The platform of streaming the most popular currently, Twitch, has been free since the beginning of its existence. This means that streamers embarking on the adventure have nothing to pay, including for the use of the infrastructure made available. Instead, Twitch partners, those who stream the most regularly, must accept a system of revenue sharing on subscriptions, and of course on advertising.
The contract is simple: half of the income from subscriptions goes to Twitch, the other half to the streamer. Only a select few, at the start of the platform, had managed to negotiate a 70% share for them and 30% for Twitch. We know that these contracts no longer exist and are never offered again “for more than a year”, but at the same time the Amazon platform never went back on the contracts signed at the time. It will soon be done, as Dan Clancy announces in a press release:
“For streamers who benefit from this premium sharing, we will adjust the terms so that they retain the 70/30 for their first $100,000 in revenue in the year on subscriptions. Beyond $100,000, the split will revert to the standard 50/50. We’re announcing it now, but it won’t be effective until June 1, 2023.”
A dead loss for the most prominent streamers, who are also the richest. But Twitch promises that the compensation can be done without worry thanks to… advertising.
“The recent increase in ad revenue sharing to 55% as part of our Ads Incentive Program is a perfect solution for larger streamers to offset most, if not all, of this revenue loss.”
Problem: streamers will therefore have to resort more and more to advertisements. We told you about this phenomenon two years ago in an article dedicated to advertising and product placement on Twitch, and how streamers were encouraged to explore all possible sources of income.
In any case, the reason given by the platform is simple: equality between old and new streamers, but also the massive infrastructure cost generated by the popularity of streaming.
“Providing high definition with very low latency for a constant video stream to all corners of the planet is expensive. Using the public costs of Amazon Web Services’ Interactive Video Service, which are broadly those of Twitch, we can estimate that streaming 200 hours per month for 100 concurrent active users costs us $1000 per month. It’s not something we talk about regularly because our streamers shouldn’t have to worry about it. But to fully answer the question “why not generalize the 70/30”, we must not ignore the cost of infrastructure.”
Since the announcement a few minutes ago, big profiles have already reacted on social networks. This is the case of MisterMV, which saw this change coming and anticipated an increase in the use of advertising.
What I’ve been announcing for 3 years lol.
tldr: the site loses too much money, the partners benefiting from the 70%/30% will lose it in the long term (or short for the huge ones), compensated by shielding ads with custom offers and better rates on them. https:// t.co/tAJgBvM8gH
— mistermv (@mistermv) September 21, 2022
This is also the case of Zerator, who does not fail to say that a substantial part of his income will disappear, he who remunerates a company and not directly his person with Twitch.
20% reduction in my annual Twitch turnover from mid-2023 without us being able to discuss or do anything. And no, changing platforms is not viable and mounting one even less so. It was the right year to “transform” big projects huh ??? https://t.co/WelTPLujoz
—ZeratoR (@ZeratoR) September 21, 2022
During this time, youtube ad that there will no longer be a need to be a partner to monetize its streams on its platform.