What Twitch is doing wrong, and what YouTube can do right.
Both platforms have the ability to look at what their respective audience wants, but who is going to be the first to get it right?
Hello Nerds!
So this topic has weighed pretty heavy on my mind before I ever considered switching platforms. Regardless of where we setup shop on the internet — we need to consider what the platform brings to us in the form of: tools, usability, utility, ease, and overall discoverability. Its also worth noting which platform has a decent endemic audience for the content you want to produce. So considering a bunch a factors at the start; you also need to consider whether or not the platform is updating and providing good changes that’ll help boost their audience that’ll provide you great opportunities to grow along with the platform.
On the topic of my switch to YouTube; I had to consider whether or not Twitch was going to make great changes to help all of us, and not just me. Honestly, I can’t recall every single change Twitch has made to the platform; as most have been slightly average or sub-par within the last few years.
I remember the Keystone announcements back at TwitchCon 2016 & 2017 were incredibly good. The 2016 Keynote announced: Twitch Prime, loyalty badges, clips, and better transcoding. The 2017 Keynote notably had: Raids, Achievements, meant to help those understand how to achieve Affiliate and Partner status more than anything, and gifted subs. The 2018 Keystone unfortunately is when things started to plateau in innovation.
The vast majority of the announcements at the 2018 Keystone were additions to already existing features, and tools that helped already established creators broaden their scope and reach. Squad Streams and Bounty Boards were legitimate “additions” to the platform, but only accessible for partners. Unfortunately, these additions aren’t in many ways great because of their lack of use and lack of usability throughout the platform. Some other announcements came in the form of updates to currently existing features such as:
— VIP Badges, which is a new addition but limited in its scope, and at first was slightly toxic for some communities because VIP badges were granted to viewers based on the streamers preference.
— An update to the Highlight Editor. Which can be a good update for those that primarily stream and want to create and publish clips, but posting on Twitch did not guarantee any discoverability of those clips unless they became viral.
— Better moderation tools; which I can say is great. Moderators really became a side hustle for a lot people because its pretty much a full-time job when working with streamers with 2000+ average viewers. Probably the best addition.
— Some slight additions: Role managements for VIPs, Moderators, Editors, which is kind of good. Sub badges show total months subbed, meh. Extension are nice, but the snap camera I think died because I’ve never seen it used(lol). Also RIP to Twitch Sings. DMCA was always an issue that Twitch ultimately failed to deal with for years, but its not like they really could.
And then the 2019 Keynote that happened in Europe instead of San Diego, was again like 2018, but a lot less. Additions to already exiting features, but those additions again didn’t help the vast community, and aren’t worth noting really.
Then came Covid-19 and Twitch has been somewhat silent on innovations to the platform and being subject to DMCA issues and growing concerns for streamers and viewers about the longevity of the platform when it comes legal issues, and always and forever, discoverability.
Thus, my switch to YouTube.
2016 & 2017 were REALLY great years to be honest, even thought the Affiliate program was a bit of a scam if I’m being honest. The hope however was very mush alive and it kept me involved in the Twitch ecosystem for the next couple of years. Streaming is a passion of mine and I wanted the face of streaming to get better and better, until it didn’t.
Since 2020 we have maintained that plateau of innovation, and I would say a decline with certain systems being removed, unused, or adding things no one wanted. Videos on videos of other videos showcase “Twitch’s Downfall“ with these things, and in writing this post, Twitch announced the removal of the friends list. Before this Twitch had a leak of possibly dropping the Partner pay from a 70/30 splits to 50/50, and making streamers run more adds to compensate without the removal or change to pre-roll adds. Also the removal of exclusivity; a plus, although its not specified if its for Affiliates and/or Partners.
Either way, Twitch just isn’t performing up to certain standards. All that YouTube and Facebook have to do is add more worthwhile updates to their platforms and Twitch could be a thing of the past. Twitch does have a ecosystem that had been developed over the past decade, but YouTube and Facebook are older, and have much bigger endemic audiences.
On those worthwhile changes, specifically for YouTube; according to my previous post because I don’t care about Facebook (lol), YouTube has the potential to kick Twitch to the curb and its not even funny. Just in revenue alone, Twitch in 2020 earned $2.3 billion while YouTube earned $19.7 billion according to this. in 2021 YouTube grew to approx. $28 Billion, which apparently contributes to less than 5% of Google’s total revenue. YouTube is outperforming year-over-year, which can almost guarantee that if Google is serious about competing directly against Twitch when it comes to Livestreaming; they can output some serious fire power in the form of meaningful updates and features that dwarf Twitch.
Twitch indeed makes Amazon money, but a much-smaller percentage of Amazon’s total revenue, and with the change of incentivizing more adds on Twitch and removing add-free viewing, we can assume some things aren’t working out the way they want.
YouTube has made some changes to improve their streaming service, but they still need to think outside the box if they haven’t already.
*side note* — I think YouTube already has in production Twitch-ending features, but they're saving them up to implement at once to “nuke” the streaming concept. Tin-foil hat stuff, but hey.
One recent thing they’ve added— albeit lack luster — is Raids. In order to receive the raid you have to either: subscribe to the channel that wants to raid you, or pre-approve the channel in a “whitelist“. Both ends are essentially redundant, but also it really hinders the concept. The idea is perhaps to limit “hate raids“ as seen on Twitch over the years, but this feature will need to be improved upon to compete with Twitch regardless. Another feature people are guessing is happening soon is Gifted Members. Probably the biggest money-making feature, on the streamer’s side that Twitch made, other than Twitch Prime. It would boost channel’s revenue and give more credence to YouTube as a streaming platform.
ONE MASSIVE THING YouTube needs to do in order to beat Twitch is completely overhaul the streaming-side of YouTube. If that includes and entirely new directory and discovery page, so be it. It’s easy to see which channel you are already subbed to go live, but the page to see others and discover others is confusing to get to and lacks all sorts of “quality-of-life“, as is searching for streams. The chat/viewer experience needs an overhaul. Twitch has theater mode, and YouTube needs something similar.
Other than that, YouTube unfortunately doesn’t have BIG differences that make Twitch obsolete. Twitch will still be the head of watching Esports and home to thousands of well established names in streaming that’ll keep their audiences there, unless they get banned or switch to a different site. Though my guess is in the years to come if Twitch doesn’t improve, it gives the other platforms the opportunity to grow. It all depends on how they each view streaming and content creation. YouTube knows this more than Facebook or Twitch, with content creators that have been making millions of dollars on add-revenue alone before Twitch got big. I think Google will see this as a massive opportunity and will capitalize on it, if they haven’t already (tin-foil hat).
Alright Nerds!
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**Announcement!**
On Monday 5/8/22 — I will be streaming on YouTube at 9 A.M. PST/ 12 P.M. EST and were gonna play the Overwatch 2 Beta. On the stream I’m going to discuss some life changes going on the next month and what you guy are going to expect from me come mid-June. Big things! So be sure to stop by or check out the V.O.D. If you can’t make it!
Thanks again guys! I’ll see you when I see you! :D