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Twitch CEO Emmett Shear is resigning

225 points by ExMachina73 4y ago

minimaxir 4y ago
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 4y ago
  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 4y ago
    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 4y ago
  Moving all the thirst traps to a "hot tubs" channel was pretty innovative. https://www.pcgamer.com/twitch-addresses-hot-tub-streaming-controversy-by-adding-a-hot-tub-category/ https://www.pcgamer.com/twitch-addresses-hot-tub-streaming-c...
  - jeron 4y ago
    real innovation would have been to spin it off as a separate streaming website that allows paywalled subscription and creating an OF competitor
    - cinntaile 4y ago
      Amazon doesn't want to get into the adult industry.
      - vkou 4y ago
        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 4y ago
        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 4y ago
        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-onlyfans-earnings-154510173.html https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/amouranth-reveals-her-on...
- saghm 4y ago
  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 4y ago
  >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.
- waboremo 4y ago
  Guaranteed ads, amazon affiliate links in bio, integrate amazon luna more, and change revenue splits.
  - weego 4y ago
    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 4y ago
      ad block works on twitch. Even the DNS only blockers that you can get for iOS.
      - testmasterflex 4y ago
        Can you recommend one?
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
- favaq 4y ago
  >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 4y ago
    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 4y ago
    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 4y ago
      That's cool, "monetising" usually means making the experience of viewers worse, so good on Twitch
- Eumenes 4y ago
  Its softcore porn and weird anime/furry stuff for socially awkward teenagers
- nemothekid 4y ago
  >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.
  - minimaxir 4y ago
    > 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.
  - wpm 4y ago
    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 4y ago
      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.
widowlark 4y ago
I wonder if Clancy has what it takes to keep the platform alive - It seems to be floundering at the moment
AccountAccount1 4y ago
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.
- Avicebron 4y ago
  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.
  - unity1001 4y ago
    > 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...
    - echelon 4y ago
      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".
jeffwask 4y ago
Amazon has really done a number on what was a fun and useful platform for viewers and creators. It was totally "enshittened".
- prox 4y ago
  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 4y ago
    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 4y ago
      If YouTube would only give half a fuck about improving the UI/UX and searchability of their streaming offerings.
- quectophoton 4y ago
  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.
tempsy 4y ago
[flagged]
- aliasxneo 4y ago
  I don't watch Twitch...but what??
  - tempsy 4y ago
    Which part are you confused by?
  - colpabar 4y ago
    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 4y ago
      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 4y ago
        Stereo microphone is the term you're looking for.
        cinntaile 4y ago
        ASMR (autonomous sensory meridian response) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASMR https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASMR
elicash 4y ago
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?
- GenerocUsername 4y ago
  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 4y ago
  If I was worth ~100 million dollars, I would definitely quit my job to have fun with my family.
  - SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
    If I was worth ~100 million dollars, I would definitely quit my job.
    - fabiensanglard 4y ago
      If I was worth ~100 million dollars....
      - gooseyman 4y ago
        Well I'd buy you a K-Car (a nice Reliant automobile)
        SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
        Inflation has not been kind to the dreams of BNL.
        4y ago
leesec 4y ago
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
slater 4y ago
Maybe now they can pump the brakes on their unwinnable game of whack-a-mole against adblockers, too?
0000000000100 4y ago
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 4y ago
  They don’t tell you this on the whole, but there is an adfree turbo subscription: https://www.twitch.tv/turbo https://www.twitch.tv/turbo
  - Lev1a 4y ago
    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.
    - prox 4y ago
      I know (and I support many streamers actually, 4 on a permanent basis) but in some cases it is useful.
- com2kid 4y ago
  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.
- 4y ago
dlevine 4y ago
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.
skilled 4y ago
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.
- ipaddr 4y ago
  5 ads every 1/2 hour? Stay away from tv you see 5 ads every 10 minutes.
  - skilled 4y ago
    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 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - potatolicious 4y ago
    > 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-losses-hit-21m-q1-vmvpds-losing-201k-analyst https://www.fiercevideo.com/video/linear-video-subscriber-lo...
fullshark 4y ago
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.
kmnc 4y ago
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 4y ago
  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.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
noncoml 4y ago
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.
madrox 4y ago
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.
- wildrhythms 4y ago
  What's the competition for Twitch?
- Belphemur 4y ago
  From what creators are saying Dan isn't the best choice either. He doesn't understand the industry from their point of view. Also he's the one that spearheaded the whole 70/30 split replaced by 50/50 split without any discussion in the matter.
hoseja 4y ago
NOT replaced by a brahmin? Weird.
karmasimida 4y ago
Is twitch still a thing? I don't think they have any significant upgrades for several years now...
lol-dot-jpeg 4y ago
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.
Google234 4y ago
He’s been so absent.
Venn1 4y ago
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.
- testmasterflex 4y ago
  Link? :)
rldjbpin 4y ago
as someone spending fair bit of time watching streams on the site for much longer than Shear's tenure, i had no clue who was running the show. unlike the leadership at youtube, an average viewer had no such visibility of what's happening behind the scenes. and that too, during the most interesting few years twitch has had. people have already listed out the bad parts, but simultaneously the site has broken several (albeit self-set) records. it is crazy how so many people from mainstream media have interacted in the site, yet it is riddled with a lot of fundamental issues. good luck to whomever takes over.

