4 ms·

Twitch desperately needs competition. There are seemingly endless examples of completely opaque indefinite bans that can ruin peoples' income. Of course most

by Ocerge 5y ago

Twitch desperately needs competition. There are seemingly endless examples of completely opaque indefinite bans that can ruin peoples' income. Of course most people won't have sympathy for people who make money playing video games, but at the same time, Twitch's wildly inconsistent policy enforcement wouldn't fly in almost any other situation.

Beta-7 5y ago
Twitch has had a few alternatives pop up from time to time (most famous would be Microsoft's Mixer) only for the site to be laughed at by Twitch's users and not given a chance. After a while the new site shuts down because it hasn't picked up momentum. The problem is the viewers not giving the new sites a chance.... only for then complain about twitch having the streaming monopoly.
- tinco 5y ago
  They laughed at Mixer exactly because it would shut down within a year. Companies like Google and Microsoft don't have enough staying power. Why would users switch to a platform that's going to shutdown within a year anyway? One year. Mixer was online for one year and they shut it down. They say it's because it didn't grow fast enough. But the truth is that they just were never serious about it. Everyone could feel it. Mixer was a bluff and it was just not very believable.
  - flutas 5y ago
    >One year. Mixer was online for one year and they shut it down. Uhhh...? > The service officially launched on January 5, 2016, as Beam. (...) The service was acquired by Microsoft in August 2016, after which it was renamed Mixer in 2017 and integrated into Microsoft's Xbox division (including top-level integration on Xbox One). (...) Citing an inability to scale its operations, Microsoft announced on June 22, 2020, that Mixer would be shut down by the end of July 22. [0] Sure doesn't sound like one year... [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixer_(service) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixer_(service)
    - wink 5y ago
      I think if you only count it from "even casual stream watchers have heard about it" it was about a year until shutdown. I mean, I knew what twitch was and was even watching people from time to time, and I have friends who stream and I don't remember anyone except one person ever mentioning mixer. It simply didn't seem like a viable alternative until just before the ninja thing.
- dna_polymerase 5y ago
  It's the classic chicken egg problem for any platform play. In order to be attractive you need people using it, however if nobody uses it why would I go there in the first place. Mixer tried to lure people by signing Ninja, but as it turned out that Microsoft tried to do the same thing Google did with YouTube users (forcing a stupid Microsoft account on them, with opaque sign up and what not).
- nonbirithm 5y ago
  This should really be mentioned more often more often when discussing monopolies: you have to convince users that your platform is better than the massive ubiquitous one, or they won't leave. If Discord was advertising itself as a hot new startup trying to disrupt the instant messaging space at a time when the ubiquitous option was Skype, someone like me might have welcomed them with open arms. Now we're stuck with Discord, but only because it won over almost everyone with the quality of its UX and the ensuing network effects over every alternative. This is what makes me think that being pushed towards a selection of functionally competent and siloed, monopolistic platforms is simply the new reality. I have a hard time believing that you can convince tens of millions of people that their platform is a bad choice if they never see any problems, no matter what we might think of their opinions.
- ecf 5y ago
  > The problem is the viewers not giving the new sites a chance… only for then to complain about twitch having the streaming monopoly. The overwhelming majority of users on Twitch are tweens, just like YouTube’s audience and they don’t even know what a tech monopoly is. We’re the ones complainh about it, but guess what. Twitch doesn’t care about our viewership.
PaulKeeble 5y ago
Its happening across all the major web services. Happens on youtube all the time, obviously google services, Discord, twitter to name but a few. Then you have the big shops like Amazon and Ebay that are big on exposing their customers to fraud. Honestly it just feels like all these web platforms are following the same arbitrary rule book and every last one of them doesn't care about keeping its customers. I am not sure they are even wrong, they just get more successful and bigger every year, its a successful strategy.
- twofornone 5y ago
  Employees are expensive. Automatic content moderation is imperfect, but comparatively cheap. I think this inconsistency is partly caused by this cost optimization pressure, and then to at least some extent by corporate bias since at least the egregious cases might get reviewed by a human since losing contributors costs money too.
  - PaulKeeble 5y ago
    The 0 cents model works. Its horrible as a customer if you are in the small percentage that get booted by an algorithm, and its arguably against GDPR but these companies fire quite a lot of customers to maintain high profitability. It clearly works, no on wants to pay for customer service or any form of reasonable due process.
Traster 5y ago
The problem isn't competition. Dr Disrespect is on Youtube and doing fine. He's maybe not pulling down hundreds of thousands a month, but he's perfectly accessible, and I'm sure he's making a healthy income. The real core of the problem is that moderation is a difficult problem, these companies only work economically because they don't responsibly moderate their content, and when you're under-investing in something it's easier to just not answer questions about it than it is to actually go into details about your continual screw ups.
slightwinder 5y ago
> There are seemingly endless examples of completely opaque indefinite bans that can ruin peoples' income. Care to give some examples? Usually indefinite bans are only coming after a longer series of smaller bans or something very serious happened. And recently there also was a series of reinstated streamers who came back after an indefinite ban. But I think this was EU-only for legal reasons. might be good to bring this to the rest of the world. > Twitch's wildly inconsistent policy enforcement It's not inconsistent, it's actually very consistent in the last years, since they seem to have established a kind of rule book internally. Its just complex and not matching the people's hate. Though, there are single exceptional cases, that's true.

