Earlier quoted context omitted.
To give some numbers: There are more than 10 millions Streamers on Twitch, of which 5 millions are streaming regularly. The top 10_000 of them earns barely minimum wage or more. The Top 1000-5000 is earning some decent money on middle-class-level and the millionairs-club is around Top 100. And these numbers are globally, meaning all streamers from all countries. So we are still talking about an absurd low number of p…
Now do this for football players. Over the age of 6: 5.16 million High school: 1 million College: 70k Pro: 1,700 Also a power law distribution.
Up all night with a Twitch millionaire
211–220 of 320 posts
Re: Up all night with a Twitch millionaire
#212Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am not saying this is a real job prospect. If a kid told me he wanted to be a Twitch streamer I'd say he can't be one, same as professional singer or musician in general. What I am saying that what Tyler has very much is a real job and successful business. You wouldn't say Taylor Swift is jobless because very few people make it in the pop music world.
If my kid told me they wanted to be a twitch streamer I would advise them against investing a significant amount of time and effort building a business with a single gatekeeper. If they wanted to be a famous personality, I would insist they start building a profile on every platform.
Re: Up all night with a Twitch millionaire
#213Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actually it's very easy to blow some millions. Sportspeople, lotto-winners and such are doing it all the time. Handling money wisely is a skill you need to learn and master. That guy is in esports, so he is generally very risk-friendly, so chances are high that he is also investing and wasting his money on risky investments and potentially losing it.
I think these twitter gamers and celebs are smarter than mainstream athletes lotto winners in terms of higher IQ , and thus are better at personal finance and budgeting
Finance tends to be the opposite - limited information, long time horizons, optimal risk/rewards by going into poorly understood niches, and permanent failure making loose attachment and adaptability preferable to optimizing. While you can make the competitive gaming mindset work, it's an "attack dog" way of running your life.
And you can see a contrast between session based online gaming - which is what gets most of the Twitch viewers as alluded earlier - and MMOs, in the types of playstyle that "make it" competitively. While MMOs often reward persistent grinds, they can also reward creative ways of redefining the game's goals and mechanics to develop the game in a pro-social direction. You want to be in an MMO with other people who know how to make the game lively, not 1000 angry sweatlords chasing after the same leaderboard stat. So there are typically more ways to measure oneself, and more opportunities to do things like item trading arbitrage, which is directly financial in nature.
Re: Up all night with a Twitch millionaire
#214Imo we should be lauding this brand new sector and the folks that made it in it. Twitch/YouTube/TikTok literally created a new kind of millionaire. Are we just upset we're also not uber rich for playing video games all day? It's the same with crypto, OnlyFans, and so on. It was the same in '99 with the dot coms. Merely from an economic standpoint, it's interesting to see who these new industries are displacing (since…
The article mentions that Tyler makes $300k per year in merchandise alone (so excluding any actual sponsored content). Frankly I don't get why this can't be seen as a legitimate very successful business. Where is the line? Is entertainment only valid on TV? YouTube? Some commenters here even said that it's all good now but that it won't work in his thirties or something as if there aren't a ton of jobs out there that…
To support your point, acting, singing and writing are in a similar state, as are most media works. Creative media seems in particular its the area where the gulf between the successful and the well, not, is massive.
Re: Up all night with a Twitch millionaire
#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
The article mentions that Tyler makes $300k per year in merchandise alone (so excluding any actual sponsored content). Frankly I don't get why this can't be seen as a legitimate very successful business. Where is the line? Is entertainment only valid on TV? YouTube? Some commenters here even said that it's all good now but that it won't work in his thirties or something as if there aren't a ton of jobs out there that…
Not a real job is a quite good stance to take. Because there is an absurd power law at play here, the absolute top make a lot of money. In a "real job" you are paid a living wage, on twitch you are paid scraps if you don't make it to the top.
