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TwitchAdSolutions – Blocking Twitch Ads

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Re: TwitchAdSolutions – Blocking Twitch Ads

#101

Post by grayhatter »

TechSquidTV wrote: post #71
leetharris wrote: post #61

Why don't people just pay the $10/month if you consume enough for ads to annoy you? I really don't get the extreme amount of effort people put into adblocking for services that have a paid alternative. People have this expectation of all these internet services being free which is wild to me. It costs an enormous amount of bandwidth to run Twitch. It is still not profitable because it's such a hard business model to…

People are entitled and constantly fed rhetoric online that it is morally acceptable to steal by blocking ads. As a YouTube content creator, who makes educational tech videos, I have seen my share of complaints because I dare to take a sponsorship. People simply do not assign value to digital goods, they are seen as free by default.

Nice strawman you got there, would be a shame if someone had a different reason.

10 USD is too much to charge for ad free twitch. I don't WANT to support twitch, their reputation and brand isn't stellar.

They're probably one of the least awful, but I have better places to spend my money. Like the content creators on twitch. I begrudgingly pay twitch to support the streamers I watch and care about. but 10$ so streamers can get none of that... pass, if I care about the streamer, I'll unmute the small window, if I don't I'll close twitch.

Until adtech companies start acting more ethically as a rule. They deserve no consideration. Bad behavior might not excuse bad behavior, but it obviously encourages it.

Re: TwitchAdSolutions – Blocking Twitch Ads

#102

Post by Zambyte »

koube wrote: post #85
ben_jones wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because eventually premium users will get ads too as we are seeing with many other streaming services. First it’s pay, no ads. Then it’s higher tier for no ads. Then it’s higher tier no ads but watch a trailer at the beginning. Then it’s higher tier and ads.

You're refusing to pay for a product today based on what they might do in the future? Does the future possibility degrade today's product? Can't you just cancel your subscription if ads start showing up?

> Does the future possibility degrade today's product?

In some cases, yes. I specifically don't use Spotify in part because I can possibly lose access to my playlists and music I listen to in the future. Building a music collection is a big part of listening to music for me, so the future possibilities of the service actually degrade todays product.

I don't watch streams so I don't have any input on Twitch, but I could imagine someone having a similar outlook.

Re: TwitchAdSolutions – Blocking Twitch Ads

#103

Post by grayhatter »

cooper_ganglia wrote: post #3

I hate how Twitch puts over a minute of pre-roll ads before you can start watching a stream. They should at least wait 60 seconds, I can't imagine how many people have chosen not to catch a new stream because they'd immediately have to sit through over a minute of ads before even getting to any content.

research shows most, they do it to manipulate streamers into constantly running ads for everyone.

Re: TwitchAdSolutions – Blocking Twitch Ads

#104

Post by [deleted] »

leetharris wrote: post #61

Why don't people just pay the $10/month if you consume enough for ads to annoy you? I really don't get the extreme amount of effort people put into adblocking for services that have a paid alternative. People have this expectation of all these internet services being free which is wild to me. It costs an enormous amount of bandwidth to run Twitch. It is still not profitable because it's such a hard business model to…

[deleted]

Re: TwitchAdSolutions – Blocking Twitch Ads

#105

Post by bardak »

finnthehuman wrote: post #92
nerdjon wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a viewer I disagree, I would much rather sit and wait 60 seconds in the beginning than to start watching something just for my stream to randomly be stopped for an ad. Since it's live, it isn't like the video will just pick back up where you were. I realize ads could still play during, but if we could make it only in the beginning (or the streamer could say, I am taking a break and trigger an ad, that would be bet…

Also they don’t have a player that can move between live and VOD like YouTube’s. If it were easier to jump back to before the ad and play at 1.25 until you catch up it’d probably be less annoying to the users.

This is a big reason that I will watch a stream on Youtube if a streamer simulcasts on both. The Youtube player is just such a better experience than Twitch's and I already pay for Youtube premium so I can also avoid ads.

