6 ms·

This whole thing is eurgh. Yes, this business is toxic for creators, but it's largely toxic for creators because it's monetizing a toxic product. Twitch is like

This whole thing is eurgh. Yes, this business is toxic for creators, but it's largely toxic for creators because it's monetizing a toxic product. Twitch is like a low cost off-ramp for having friends. The better, well adjusted version of twitch is that you log on to xbox, playstation or PC, hit up your friends and play some games and chat. That's the ideal. Then everything tumbles out from there, people without the time, social skills or inclination log on to twitch and form parasocial relationships instead. As a Twitch streamer that's the job you're doing. So it's not surprising when if you don't turn up, people tune out - they came to you because you aren't flakey like their real friends. You have to provide the social interaction and the dependability they need. If you're not doing that, you don't get paid. Arguing about how Twitch streamers are treated is like arguing how Uber drivers are treated. The business is exploitative by nature, do you know how to not get exploited by Uber? Don't be an uber driver. There is no world in which Uber exists and Uber drivers aren't exploited. Similarly there is no world that exists in which Twitch streamers and viewers aren't exploited, because as a business it's only mode of operation is exploitation.

scrollaway 4y ago
So your whole thesis is based on this nonsensical idea that the only reason people come to twitch is because they’re too socially maladjusted to play video games themselves? What the actual what? I don’t watch twitch streams as often as I used to because I’m low on time running like four different businesses these days, but I always enjoy experiencing games through the shoes of somebody else. I get to discover a game at a different and more flexible kind of pace than if I were playing it myself. It removes the commitment while still letting me see everything it’s about. I could talk for a while about when and why I prefer watching over playing myself. But what’s the point if you’re just going to dismiss me as some friendless, asocial shut in who doesn’t know how to talk to people, because I dare not use my Switch anymore?
- SilverBirch 4y ago
  Yes, what you are describing is how you use Twitch as a person who Twitch makes no money from. That's fine! I'm not saying that every Twitch user is this one type of person. You're the type of customer who will take an uber to the airport once every 6 months, that's not problematic, but it's not something uber can build a business on top of. In the same way, you're not engaging with Twitch in a way that Twitch actually cares about from a business perspective, they can't show you 50 adverts a day and elicit $500 of donations each year. My comment is about the business model Twitch needs to actually run as a profitable large scale business. Twitch needs to operate at a scale where they impact the P&L of Amazon. It needs to sit next to the P&L of Amazon Prime Video and Audible and not be laughed at.
  - warent 4y ago
    it seems many people read way too far into this with a distorted "back in my day!" mentality. I watch twitch nearly every day and subscribe to (pay) a couple of streamers. You know what I don't watch? TV. Cable, satellite, or otherwise. This is simply modern entertainment. Streamers are professional entertainers. As for the people who seem to have a parasocial relationship--none of this is new. In my childhood I had a parasocial relationship with MacGyver and He-Man. Some grown men of questionable stability had it with Brittany Spears or whatever. The only new thing is the platform. Everything else is just humans being humans as always.
    - SilverBirch 4y ago
      The amount of MacGuyver content you got over the original 7 year run is about the same amount of content that a popular Twitch Streamer will put out in about 7 weeks. And MacGyver won't read your comment in chat and respond to you. It's a vastly different situation. Not least because in 1985 when the original Macguyver came out the entire television viewing population of the US were watching a handful of networks. Now the economics mean that there are 100,000x as many content creators to support, creating content at 52x the previous rate. So are we expecting revenue per viewer to be 5,200,000x times higher? Because that's the ratio of the content being produced.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - warent 4y ago
        There seem two be two different things here. 1. "100,000x as many content creators to support" Hollywood has always been flooded with countless failed would-be actors / entertainers. Just because you can't see them like you can in Twitch, because they couldn't publish stuff in the 1980s, it doesn't mean they didn't exist. This is an old problem. 2. "The amount of MacGuyver content you got over the original 7 year run is about the same amount of content that a popular Twitch Streamer will put out in about 7 weeks." We're not talking about the actor, by himself, winging it and producing an episode on the fly. With Twitch, that is typically the case. On Twitch, content being produced is of lower effort and higher volume. It's a huge difference but the math balances out. As an aside, "fan mail" did exist back then too. Viewers would write in to a P.O. Box and if they were lucky their letters were read on air.
