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On Twitch, you can never log off

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Re: On Twitch, you can never log off

#181

Post by Semaphor »

agileAlligator wrote: post #132
Semaphor wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think you really get donations on YouTube? And her whole stream is very interaction based, there have even been multiple parties where local (= Australian) viewers were visiting and the whole event being livestreamed.

> I don’t think you really get donations on YouTube Youtube recently introduced a membership function, I don't know how exactly it works but should be something along those lines

That’s subscription money, not donations. Those are mainly a live stream thing.

Re: On Twitch, you can never log off

#182

Post by PurpleRamen »

Nursie wrote: post #164
SilverBirch wrote: post #155

This whole thing is eurgh. Yes, this business is toxic for creators, but it's largely toxic for creators because it's monetizing a toxic product. Twitch is like a low cost off-ramp for having friends. The better, well adjusted version of twitch is that you log on to xbox, playstation or PC, hit up your friends and play some games and chat. That's the ideal. Then everything tumbles out from there, people without the t…

The parasocial nature of it is a bit concerning and (to me) deeply weird. I went to a presentation by a couple of streamers at an event a few months ago, aimed at people wanting to learn a little more about it or get into it themselves. They referred to the people in the chat as 'chat' but warned never to use that word in the stream, instead have a cute name for it. One always called them her "besties" which helps gi…

> They referred to the people in the chat as 'chat' but warned never to use that word in the stream, instead have a cute name for it.

Strange advice. Pretty much all Streamers I know, call their viewers chat. How big on twitch were those people speaking there? What kind of content did they made? Calling viewers by a cute name makes the impression of being more on the abusive side of community-interaction, or having a very young community which does not understand yet the parasocial relation.

Re: On Twitch, you can never log off

#183

Post by Semaphor »

oneoff786 wrote: post #178
Semaphor wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's like saying "we won" when your favorite sports team wins. Which is commonly said, yes.

You might say we won the game. You would never say “we” got xx million viewers or any sort of commercial achievement.

At this point, I’m going to keep doing that even for streams I don’t mod, just because it seems to really annoy people ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Re: On Twitch, you can never log off

#184

Post by SilverBirch »

scrollaway wrote: post #162
SilverBirch wrote: post #155

This whole thing is eurgh. Yes, this business is toxic for creators, but it's largely toxic for creators because it's monetizing a toxic product. Twitch is like a low cost off-ramp for having friends. The better, well adjusted version of twitch is that you log on to xbox, playstation or PC, hit up your friends and play some games and chat. That's the ideal. Then everything tumbles out from there, people without the t…

So your whole thesis is based on this nonsensical idea that the only reason people come to twitch is because they’re too socially maladjusted to play video games themselves? What the actual what? I don’t watch twitch streams as often as I used to because I’m low on time running like four different businesses these days, but I always enjoy experiencing games through the shoes of somebody else. I get to discover a game…

Yes, what you are describing is how you use Twitch as a person who Twitch makes no money from. That's fine! I'm not saying that every Twitch user is this one type of person.

You're the type of customer who will take an uber to the airport once every 6 months, that's not problematic, but it's not something uber can build a business on top of.

In the same way, you're not engaging with Twitch in a way that Twitch actually cares about from a business perspective, they can't show you 50 adverts a day and elicit $500 of donations each year. My comment is about the business model Twitch needs to actually run as a profitable large scale business. Twitch needs to operate at a scale where they impact the P&L of Amazon. It needs to sit next to the P&L of Amazon Prime Video and Audible and not be laughed at.

Re: On Twitch, you can never log off

#185

Post by Adverblessly »

wruza wrote: post #157

Technical note out of purely personal experience: platforms suck at managing subscriptions (ux-wise) when you’re a viewer, so I unsubscribe if there is no content for a while. I don’t do this for websites. I have hundreds of bookmarks which I reorganize a couple of times a year and may visit when I have nothing to do. But I never had hundreds of e.g. youtube subscriptions, because youtube ui just sucks. I cannot cate…

YouTube supports RSS for both Channels and Playlists[1] , so my YouTube "subscriptions" are all just RSS subscriptions. I don't ever even visit YouTube while signed in. You can also create subscriptions for Twitch VODs via the unofficial twitchrss.appspot.com

This then lets me organize my "subscriptions" in a nice UI :)

[1] - They used to, but AFAICT no longer support setting a urlparam of order when fetching the RSS feed of a playlist. For some playlists the natural ordering is chronological, but for some it is reverse chronological, so RSS only works for "half" of playlists...

