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It's not just Korea that Twitch isn't profitable in; the company as a whole is not profitable. Considering the high payouts to streamers, the lack of benefits

It's not just Korea that Twitch isn't profitable in; the company as a whole is not profitable. Considering the high payouts to streamers, the lack of benefits for premium members, the long streaming hours of games which incurs server costs and makes it difficult to display ads, I don't think their business model is sustainable in the long run.

viraptor 3y ago
> and makes it difficult to display ads What do you mean by this?
- antisthenes 3y ago
  Probably longer intervals between streamers showing ads, compared to TV? I know that if streamers showed ads every 10 minutes and I was forced to watch them, I would just not watch Twitch at all.
  - xboxnolifes 3y ago
    When streamers don't show ads within some interval of time, twitch will automatically play ads to compensate, so I don't think that's what was meant. Twitch has full control of this interval.
    - suddenclarity 3y ago
      The person you're responding to isn't saying that Twitch lacks the ability. They are saying that increasing the occurrence would cause people to get annoyed and leave, resulting in no ads being viewed.
      - pooper 3y ago
        I get that at some point twitch or even amazon.com can't control prices of ads because advertisers will pay only what they think those spots are worth but on the flip side, I think it is worth noting the costs of running twitch have probably massively increased since their justin.tv days. I remember reading in the justin.tv days, they were trying to convince everyone that they're sustainable and that one ad an hour (not one ad roll with multiple ads, just one ad) would MORE than cover all of Justin tv costs. I'm sure the rates have collapsed since then AND the costs have gone up. I wouldn't mind 480p back when the best quality I could watch was from some guy's webcam at 720p but it is a different matter when I want to watch 1080p60 screen share. 480p is worthless for watching video games or coding streams. Probably obvious but just wanted to say out loud that the costs have likely gone up.
  - cute_boi 3y ago
    Twitch ads sucks. Microphone is muted and we have to rely on small screen above comment section. Anti pattern like this is reason why I don't watch twitch anymore.
nl 3y ago
> Considering the high payouts to streamers, the lack of benefits for premium members, the long streaming hours of games which incurs server costs and makes it difficult to display ads, I don't think their business model is sustainable in the long run. I don't game and I don't use twitch, but... > the high payouts to streamers This worked really well on Youtube and other platforms. > the lack of benefits for premium members If people are still subscribing without many benefits imagine what will happen if they introduce more? That's worked well for Amazon in other areas (eg Prime) > long streaming hours of games which incurs server costs I mean there is some server cost but this seems very manageable. I've done a bunch of video streaming work and the server requirements aren't high if you know what you are doing. Bandwith is hard sometimes but I suspect Amazon can optimize their bandwidth deals as well as anyone. > makes it difficult to display ads This seems wrong. The whole broadcast TV model is built around 24/7 ads. > I don't think their business model is sustainable in the long run. I take the opposing view. I think Twitch has the potential to be one of the biggest sources of revenue growth at Amazon. Look how well YouTube has done for Google.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- johnny22 3y ago
  having an adbreak right when the most important play of the game is made would really be annoying. It's not like broadcast tv where there are things like time slots and designated ad spots.
  - noirbot 3y ago
    That's why Twitch gives you tons of tools to schedule ads and manually trigger them at less disruptive times. It requires the streamer to care about not disrupting their stream enough to plan ahead and preemptively run ads and not just hope they auto-run at the right time. This very seldom happens to actual competitive events (which often have special deals that require them to run less ads), and most bigger streamers have worked out running ads between games.
- livueta 3y ago
whazor 3y ago
Twitch was profitable at some point in time according to interviews with the founders. There are more revenue streams since then, so I am guessing overalls it would be profitable.
- rstat1 3y ago
  Their CEO was on his own channel recently talking about what I think were layoffs and how they weren't currently profitable.

viraptor 3y ago

> and makes it difficult to display ads What do you mean by this?

antisthenes 3y ago
Probably longer intervals between streamers showing ads, compared to TV? I know that if streamers showed ads every 10 minutes and I was forced to watch them, I would just not watch Twitch at all.
- xboxnolifes 3y ago
  When streamers don't show ads within some interval of time, twitch will automatically play ads to compensate, so I don't think that's what was meant. Twitch has full control of this interval.
  - suddenclarity 3y ago
    The person you're responding to isn't saying that Twitch lacks the ability. They are saying that increasing the occurrence would cause people to get annoyed and leave, resulting in no ads being viewed.
    - pooper 3y ago
      I get that at some point twitch or even amazon.com can't control prices of ads because advertisers will pay only what they think those spots are worth but on the flip side, I think it is worth noting the costs of running twitch have probably massively increased since their justin.tv days. I remember reading in the justin.tv days, they were trying to convince everyone that they're sustainable and that one ad an hour (not one ad roll with multiple ads, just one ad) would MORE than cover all of Justin tv costs. I'm sure the rates have collapsed since then AND the costs have gone up. I wouldn't mind 480p back when the best quality I could watch was from some guy's webcam at 720p but it is a different matter when I want to watch 1080p60 screen share. 480p is worthless for watching video games or coding streams. Probably obvious but just wanted to say out loud that the costs have likely gone up.
- cute_boi 3y ago
  Twitch ads sucks. Microphone is muted and we have to rely on small screen above comment section. Anti pattern like this is reason why I don't watch twitch anymore.

nl 3y ago

> Considering the high payouts to streamers, the lack of benefits for premium members, the long streaming hours of games which incurs server costs and makes it difficult to display ads, I don't think their business model is sustainable in the long run. I don't game and I don't use twitch, but... > the high payouts to streamers This worked really well on Youtube and other platforms. > the lack of benefits for premium members If people are still subscribing without many benefits imagine what will happen if they introduce more? That's worked well for Amazon in other areas (eg Prime) > long streaming hours of games which incurs server costs I mean there is some server cost but this seems very manageable. I've done a bunch of video streaming work and the server requirements aren't high if you know what you are doing. Bandwith is hard sometimes but I suspect Amazon can optimize their bandwidth deals as well as anyone. > makes it difficult to display ads This seems wrong. The whole broadcast TV model is built around 24/7 ads. > I don't think their business model is sustainable in the long run. I take the opposing view. I think Twitch has the potential to be one of the biggest sources of revenue growth at Amazon. Look how well YouTube has done for Google.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
johnny22 3y ago
having an adbreak right when the most important play of the game is made would really be annoying. It's not like broadcast tv where there are things like time slots and designated ad spots.
- noirbot 3y ago
  That's why Twitch gives you tons of tools to schedule ads and manually trigger them at less disruptive times. It requires the streamer to care about not disrupting their stream enough to plan ahead and preemptively run ads and not just hope they auto-run at the right time. This very seldom happens to actual competitive events (which often have special deals that require them to run less ads), and most bigger streamers have worked out running ads between games.
livueta 3y ago

whazor 3y ago

Twitch was profitable at some point in time according to interviews with the founders. There are more revenue streams since then, so I am guessing overalls it would be profitable.

rstat1 3y ago
Their CEO was on his own channel recently talking about what I think were layoffs and how they weren't currently profitable.