by Ocerge 5y ago

Beta-7 5y ago

Twitch has had a few alternatives pop up from time to time (most famous would be Microsoft's Mixer) only for the site to be laughed at by Twitch's users and not given a chance. After a while the new site shuts down because it hasn't picked up momentum. The problem is the viewers not giving the new sites a chance.... only for then complain about twitch having the streaming monopoly.

tinco 5y ago
They laughed at Mixer exactly because it would shut down within a year. Companies like Google and Microsoft don't have enough staying power. Why would users switch to a platform that's going to shutdown within a year anyway? One year. Mixer was online for one year and they shut it down. They say it's because it didn't grow fast enough. But the truth is that they just were never serious about it. Everyone could feel it. Mixer was a bluff and it was just not very believable.
- flutas 5y ago
  >One year. Mixer was online for one year and they shut it down. Uhhh...? > The service officially launched on January 5, 2016, as Beam. (...) The service was acquired by Microsoft in August 2016, after which it was renamed Mixer in 2017 and integrated into Microsoft's Xbox division (including top-level integration on Xbox One). (...) Citing an inability to scale its operations, Microsoft announced on June 22, 2020, that Mixer would be shut down by the end of July 22. [0] Sure doesn't sound like one year... [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixer_(service) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixer_(service)
  - wink 5y ago
    I think if you only count it from "even casual stream watchers have heard about it" it was about a year until shutdown. I mean, I knew what twitch was and was even watching people from time to time, and I have friends who stream and I don't remember anyone except one person ever mentioning mixer. It simply didn't seem like a viable alternative until just before the ninja thing.
dna_polymerase 5y ago
It's the classic chicken egg problem for any platform play. In order to be attractive you need people using it, however if nobody uses it why would I go there in the first place. Mixer tried to lure people by signing Ninja, but as it turned out that Microsoft tried to do the same thing Google did with YouTube users (forcing a stupid Microsoft account on them, with opaque sign up and what not).
nonbirithm 5y ago
This should really be mentioned more often more often when discussing monopolies: you have to convince users that your platform is better than the massive ubiquitous one, or they won't leave. If Discord was advertising itself as a hot new startup trying to disrupt the instant messaging space at a time when the ubiquitous option was Skype, someone like me might have welcomed them with open arms. Now we're stuck with Discord, but only because it won over almost everyone with the quality of its UX and the ensuing network effects over every alternative. This is what makes me think that being pushed towards a selection of functionally competent and siloed, monopolistic platforms is simply the new reality. I have a hard time believing that you can convince tens of millions of people that their platform is a bad choice if they never see any problems, no matter what we might think of their opinions.
ecf 5y ago
> The problem is the viewers not giving the new sites a chance… only for then to complain about twitch having the streaming monopoly. The overwhelming majority of users on Twitch are tweens, just like YouTube’s audience and they don’t even know what a tech monopoly is. We’re the ones complainh about it, but guess what. Twitch doesn’t care about our viewership.

PaulKeeble 5y ago

Its happening across all the major web services. Happens on youtube all the time, obviously google services, Discord, twitter to name but a few. Then you have the big shops like Amazon and Ebay that are big on exposing their customers to fraud. Honestly it just feels like all these web platforms are following the same arbitrary rule book and every last one of them doesn't care about keeping its customers. I am not sure they are even wrong, they just get more successful and bigger every year, its a successful strategy.

twofornone 5y ago
Employees are expensive. Automatic content moderation is imperfect, but comparatively cheap. I think this inconsistency is partly caused by this cost optimization pressure, and then to at least some extent by corporate bias since at least the egregious cases might get reviewed by a human since losing contributors costs money too.
- PaulKeeble 5y ago
  The 0 cents model works. Its horrible as a customer if you are in the small percentage that get booted by an algorithm, and its arguably against GDPR but these companies fire quite a lot of customers to maintain high profitability. It clearly works, no on wants to pay for customer service or any form of reasonable due process.

Traster 5y ago

The problem isn't competition. Dr Disrespect is on Youtube and doing fine. He's maybe not pulling down hundreds of thousands a month, but he's perfectly accessible, and I'm sure he's making a healthy income. The real core of the problem is that moderation is a difficult problem, these companies only work economically because they don't responsibly moderate their content, and when you're under-investing in something it's easier to just not answer questions about it than it is to actually go into details about your continual screw ups.

slightwinder 5y ago

> There are seemingly endless examples of completely opaque indefinite bans that can ruin peoples' income. Care to give some examples? Usually indefinite bans are only coming after a longer series of smaller bans or something very serious happened. And recently there also was a series of reinstated streamers who came back after an indefinite ban. But I think this was EU-only for legal reasons. might be good to bring this to the rest of the world. > Twitch's wildly inconsistent policy enforcement It's not inconsistent, it's actually very consistent in the last years, since they seem to have established a kind of rule book internally. Its just complex and not matching the people's hate. Though, there are single exceptional cases, that's true.