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> One word why I think this will work out well: money. This is indeed usually the strategy. What people seem to forget though, is that Mixer is not the first

by stale2002 6y ago

> One word why I think this will work out well: money. This is indeed usually the strategy. What people seem to forget though, is that Mixer is not the first streaming competitor that thought of the idea of "just pay streamers a bunch of money, and hope the viewers follow". Although, in some sense, this does work, there is a long graveyard of failed attempts. It is a bit of a winners curse. A platform can always just pay people a bunch of money to join their platform. That is the easy part. The hard part is actually making back the money that you spent on those creators. And the reality is that none of the attempts to just buy out streamers, by vast over paying for them, has ever worked, for the long term. Eventually the money spigots dry up, and the people spending the money start to wonder when they are actually going to make back on their investment (hint: the answer is never).

ethbro 6y ago
The problem most companies have with this approach is that they stop short of total war. If you wanted to pay streamers to defect to your platform, then don't cheap out and try to pay a few of them. Pay all of them. As much as it takes. And blacklist the ones who turn down your initial offers. WCW vs WWF is illustrative. You can't win while a rival platform remains viable. And they remain viable as long as they can fund themselves. So either you play to drive your opponent out of business, or don't play at all.
- stale2002 6y ago
  Although I agree with you that this strategy might work in a duopoly type situation, where there are two platforms competing against each other, in a borderline zero sum game. The problem, though, is in markets where there are more than two participants. What happens when Mixer does this strategy, as well as Facebook gaming, as well as youtube gaming? Answer: the costs shoot up into the stratephere, and all of them go bankrupt. It is kind of like a game of chicken. Massively overbidding to buy out the entire market only works if there aren't other people out there who are willing to meet you at the same level of irrationality, and burn the whole thing to the ground, along with you. IMO, the only real workable strategy, similar to this, would be if those are smaller platforms, agree to do some sort of team up (which is sorta what is happening with FB gaming and mixer), so that the irrational actors don't all lose the game of chicken.
- bentcorner 6y ago
  There's probably a place for streaming sites that cater to very very specific content. NSFW is the obvious one, but I imagine you could try to serve one narrow nice extremely well, like auto racing, speed runners, live coders, baking, whatever. Become known to that community and offer features that mainstream streaming sites don't want to provide because it doesn't make sense for everybody.

ethbro 6y ago

The problem most companies have with this approach is that they stop short of total war. If you wanted to pay streamers to defect to your platform, then don't cheap out and try to pay a few of them. Pay all of them. As much as it takes. And blacklist the ones who turn down your initial offers. WCW vs WWF is illustrative. You can't win while a rival platform remains viable. And they remain viable as long as they can fund themselves. So either you play to drive your opponent out of business, or don't play at all.

stale2002 6y ago
Although I agree with you that this strategy might work in a duopoly type situation, where there are two platforms competing against each other, in a borderline zero sum game. The problem, though, is in markets where there are more than two participants. What happens when Mixer does this strategy, as well as Facebook gaming, as well as youtube gaming? Answer: the costs shoot up into the stratephere, and all of them go bankrupt. It is kind of like a game of chicken. Massively overbidding to buy out the entire market only works if there aren't other people out there who are willing to meet you at the same level of irrationality, and burn the whole thing to the ground, along with you. IMO, the only real workable strategy, similar to this, would be if those are smaller platforms, agree to do some sort of team up (which is sorta what is happening with FB gaming and mixer), so that the irrational actors don't all lose the game of chicken.
bentcorner 6y ago
There's probably a place for streaming sites that cater to very very specific content. NSFW is the obvious one, but I imagine you could try to serve one narrow nice extremely well, like auto racing, speed runners, live coders, baking, whatever. Become known to that community and offer features that mainstream streaming sites don't want to provide because it doesn't make sense for everybody.