- jeanchen 4y ago
  Agreed. One of the first times I encountered Twitch IRL was in the laundry room of my apartment building, where a neighbor who I knew had a young child was watching a streamer play a game while he did the laundry. Good for him, I thought. I started watching Twitch when I started working remotely several years ago. It's good for background noise, keeping up with games that I can't justify spending money or time on, and sometimes good for a little chitchat. Some people will have an unhealthy relationship with it but to go back to the musician analogy, this doesn't seem too different from obsessive Beatles or Elvis fans. (Or Justin Bieber or Taylor Swift fans, etc.) They will always exist. I'm happy to support someone with beer money for this little bit of entertainment.
Nursie 4y ago
The parasocial nature of it is a bit concerning and (to me) deeply weird. I went to a presentation by a couple of streamers at an event a few months ago, aimed at people wanting to learn a little more about it or get into it themselves. They referred to the people in the chat as 'chat' but warned never to use that word in the stream, instead have a cute name for it. One always called them her "besties" which helps give the impression they are friends. But they aren't, they're the audience, they're people she doesn't know and doesn't want to, and they're the income source either directly or through being paid to promote stuff to them. I came away feeling the whole thing was weirdly dirty. I know that there are a lot of streamers who aren't in it for the money, who hang out and watch each other's streams for fun and game together on the side. That's by nature going to have a very limited audience and that's fine, often these folks do know eachc other and it's genuinely social. And I know there are the superstars who people watch like tv because they make entertaining content. But there seems to be this middle ground of para-social streaming that's not quite either of those other things and just feels wrong.
- PurpleRamen 4y ago
  > They referred to the people in the chat as 'chat' but warned never to use that word in the stream, instead have a cute name for it. Strange advice. Pretty much all Streamers I know, call their viewers chat. How big on twitch were those people speaking there? What kind of content did they made? Calling viewers by a cute name makes the impression of being more on the abusive side of community-interaction, or having a very young community which does not understand yet the parasocial relation.
  - Nursie 4y ago
    I got the impression they were plugged into whole communities of streamers for whom this is entirely normal. I have no idea how big they are, I don’t think they were aiming particularly young, one was regularly streaming horror games. To me the whole thing is weird in many other ways (why watch other people game?! I could be gaming!) but twitch seems set up for this sort of stuff and it feels pretty unhealthy.
forsythe_ 4y ago
> Twitch is like a low cost off-ramp for having friends. The better, well adjusted version of twitch is that you log on to xbox, playstation or PC, hit up your friends and play some games and chat. That's the ideal. Then everything tumbles out from there, people without the time, social skills or inclination log on to twitch and form parasocial relationships instead. Yeah, this is spot-on based on my experience. I got into Twitch in the early days and have been a watcher and lurker for most of the past 10 years. The periods where I've been most content and fulfilled in life have easily correlated with spending less time on Twitch because those needs were being met in a healthier way. On one hand I'm thankful to have discovered it because the faux-social fulfillment it provided when I've dealt with depression. It wasn't ideal but it was a good option in times where I didn't have energy to commit to real life relationships. OTOH, I wonder if ignoring Twitch altogether would have pushed me to get out and do the things that would have helped me climb out of the hole sooner.
- expensive_news 4y ago
  I never watched Twitch but this is true of myself for YouTube and Reddit. I was never ‘happy’ when I scrolled through Reddit for 3 hours. (Reddit in particular was horrible for my mental health). I never watched 4 hours of YouTube when I had friends to go out with. Finally I realized that I felt much better when I cut those out and spent time on more important things. All of these websites are trying to take as much of your attention as they can and it’s difficult to have a healthy relationship with them.

