Content creator Charlie ‘MoistCr1TiKal’ White believes it could just be a matter of time until YouTube overtakes Twitch as the top streaming platform if the Amazon-backed company doesn’t roll back some recent changes.
As 2023 draws near, the streaming war shows no signs of slowing down. With Mixer falling, Facebook Gaming continuing to struggle, and TikTok emerging as a new contender, two juggernauts continue to trade blows atop the pack: Twitch and YouTube.
The rival brands have been jostling for the top spot in recent years, improving the viewer experience, offering incentives, and locking many of the biggest names down with multi-year contracts. And while MoistCr1TiKal, a popular draw across both platforms, still believes “Twitch is the better platform at the moment,” he warns YouTube isn’t far off from taking the lead.
It all centers around recent changes on Twitch, changes that in his eyes, don’t quite benefit many of the leading personalities streaming there today. Namely, the September announcement on revenue split changes, dropping all streamers down to a 50/50 split on revenue opposed to the current 70/30 enjoyed by many top figures, could be the straw to break the camel’s back.
“It shows a very clear lack of understanding,” Moist said of this recent news during an appearance on the Trash Taste podcast. “Twitch is super bloated, they have so many engineers, but I can’t name anything good they’ve put out in the last five years.”
From his perspective, it seems illogical to drive new changes that impact streamer income: “You would think the last thing you want to target is the streamers.
“I looked it up recently, 76% of all Twitch traffic comes from the top 1% of streamers. Targeting them maybe pushes them to go to YouTube where it is [a 70/30 revenue split] and they usually get a bag for the switch. The last resort should be taking from the streamers.”
Not only are popular faces being pushed away, but Moist also claims new advertising schemes could spell doom for Twitch in the long run.
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“If they keep shoving so many ads in people’s faces… [Twitch is] going to get beaten by YouTube. The ads are outrageous.”
Moist discusses Twitch vs YouTube at the 1:02:12 mark below.
With such a heavy emphasis on ads, along with the revenue split decrease, it might not be long until the red brand takes over, according to Moist.
“They’re putting way too much focus on incentivizing streamers to run ads. By taking that split away, they keep hyping their ad incentive program to make up for it, which is super scummy.”
Only time will tell how everything plays out, but for now, Moist still isn’t going anywhere. Claiming Twitch is still the best platform for livestreams today, he’ll remain put. But for how long is anyone’s guess, if certain changes aren’t rolled back soon.
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