I know this because recently I ran into a few Instagram influencers with a low 6-figure followers, who get paid $1000+ per ad post. The ones I know have day jobs, Instagram is mostly extra income for them. I also know a blogger who is doing it fulltime and making upper middle class income from it.
The point is power law seems absurd because it is easy to start these things but very few people actually treat it like a job or a business. To me it seems those who treat it like a business have pretty high chance of making, at least, living wages from it.
Re: Up all night with a Twitch millionaire
#216Earlier quoted context omitted.
T90 was number 211 in the leaks. That is the top 0.003% of streamers.
Most people who have a twitch account are 'streamers'. I occasionally stream my desktop to show friends something - doesn't mean you should count me for that same list.
Re: Up all night with a Twitch millionaire
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
The article mentions that Tyler makes $300k per year in merchandise alone (so excluding any actual sponsored content). Frankly I don't get why this can't be seen as a legitimate very successful business. Where is the line? Is entertainment only valid on TV? YouTube? Some commenters here even said that it's all good now but that it won't work in his thirties or something as if there aren't a ton of jobs out there that…
>A lot of the comments point out that most people on Twitch/YouTube/OnlyFans don't make money and would be better off getting a "real job". To support your point, acting, singing and writing are in a similar state, as are most media works. Creative media seems in particular its the area where the gulf between the successful and the well, not, is massive.
I did some user interviews with streamers for a project. None were this successful; the people talked to ranged from making a decent living to having a day job and then doing streaming as a full-time second job.
Even the ones like Tyler were feeling the same strain he is. But the ones who seemed worst off were the ones who were putting in the same level of effort but making peanuts or were net negative on a cash basis. I remember one guy I talked to who said that he never talked to his old friends; everybody he spent time with now was a streamer because he didn't have time for anything else.
In contrast the actors I used to know seemed to have a much healthier relationship to their art. They were working hard and trying to make it, but I don't recall the same sense of ruthless grind I got from the streamers. Ditto the writers I know these days.
Re: Up all night with a Twitch millionaire
#218Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actually it's very easy to blow some millions. Sportspeople, lotto-winners and such are doing it all the time. Handling money wisely is a skill you need to learn and master. That guy is in esports, so he is generally very risk-friendly, so chances are high that he is also investing and wasting his money on risky investments and potentially losing it.
I think these twitter gamers and celebs are smarter than mainstream athletes lotto winners in terms of higher IQ , and thus are better at personal finance and budgeting
I've known plenty of smart people who were terrible with money, and plenty of average people who were very good at managing it. There's a huge gap between intellectual understanding and practical skill. And I've known some brilliant people whose brilliance made them confident the money would keep coming or that the usual dynamics didn't apply to them. Note, for example, that intelligent people are more likely to become addicts: https://bigthink.com/neuropsych/intelligent-people-drugs/
Re: Up all night with a Twitch millionaire
#219Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Imo we should be lauding this brand new sector I disagree. Twitch/YouTube/TikTok didn't create a new kind of millionaire. They're simply celebrities. The only thing that arguably changed is that content production is so cheap and saturated now that consumers get a lot more choice in terms of who they want to watch, without being constrained by TV schedules and other distribution/logistics limitations. There is no "…
> I disagree. Twitch/YouTube/TikTok didn't create a new kind of millionaire. They're simply celebrities. Yes and no. They are celebs, but definitely a new style of celebs. They are your average Joe, with barely any special skill. They could be your neighbor or the dude next to you in a supermarket, and you wouldn't know. Furthermore, they are millionaire working from home, growing from home, with average equipment an…
What's your evidence for this? I don't watch a ton of streaming, but to me it looks hard to do well. If they're truly average people, how do you explain the big differences in popularity?
Re: Up all night with a Twitch millionaire
#220Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is it laudable? Sure, we shouldn't be jealous of successful people, but why go to the other extreme? It surely won't help you have an unbiased stance on the phenomenon.
Exactly. Making money is fine as long as it is done in a moral and ethical way. Women showing their bodies on twitch and others so guys can drool over them? No thanks.