Re: On Twitch, you can never log off

#186

Post by jeanchen »

scrollaway wrote: post #162
SilverBirch wrote: post #155

This whole thing is eurgh. Yes, this business is toxic for creators, but it's largely toxic for creators because it's monetizing a toxic product. Twitch is like a low cost off-ramp for having friends. The better, well adjusted version of twitch is that you log on to xbox, playstation or PC, hit up your friends and play some games and chat. That's the ideal. Then everything tumbles out from there, people without the t…

So your whole thesis is based on this nonsensical idea that the only reason people come to twitch is because they’re too socially maladjusted to play video games themselves? What the actual what? I don’t watch twitch streams as often as I used to because I’m low on time running like four different businesses these days, but I always enjoy experiencing games through the shoes of somebody else. I get to discover a game…

Agreed. One of the first times I encountered Twitch IRL was in the laundry room of my apartment building, where a neighbor who I knew had a young child was watching a streamer play a game while he did the laundry. Good for him, I thought.

I started watching Twitch when I started working remotely several years ago. It's good for background noise, keeping up with games that I can't justify spending money or time on, and sometimes good for a little chitchat. Some people will have an unhealthy relationship with it but to go back to the musician analogy, this doesn't seem too different from obsessive Beatles or Elvis fans. (Or Justin Bieber or Taylor Swift fans, etc.) They will always exist. I'm happy to support someone with beer money for this little bit of entertainment.

Re: On Twitch, you can never log off

#187

Post by warent »

SilverBirch wrote: post #184
scrollaway wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So your whole thesis is based on this nonsensical idea that the only reason people come to twitch is because they’re too socially maladjusted to play video games themselves? What the actual what? I don’t watch twitch streams as often as I used to because I’m low on time running like four different businesses these days, but I always enjoy experiencing games through the shoes of somebody else. I get to discover a game…

Yes, what you are describing is how you use Twitch as a person who Twitch makes no money from. That's fine! I'm not saying that every Twitch user is this one type of person. You're the type of customer who will take an uber to the airport once every 6 months, that's not problematic, but it's not something uber can build a business on top of. In the same way, you're not engaging with Twitch in a way that Twitch actual…

it seems many people read way too far into this with a distorted "back in my day!" mentality.

I watch twitch nearly every day and subscribe to (pay) a couple of streamers.

You know what I don't watch? TV. Cable, satellite, or otherwise.

This is simply modern entertainment. Streamers are professional entertainers. As for the people who seem to have a parasocial relationship--none of this is new. In my childhood I had a parasocial relationship with MacGyver and He-Man. Some grown men of questionable stability had it with Brittany Spears or whatever.

The only new thing is the platform. Everything else is just humans being humans as always.

Re: On Twitch, you can never log off

#188

Post by [deleted] »

langsoul-com wrote: post #101
Retric wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fame is often fleeting which pushes people to try and save for a rainy day even if they are pulling in 6 figures. Adam Ragusea a quite successful YouTuber mentioned being quite burned out because he was doing almost everything for his videos, but said he’s also got 1 million in savings from a job that could go away at any time. For a 40 year old with a family that means a lot if things fall apart. At the other end Ha…

Hacksmith isn't the best counter example. Because he accidentally built himself a business and team that can fully operate without him. And he, the business owner, would still earn revenue.

[deleted]

Re: On Twitch, you can never log off

#189

Post by MomoXenosaga »

vimwizard wrote: post #53

I think a more interesting story would be about the people that grind for years and years and never make it. You're left without a useful skill and no money, and probably a deficit on your mental health because you didn't go out and talk to people in real life for years. I think its not at all worth getting into as a career because making it big is like starting out as an actor, you have to know people. If you hit it…

I disagree on the low barrier.

Twitch is entertainment. You are a professional actor and clown. It's a real job just as hosting the Daily Show is a real job.

Re: On Twitch, you can never log off

#190

Post by SilverBirch »

warent wrote: post #187
SilverBirch wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, what you are describing is how you use Twitch as a person who Twitch makes no money from. That's fine! I'm not saying that every Twitch user is this one type of person. You're the type of customer who will take an uber to the airport once every 6 months, that's not problematic, but it's not something uber can build a business on top of. In the same way, you're not engaging with Twitch in a way that Twitch actual…

it seems many people read way too far into this with a distorted "back in my day!" mentality. I watch twitch nearly every day and subscribe to (pay) a couple of streamers. You know what I don't watch? TV. Cable, satellite, or otherwise. This is simply modern entertainment. Streamers are professional entertainers. As for the people who seem to have a parasocial relationship--none of this is new. In my childhood I had…

The amount of MacGuyver content you got over the original 7 year run is about the same amount of content that a popular Twitch Streamer will put out in about 7 weeks. And MacGyver won't read your comment in chat and respond to you. It's a vastly different situation. Not least because in 1985 when the original Macguyver came out the entire television viewing population of the US were watching a handful of networks. Now the economics mean that there are 100,000x as many content creators to support, creating content at 52x the previous rate. So are we expecting revenue per viewer to be 5,200,000x times higher? Because that's the ratio of the content being produced.
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