225 points by ExMachina73 4y ago

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 4y ago
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 4y ago
  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 4y ago
Moving all the thirst traps to a "hot tubs" channel was pretty innovative. https://www.pcgamer.com/twitch-addresses-hot-tub-streaming-controversy-by-adding-a-hot-tub-category/ https://www.pcgamer.com/twitch-addresses-hot-tub-streaming-c...
- jeron 4y ago
  real innovation would have been to spin it off as a separate streaming website that allows paywalled subscription and creating an OF competitor
  - cinntaile 4y ago
    Amazon doesn't want to get into the adult industry.
    - vkou 4y ago
      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 4y ago
        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 4y ago
        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-onlyfans-earnings-154510173.html https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/amouranth-reveals-her-on...
saghm 4y ago
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 4y ago
>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.
waboremo 4y ago
Guaranteed ads, amazon affiliate links in bio, integrate amazon luna more, and change revenue splits.
- weego 4y ago
  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 4y ago
    ad block works on twitch. Even the DNS only blockers that you can get for iOS.
    - testmasterflex 4y ago
      Can you recommend one?
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
favaq 4y ago
>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 4y ago
  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 4y ago
  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 4y ago
    That's cool, "monetising" usually means making the experience of viewers worse, so good on Twitch
Eumenes 4y ago
Its softcore porn and weird anime/furry stuff for socially awkward teenagers
nemothekid 4y ago
>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.
- minimaxir 4y ago
  > 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.
- wpm 4y ago
  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 4y ago
    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.

widowlark 4y ago

I wonder if Clancy has what it takes to keep the platform alive - It seems to be floundering at the moment

AccountAccount1 4y ago

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.

Avicebron 4y ago
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.
- unity1001 4y ago
  > 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...
  - echelon 4y ago
    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".

jeffwask 4y ago

Amazon has really done a number on what was a fun and useful platform for viewers and creators. It was totally "enshittened".

prox 4y ago
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 4y ago
  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 4y ago
    If YouTube would only give half a fuck about improving the UI/UX and searchability of their streaming offerings.
quectophoton 4y ago
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.

tempsy 4y ago

[flagged]

aliasxneo 4y ago
I don't watch Twitch...but what??
- tempsy 4y ago
  Which part are you confused by?
- colpabar 4y ago
  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 4y ago
    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 4y ago
      Stereo microphone is the term you're looking for.
      - cinntaile 4y ago
        ASMR (autonomous sensory meridian response) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASMR https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASMR

elicash 4y ago

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?

GenerocUsername 4y ago
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 4y ago
If I was worth ~100 million dollars, I would definitely quit my job to have fun with my family.
- SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
  If I was worth ~100 million dollars, I would definitely quit my job.
  - fabiensanglard 4y ago
    If I was worth ~100 million dollars....
    - gooseyman 4y ago
      Well I'd buy you a K-Car (a nice Reliant automobile)
      - SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
        Inflation has not been kind to the dreams of BNL.
        4y ago

leesec 4y ago

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

slater 4y ago

Maybe now they can pump the brakes on their unwinnable game of whack-a-mole against adblockers, too?

0000000000100 4y ago

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 4y ago
They don’t tell you this on the whole, but there is an adfree turbo subscription: https://www.twitch.tv/turbo https://www.twitch.tv/turbo
- Lev1a 4y ago
  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.
  - prox 4y ago
    I know (and I support many streamers actually, 4 on a permanent basis) but in some cases it is useful.
com2kid 4y ago
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.
4y ago

dlevine 4y ago

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.

skilled 4y ago

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.

ipaddr 4y ago
5 ads every 1/2 hour? Stay away from tv you see 5 ads every 10 minutes.
- skilled 4y ago
  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 4y ago
  [deleted]
- potatolicious 4y ago
  > 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-losses-hit-21m-q1-vmvpds-losing-201k-analyst https://www.fiercevideo.com/video/linear-video-subscriber-lo...

fullshark 4y ago

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.

kmnc 4y ago

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 4y ago
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.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

noncoml 4y ago

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.

madrox 4y ago

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.

wildrhythms 4y ago
What's the competition for Twitch?
Belphemur 4y ago
From what creators are saying Dan isn't the best choice either. He doesn't understand the industry from their point of view. Also he's the one that spearheaded the whole 70/30 split replaced by 50/50 split without any discussion in the matter.

hoseja 4y ago

NOT replaced by a brahmin? Weird.

karmasimida 4y ago

Is twitch still a thing? I don't think they have any significant upgrades for several years now...

lol-dot-jpeg 4y ago

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.

Google234 4y ago

He’s been so absent.

Venn1 4y ago

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.

testmasterflex 4y ago
Link? :)

rldjbpin 4y ago

as someone spending fair bit of time watching streams on the site for much longer than Shear's tenure, i had no clue who was running the show. unlike the leadership at youtube, an average viewer had no such visibility of what's happening behind the scenes. and that too, during the most interesting few years twitch has had. people have already listed out the bad parts, but simultaneously the site has broken several (albeit self-set) records. it is crazy how so many people from mainstream media have interacted in the site, yet it is riddled with a lot of fundamental issues. good luck to whomever takes over.