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This is actually a big change and a very good thing. The viewing experience on YouTube is so much better if your Internet is not uber fast. I am not sure how tw

This is actually a big change and a very good thing. The viewing experience on YouTube is so much better if your Internet is not uber fast. I am not sure how twitch intends to benefit from this. I have watched all twitch and youtube simulcasts always on Youtube.

nubinetwork 3y ago
> I am not sure how twitch intends to benefit from this They stop losing streamers to other platforms because of the previous twitch-only stipulation.
- crop_rotation 3y ago
  But they will lose them anyways, once streamers are able to simulcast and viewers slowly shift. This is either an admission of defeat or supreme confidence that viewers would prefer Twitch over other platforms as long as streamer is available on Twitch.
  - foota 3y ago
    Losing viewers is probably better than losing steamers, without steamers twitch is nothing.
    - scary-size 3y ago
      That applies the other way around too. That’s called a network effect.
      - foota 3y ago
        I feel like streamers are harder to get than viewers. Viewers just need to go to the site and watch a streamer, but a streamer needs to set it up to stream. They could probably get viewers back fairly easy through advertising or tie ins to games, but doing that with streamers would likely be harder.
        jowsie 3y ago
        Streaming from console or gpu driver addon trash is normally as simple as clicking a link and/or logging in to the site.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - kzrdude 3y ago
    Couldn't it also help catching more people to twitch? People find a stream on youtube -> they hear the streamer mostly interact with twitch chat -> they think twitch is the main platform (if they want that kind of interaction.)
patmcc 3y ago
>>>I am not sure how twitch intends to benefit from this. It might staunch the bleeding. Instead of losing X streamers a month they lose .5X streamers who just simulcast instead of leaving. It's an admission that they're not the big dog in streaming any more.
- AraceliHarker 3y ago
  The fact that Twitch has allowed simultaneous streaming on other platforms suggests that the platform is no longer able to offer famous streamers the financial incentives they are seeking.
  - chongli 3y ago
    I think the large streamers are a loss leader for Twitch. Delivering thousands of extremely high resolution, high frame rate, high bit rate streams costs a fortune. Plus those big streamers love to monetize their users through other means: Patreon, Onlyfans, sponsorships, merchandise sales, and even direct PayPal donations. They tend to try to steer their users away from large donations of Twitch subscriptions due to the large cut that goes to Twitch. All this means Twitch isn’t able to capture most of the revenue for the streaming business. I don’t know what they can do to fix it. Perhaps this new non-exclusivity deal is a way of shedding some of the deadweight. If viewers of large streams spread out to other platforms then maybe a lot of the non-revenue-producing ones will move off Twitch. Smaller streams that are more subscription-based may be less likely to do so.
    - HlessClaudesman 3y ago
      I like your theory, maybe it's a play to blunt the power / reduce costs of superstar streamers, but wouldn't larger streams / more popular streamers, be more attractive to advertisers?
    - littlestymaar 3y ago
      > I think the large streamers are a loss leader for Twitch. Delivering thousands of extremely high resolution, high frame rate, high bit rate streams costs a fortune It's the best use-case for webRTC-based delivery though. They could be saving ~90-95%[1] of their bandwidth cost on these use-cases, I find it very intriguing that they haven't adopted it after all that time. [1] actual production number when I was working on that topic.
Bayart 3y ago
> The viewing experience on YouTube is so much better if your Internet is not uber fast. The viewing experience, if you don't include the chat experience, is better regardless of your connection's speed. YouTube seems to have access to better distribution (you'd think Twitch being an Amazon company they'd be more or less on par), the software works better, the ad policy works better.
- wavemode 3y ago
  I can only imagine Amazon is being stingy with Twitch's budget. If they wanted to make the stream reliability much better they absolutely could. I experience the same even with gigabit bandwidth in the central US - can't watch the Twitch version (of some event that is streaming to both) reliably even at 480p, yet the YouTube version is buttery smooth at 1080p.
  - grepfru_it 3y ago
    gigabit bandwidth is dependent on your latency. your latency is dependent on many factors from your local hardware to the routers between you and your destination. fwiw, i do not experience your claims when viewing twitch
  - simfree 3y ago
    Sounds like a peering issue where your ISP and Amazon don't have good peering between each other, yet Google has good peering with plenty of excess bandwidth to get their content (YouTube) to your ISP.
enragedcacti 3y ago
> I am not sure how twitch intends to benefit from this. My best guess is that they are trying to keep more communities on Twitch at the cost of letting some viewers leave. The new rules about not combining chats or other features (sub notifications?) means you have some real network effects that will keep many viewers on twitch and keep the streamer primarily focused on Twitch because there's no low-cost migration path for their community anymore. Power users will probably use extensions that let them watch a higher quality Youtube stream with Twitch chat enabled, and if most of the community is on Twitch they may want to subscribe on Twitch as well. In the best case scenario Twitch gets all the revenue they would have gotten ($2.50/m from the sub) without any of the cost of delivering the video. Further, IF they can keep the community and the engagement on Twitch then they might have turned their simulcast weakness into a strength. If viewers organically find the stream on Youtube or Kick or whatever and enjoy it but see that all the chat and alerts are from twitch and want to participate then they might jump over. YouTube's live discoverability is awful right now so its kind of moot but it could be a thing in the future.
DizInTheBiz 3y ago
One thing I haven't seen mentioned yet: the guidelines explicitly state that the Twitch chat experience must be >= other platforms. Many streamers use bots to interact with chat for things like raffles, giveaways, custom coin gamification... and these bots usually don't support multiple concurrent platforms. Because of this stipulation, I've already witnessed multiple streamers say "if you're watching on Youtube and would like to enter, you must go to Twitch and type !X in chat" Whether intentional or not, this is a sly way make the actual streamers 301 to Twitch.

