealthy parasocial content for lonely boys, but it's
               | not porn.
        
               | Jensson wrote:
               | They are porn ads, those girls makes their money on only
               | fans and they stream to get guys to pay them for porn.
               | 
               | You can see this for example, she isn't allowed to pay
               | for normal ads since most networks doesn't allow porn
               | ads, but streaming is a way for her to advertise:
               | 
               | https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/amouranth-reveals-
               | her-on...
        
               | input_sh wrote:
               | Okay but how is that a Twitch problem?
               | 
               | From what I know they can't link their OnlyFans directly
               | on Twitch (they need at least one intermediary website)
               | nor even acknowledge its existence directly on stream.
        
             | Supermancho wrote:
             | I'm not sure how creating a more limited product (than OF),
             | and reducing twitch viewership, would be innovative.
        
         | nemothekid wrote:
         | > _I honestly pegged things like Twitch Plays Pokemon back in
         | 2014_
         | 
         | Most of the comments on Twitch strike me as pretty weird. If I
         | look at Twitch their problem is that, as a business, they never
         | really broke out of their gaming niche. It's strange to suggest
         | that Twitch should have catered _more_ to the audience that
         | they had already captured. Not to say that there 's anything
         | wrong with that, but for a company that took tons of VC and was
         | acquired for a ton of money I don't think the answer to their
         | "we need to make more money" problem is to cater even more to
         | gamers. It's like trying to squeeze blood from a stone; we
         | already see it in the way Twitch is squeezing more of the
         | revenue share from large creators and refusing to entertain
         | Google's huge content contracts.
         | 
         | I don't see how Twitch continues to grow by just focusing
         | gaming - especially when the esports side is going through it
         | own struggles now and even teams are being forced diversify
         | into content (e.g. 100Theives selling energy drinks).
         | 
         | Twitch's "problem" to me is while it was a stroke of genius to
         | break out gaming into it's own site out of Justin.tv, is that
         | same audience has become openly hostile to any sort of non-
         | gaming content. If you ask me the future of Twitch is with
         | creators like KaiCenat who are able to bring different
         | demographics to the platform with other types of content. Of
         | course the Twitch superfans would hate to hear this; I don't
         | envy them at all.
        
           | wpm wrote:
           | Gaming niche? "Just Chatting" is far and away the most
           | popular category right now; ~100K more viewers than GTA V
           | (most of which is GTA:O and RPing).
        
             | nemothekid wrote:
             | Not sure what point you are trying make.
             | 
             | 1. The top 3 gaming categories eclipse Just Chatting; and
             | there are hundreds of gaming categories on Twitch
             | 
             | 2. Most Just Chatting creators are gaming creators. There
             | are exceptions (KaiCenant, Hasanabi, various female
             | streamers); but the site is still geared toward gaming.
        
           | minimaxir wrote:
           | > If I look at Twitch their problem is that, as a business,
           | they never really broke out of their gaming niche.
           | 
           | At the least, Twitch has a de facto monopoly in the gaming
           | niche, to the point that the only way
           | YouTube/Facebook/Microsoft could compete _at all_ was with
           | exclusivity contracts, which didn 't even work as it didn't
           | bring other streamers to the platform.
           | 
           | Encouraging the development of highly interactive programs
           | like TPP isn't gaming specific either.
        
         | saghm wrote:
         | The biggest things I can think of that might fit that window of
         | time are the adding of "bits" (a more streamlined way of
         | donating to streamers) and Twitch Prime subs (where Amazon
         | Prime customers get one free sub per month to assign to a
         | streamer of their choice). Arguably the latter might be more
         | attributable to Amazon rather than Twitch itself.
        
         | Peter-Muxy wrote:
         | >I honestly pegged things like Twitch Plays Pokemon back in
         | 2014 would be the future of Twitch, and Twitch did allow some
         | developer tools for interactivity between players and games,
         | but very very few devs make use of it outside of an intentional
         | gimmick because there's a massive chicken-and-egg problem there
         | that Twitch hasn't facilitated.
         | 
         | I've believed the same thing since 2014 which is why I started
         | Muxy in 2015. We build tools that let viewers and broadcasters
         | interact with gameplay in real-time. It's been hard to make
         | bigger strides as management at Twitch seems to turn over
         | faster than we can build working relationships. We're finally
         | seeing some real traction with publishers and studios over the
         | last 18 months. You might know us from the Bits days when we
         | launched the cheer cup in summer 2016.
        
         | Eumenes wrote:
         | Its softcore porn and weird anime/furry stuff for socially
         | awkward teenagers
        
         | waboremo wrote:
         | Guaranteed ads, amazon affiliate links in bio, integrate amazon
         | luna more, and change revenue splits.
        
           | weego wrote:
           | The guaranteed 30 second as on stream load was the final
           | straw for me. I used to wander around the music streamers
           | channel but ended up with as much as time viewed as the
           | actual streams.
        
             | HDThoreaun wrote:
             | ad block works on twitch. Even the DNS only blockers that
             | you can get for iOS.
        
         | favaq wrote:
         | >Every typical user still uses the same StreamLabs widgets and
         | alerts for years without many new ones, and most of the
         | streaming workflow improvements are upstream in OBS itself.
         | 
         | So what, if it works well enough, which it seems like it does?
         | Can't we just leave things be?
        
           | minimaxir wrote:
           | It _works_ , but could be a lot lot better and is not very
           | user friendly, which would benefit Twitch's two-sided market.
           | 
           | Unfortunately Twitch's current API is too locked-down/fussy
           | to build a feasible alternative.
        
           | Peter-Muxy wrote:
           | It's more than that; there is no room to innovate here for a
           | startup. We were #2 to Streamlabs with ~40% market share by
           | minutes watched @ Muxy in 2016-2017. However, there was no
           | way to monetize without dark patterning viewers to subscribe
           | to our platform when donating, which others did, but we
           | refused to do.
           | 
           | We have so many cool unreleased widgets for bits and streams
           | that have been dormant because it's not possible to monetize
           | them. Twitch could fix this...
        
             | favaq wrote:
             | That's cool, "monetising" usually means making the
             | experience of viewers worse, so good on Twitch
        
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