Re: TwitchAdSolutions – Blocking Twitch Ads

#106

Post by bardak »

internet101010 wrote: post #55
jsheard wrote: post #2

It's incredible how much effort Twitch puts into bypassing adblockers, compared to how little effort they put into actually selling ad space. At any given time they have maybe 2 or 3 different ads in rotation, and they often resort to running ads for other Amazon services because they don't have enough real ad sales to fill the ad breaks. There was a months-long period where 95% of the ads I saw were one of two diffe…

It's incredible how many Twitch viewers don't even know that Twitch Turbo exists, and that Twitch itself has done an terrible job of promoting it. Twitch is impossible to watch with ads.

My theory is that they would rather get more individual streamer subs for $5 and the streams do all the advertising for these for them as a plus.

Re: TwitchAdSolutions – Blocking Twitch Ads

#107

Post by mariusor »

koube wrote: post #85
ben_jones wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because eventually premium users will get ads too as we are seeing with many other streaming services. First it’s pay, no ads. Then it’s higher tier for no ads. Then it’s higher tier no ads but watch a trailer at the beginning. Then it’s higher tier and ads.

You're refusing to pay for a product today based on what they might do in the future? Does the future possibility degrade today's product? Can't you just cancel your subscription if ads start showing up?

Frankly they already did it once. If you had a subscription you used to not get any ads on any streams, since about a year they reneged on that, and a subscription grants you no ads *only on the subscribed channel.

Re: TwitchAdSolutions – Blocking Twitch Ads

#108

Post by koube »

Zambyte wrote: post #102
koube wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're refusing to pay for a product today based on what they might do in the future? Does the future possibility degrade today's product? Can't you just cancel your subscription if ads start showing up?

> Does the future possibility degrade today's product? In some cases, yes. I specifically don't use Spotify in part because I can possibly lose access to my playlists and music I listen to in the future. Building a music collection is a big part of listening to music for me, so the future possibilities of the service actually degrade todays product. I don't watch streams so I don't have any input on Twitch, but I cou…

I don't use my twitch account ever anymore but I don't think there is really the same concept in twitch. I think most people probably watch 1-2 of their favorite streamers since watching streams is already such an incredibly time intensive activity. The most active someone can get is probably clipping short videos and curating clips.

I don't think you lose access to any of this when you unsubscribe, I think you just start seeing ads again when watching the live stream.

Re: TwitchAdSolutions – Blocking Twitch Ads

#109

Post by yuck39 »

Miner49er wrote: post #68
leetharris wrote: post #61

Why don't people just pay the $10/month if you consume enough for ads to annoy you? I really don't get the extreme amount of effort people put into adblocking for services that have a paid alternative. People have this expectation of all these internet services being free which is wild to me. It costs an enormous amount of bandwidth to run Twitch. It is still not profitable because it's such a hard business model to…

Their ad-free is $11.99/month.

It used to be $8.99/month. I was a pretty casual twitch viewer and I paid for it then. When they announced the move to 11.99/month I didn't re-up it and I just don't watch twitch now.

Funny how that $3/month was just enough for me to decide it was no longer worth it.

Re: TwitchAdSolutions – Blocking Twitch Ads

#110

Post by jerojero »

azemetre wrote: post #35
loceng wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd think or hope they'd be tracking, A/B testing to see how this goes - and I wonder if incentives are perfectly aligned between Twitch's profits-costs and of the streamers they have to share ad revenues with?

It might also give worse insights on how you interpret the data. I'd imagine that those with huge followers/events will have most people grit through the ads. I myself do this when watching esports tournaments. I don't mind the pre-roll because I'll be there for 30+ minutes. But as you and the other poster mentioned, that wouldn't necessarily be true for smaller streamers. In fact I share the sentiments posted elsewh…

If you do A/B testing you should be trying to control as many variables as possible.

It makes sense for twitch, given its skewed distribution, to compare the behaviour of users engaging with the different types of streamers.

Under this logic, I presume they might actually see that engagement is not substantially harmed for big time streamers while getting actually millions of views on their ads as opposed to engagement harmed for low viewership streamers who don't really give the platform much money anyway.

I think it's a flaw in your thinking to assume twitch might have the interests of small streamers in mind. They probably don't. Once a big streamer retires, another takes their place. The viewership remains.

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