nubinetwork 3y ago

> I am not sure how twitch intends to benefit from this They stop losing streamers to other platforms because of the previous twitch-only stipulation.

crop_rotation 3y ago
But they will lose them anyways, once streamers are able to simulcast and viewers slowly shift. This is either an admission of defeat or supreme confidence that viewers would prefer Twitch over other platforms as long as streamer is available on Twitch.
- foota 3y ago
  Losing viewers is probably better than losing steamers, without steamers twitch is nothing.
  - scary-size 3y ago
    That applies the other way around too. That’s called a network effect.
    - foota 3y ago
      I feel like streamers are harder to get than viewers. Viewers just need to go to the site and watch a streamer, but a streamer needs to set it up to stream. They could probably get viewers back fairly easy through advertising or tie ins to games, but doing that with streamers would likely be harder.
      - jowsie 3y ago
        Streaming from console or gpu driver addon trash is normally as simple as clicking a link and/or logging in to the site.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- kzrdude 3y ago
  Couldn't it also help catching more people to twitch? People find a stream on youtube -> they hear the streamer mostly interact with twitch chat -> they think twitch is the main platform (if they want that kind of interaction.)

patmcc 3y ago

>>>I am not sure how twitch intends to benefit from this. It might staunch the bleeding. Instead of losing X streamers a month they lose .5X streamers who just simulcast instead of leaving. It's an admission that they're not the big dog in streaming any more.

AraceliHarker 3y ago
The fact that Twitch has allowed simultaneous streaming on other platforms suggests that the platform is no longer able to offer famous streamers the financial incentives they are seeking.
- chongli 3y ago
  I think the large streamers are a loss leader for Twitch. Delivering thousands of extremely high resolution, high frame rate, high bit rate streams costs a fortune. Plus those big streamers love to monetize their users through other means: Patreon, Onlyfans, sponsorships, merchandise sales, and even direct PayPal donations. They tend to try to steer their users away from large donations of Twitch subscriptions due to the large cut that goes to Twitch. All this means Twitch isn’t able to capture most of the revenue for the streaming business. I don’t know what they can do to fix it. Perhaps this new non-exclusivity deal is a way of shedding some of the deadweight. If viewers of large streams spread out to other platforms then maybe a lot of the non-revenue-producing ones will move off Twitch. Smaller streams that are more subscription-based may be less likely to do so.
  - HlessClaudesman 3y ago
    I like your theory, maybe it's a play to blunt the power / reduce costs of superstar streamers, but wouldn't larger streams / more popular streamers, be more attractive to advertisers?
  - littlestymaar 3y ago
    > I think the large streamers are a loss leader for Twitch. Delivering thousands of extremely high resolution, high frame rate, high bit rate streams costs a fortune It's the best use-case for webRTC-based delivery though. They could be saving ~90-95%[1] of their bandwidth cost on these use-cases, I find it very intriguing that they haven't adopted it after all that time. [1] actual production number when I was working on that topic.

Bayart 3y ago

> The viewing experience on YouTube is so much better if your Internet is not uber fast. The viewing experience, if you don't include the chat experience, is better regardless of your connection's speed. YouTube seems to have access to better distribution (you'd think Twitch being an Amazon company they'd be more or less on par), the software works better, the ad policy works better.

wavemode 3y ago
I can only imagine Amazon is being stingy with Twitch's budget. If they wanted to make the stream reliability much better they absolutely could. I experience the same even with gigabit bandwidth in the central US - can't watch the Twitch version (of some event that is streaming to both) reliably even at 480p, yet the YouTube version is buttery smooth at 1080p.
- grepfru_it 3y ago
  gigabit bandwidth is dependent on your latency. your latency is dependent on many factors from your local hardware to the routers between you and your destination. fwiw, i do not experience your claims when viewing twitch
- simfree 3y ago
  Sounds like a peering issue where your ISP and Amazon don't have good peering between each other, yet Google has good peering with plenty of excess bandwidth to get their content (YouTube) to your ISP.

enragedcacti 3y ago

> I am not sure how twitch intends to benefit from this. My best guess is that they are trying to keep more communities on Twitch at the cost of letting some viewers leave. The new rules about not combining chats or other features (sub notifications?) means you have some real network effects that will keep many viewers on twitch and keep the streamer primarily focused on Twitch because there's no low-cost migration path for their community anymore. Power users will probably use extensions that let them watch a higher quality Youtube stream with Twitch chat enabled, and if most of the community is on Twitch they may want to subscribe on Twitch as well. In the best case scenario Twitch gets all the revenue they would have gotten ($2.50/m from the sub) without any of the cost of delivering the video. Further, IF they can keep the community and the engagement on Twitch then they might have turned their simulcast weakness into a strength. If viewers organically find the stream on Youtube or Kick or whatever and enjoy it but see that all the chat and alerts are from twitch and want to participate then they might jump over. YouTube's live discoverability is awful right now so its kind of moot but it could be a thing in the future.

DizInTheBiz 3y ago

One thing I haven't seen mentioned yet: the guidelines explicitly state that the Twitch chat experience must be >= other platforms. Many streamers use bots to interact with chat for things like raffles, giveaways, custom coin gamification... and these bots usually don't support multiple concurrent platforms. Because of this stipulation, I've already witnessed multiple streamers say "if you're watching on Youtube and would like to enter, you must go to Twitch and type !X in chat" Whether intentional or not, this is a sly way make the actual streamers 301 to Twitch.