- Twitch bigwigs want to implement the controversial business model on the whole platform
- The company would increase ads to compensate streamers for the diminished revenue
- Fans and streamers say the higher-ups are not in touch with the community
Despite receiving a ton of criticism from many popular content creators and the community, Twitch higher-ups are adamant in retaining the 50/50 split, citing increased competition as the reason.
Twitch Wants to Retain Controversial Change
Twitch has been coming under fire recently for a series of controversial changes the company s making. The main one is that the Amazon-owned platform is doubling down on a decision it made a few months ago of splitting revenue 50/50 with streamers. This has been met with huge backlash from both content creators and viewers, as Twitch’s rate previously was 70/30, meaning the streamer would get the bigger share of the money from subs, donations, add revenue, and so on.
The 70/30 split used to be a fundamental part of Twitch’s business model for years, but the first signs of change happened in September last year when the company decided on a 50/50 split in revenue for some of its biggest streamers. Twitch has been talking about expanding this policy to all streamers for months now, and in a recent interview with The Verge, Twitch Chief Product Officer Tom Verrilli, and Chief Monetization Officer Mike Minton revealed the company plans to continue with the change, despite the criticism.
The reason for this, according to the Twitch bigwigs is that the platform is seeing increased competition from other streaming services like YouTube, thus it needs to increase revenue somehow to stay relevant. The Amazon-owned platform has seen a diminishing user number, suffering a massive decline in viewers in December, a low Twitch has not yet fully recovered from.
What Impact Would This Have?
Facing the potential of losing a large chunk of their revenue, many streamers are not happy with twitch’s upcoming changes. But Twitch is reassuring content creators that they will not lose money, as the company plans to increase ads on streams. However, this could have big negative consequences as popular streamer and YouTuber Charles “Cr1TiKaL” White explained in a recent video.
Charlie argued that increasing the number or duration of ads would disincentivize viewers from staying around to watch the streamer. Considering nobody likes unskippable ads, this is a sound conclusion. Charlie mentioned some people, who watch Twitch streamers that are already on the 50/50 deal with the company, have seen 7+ minutes of unskippable pre-roll ads on some streams.
Charlie as far as to say that Twitch’s higher-ups have been out of touch with the community for years, often implementing useless features like reacts and paid messages that nobody uses. He thinks the latest decision to shift to a 50/50 model is yet another bad decision. The streamer said that all of this would drive away both streamers and viewers, ironically to Twitch’s competitors like YouTube and Kick.
Many fans and other big content creators say similar things, so it seems Twitch is going to be in big trouble going forward if they do not listen to the community.