scrollaway 4y ago

So your whole thesis is based on this nonsensical idea that the only reason people come to twitch is because they’re too socially maladjusted to play video games themselves? What the actual what? I don’t watch twitch streams as often as I used to because I’m low on time running like four different businesses these days, but I always enjoy experiencing games through the shoes of somebody else. I get to discover a game at a different and more flexible kind of pace than if I were playing it myself. It removes the commitment while still letting me see everything it’s about. I could talk for a while about when and why I prefer watching over playing myself. But what’s the point if you’re just going to dismiss me as some friendless, asocial shut in who doesn’t know how to talk to people, because I dare not use my Switch anymore?

SilverBirch 4y ago
Yes, what you are describing is how you use Twitch as a person who Twitch makes no money from. That's fine! I'm not saying that every Twitch user is this one type of person. You're the type of customer who will take an uber to the airport once every 6 months, that's not problematic, but it's not something uber can build a business on top of. In the same way, you're not engaging with Twitch in a way that Twitch actually cares about from a business perspective, they can't show you 50 adverts a day and elicit $500 of donations each year. My comment is about the business model Twitch needs to actually run as a profitable large scale business. Twitch needs to operate at a scale where they impact the P&L of Amazon. It needs to sit next to the P&L of Amazon Prime Video and Audible and not be laughed at.
- warent 4y ago
  it seems many people read way too far into this with a distorted "back in my day!" mentality. I watch twitch nearly every day and subscribe to (pay) a couple of streamers. You know what I don't watch? TV. Cable, satellite, or otherwise. This is simply modern entertainment. Streamers are professional entertainers. As for the people who seem to have a parasocial relationship--none of this is new. In my childhood I had a parasocial relationship with MacGyver and He-Man. Some grown men of questionable stability had it with Brittany Spears or whatever. The only new thing is the platform. Everything else is just humans being humans as always.
  - SilverBirch 4y ago
    The amount of MacGuyver content you got over the original 7 year run is about the same amount of content that a popular Twitch Streamer will put out in about 7 weeks. And MacGyver won't read your comment in chat and respond to you. It's a vastly different situation. Not least because in 1985 when the original Macguyver came out the entire television viewing population of the US were watching a handful of networks. Now the economics mean that there are 100,000x as many content creators to support, creating content at 52x the previous rate. So are we expecting revenue per viewer to be 5,200,000x times higher? Because that's the ratio of the content being produced.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - warent 4y ago
      There seem two be two different things here. 1. "100,000x as many content creators to support" Hollywood has always been flooded with countless failed would-be actors / entertainers. Just because you can't see them like you can in Twitch, because they couldn't publish stuff in the 1980s, it doesn't mean they didn't exist. This is an old problem. 2. "The amount of MacGuyver content you got over the original 7 year run is about the same amount of content that a popular Twitch Streamer will put out in about 7 weeks." We're not talking about the actor, by himself, winging it and producing an episode on the fly. With Twitch, that is typically the case. On Twitch, content being produced is of lower effort and higher volume. It's a huge difference but the math balances out. As an aside, "fan mail" did exist back then too. Viewers would write in to a P.O. Box and if they were lucky their letters were read on air.
jeanchen 4y ago
Agreed. One of the first times I encountered Twitch IRL was in the laundry room of my apartment building, where a neighbor who I knew had a young child was watching a streamer play a game while he did the laundry. Good for him, I thought. I started watching Twitch when I started working remotely several years ago. It's good for background noise, keeping up with games that I can't justify spending money or time on, and sometimes good for a little chitchat. Some people will have an unhealthy relationship with it but to go back to the musician analogy, this doesn't seem too different from obsessive Beatles or Elvis fans. (Or Justin Bieber or Taylor Swift fans, etc.) They will always exist. I'm happy to support someone with beer money for this little bit of entertainment.

Nursie 4y ago

The parasocial nature of it is a bit concerning and (to me) deeply weird. I went to a presentation by a couple of streamers at an event a few months ago, aimed at people wanting to learn a little more about it or get into it themselves. They referred to the people in the chat as 'chat' but warned never to use that word in the stream, instead have a cute name for it. One always called them her "besties" which helps give the impression they are friends. But they aren't, they're the audience, they're people she doesn't know and doesn't want to, and they're the income source either directly or through being paid to promote stuff to them. I came away feeling the whole thing was weirdly dirty. I know that there are a lot of streamers who aren't in it for the money, who hang out and watch each other's streams for fun and game together on the side. That's by nature going to have a very limited audience and that's fine, often these folks do know eachc other and it's genuinely social. And I know there are the superstars who people watch like tv because they make entertaining content. But there seems to be this middle ground of para-social streaming that's not quite either of those other things and just feels wrong.

PurpleRamen 4y ago
> They referred to the people in the chat as 'chat' but warned never to use that word in the stream, instead have a cute name for it. Strange advice. Pretty much all Streamers I know, call their viewers chat. How big on twitch were those people speaking there? What kind of content did they made? Calling viewers by a cute name makes the impression of being more on the abusive side of community-interaction, or having a very young community which does not understand yet the parasocial relation.
- Nursie 4y ago
  I got the impression they were plugged into whole communities of streamers for whom this is entirely normal. I have no idea how big they are, I don’t think they were aiming particularly young, one was regularly streaming horror games. To me the whole thing is weird in many other ways (why watch other people game?! I could be gaming!) but twitch seems set up for this sort of stuff and it feels pretty unhealthy.

forsythe_ 4y ago

> Twitch is like a low cost off-ramp for having friends. The better, well adjusted version of twitch is that you log on to xbox, playstation or PC, hit up your friends and play some games and chat. That's the ideal. Then everything tumbles out from there, people without the time, social skills or inclination log on to twitch and form parasocial relationships instead. Yeah, this is spot-on based on my experience. I got into Twitch in the early days and have been a watcher and lurker for most of the past 10 years. The periods where I've been most content and fulfilled in life have easily correlated with spending less time on Twitch because those needs were being met in a healthier way. On one hand I'm thankful to have discovered it because the faux-social fulfillment it provided when I've dealt with depression. It wasn't ideal but it was a good option in times where I didn't have energy to commit to real life relationships. OTOH, I wonder if ignoring Twitch altogether would have pushed me to get out and do the things that would have helped me climb out of the hole sooner.

expensive_news 4y ago
I never watched Twitch but this is true of myself for YouTube and Reddit. I was never ‘happy’ when I scrolled through Reddit for 3 hours. (Reddit in particular was horrible for my mental health). I never watched 4 hours of YouTube when I had friends to go out with. Finally I realized that I felt much better when I cut those out and spent time on more important things. All of these websites are trying to take as much of your attention as they can and it’s difficult to have a healthy relationship with them.