A somewhat disingenuous article discussing a problem as old as the entertainment industry and painting it as Twitch being somehow uniquely exploitative.
> I hope I convinced you to mentally categorize the average hard-working streamer’s career hopes accurately — well into the lottery ticket territory.
98% of channels on Twitch aren't monetized. They don't get revenue share because they don't generate any revenue. The bar for monetization on Twitch is very low. So low that "the average hard-working streamer" should be able to meet it pretty easily. Among monetized channels the percentage making minimum wage is closer to 1.5% - very low, but not what I would call "lottery ticket territory".
It's also worth noting that at the time of the leak about 50% of active channels on Twitch were about a year old. It takes years to start seeing any sort of "real" money from entertainment, and that's not unique to streaming. The chart in the article showing distribution of earnings seems to show a pretty typical power distribution, which is to be expected in entertainment media.
I suppose, that in terms of Twitch monetization we can talk only about revenue from:
1. subscriptions
it takes only 250 tier 1 subscribers to reach that 15 000$/year, if we take into account, that twitch is taking 50% from charges
2. ads
This actually turns away all the casual watchers, who are not subscribing, but only donating. Subscribers do not see ads in most cases anyway, so there is not that much income for streamer.
3. bits
They were implemented to take away cut from donations. Not really useful, compared to other types of donations from paypal, patron or from donations that are going into cryptocurrencies wallets.
I'm very sceptical about that twitch streamers who do streaming as a serious job only get 15 000$/year(more like 15 000$/month would be more realistically, otherwise there would be not that many twitch thots who have switched from streaming in adult industry to twitch - their income numbers from streaming on twitch were posted to be in range of 60 000$ - 90 000$ per month, so they are not nowhere that poor, as those who are donating to them). For a well established streamer donations are rarely less than 100$ per stream. That makes very decent salary even for US.
PS only insane person can write with green ink article, to irritate anyone else who is trying to read that BS crap article.
It looks like a huge number to me. More than the percentage of people who play music making that money even, and music has been with us since the dawn of time, and has a huge industry. Twitch is just a streaming service.
Describing the shove sellers as LARPing content creation is very incisive. Funny how often the most successful are often selling "how to sell/create" or some fictional image of creation.
even the word "creator" these days often means someone making a podcast/youtube channel/mail list, instead of... you know someone who creates things those people talk about (engineers, film makers etc)
aahortwwy|4 years ago
> I hope I convinced you to mentally categorize the average hard-working streamer’s career hopes accurately — well into the lottery ticket territory.
98% of channels on Twitch aren't monetized. They don't get revenue share because they don't generate any revenue. The bar for monetization on Twitch is very low. So low that "the average hard-working streamer" should be able to meet it pretty easily. Among monetized channels the percentage making minimum wage is closer to 1.5% - very low, but not what I would call "lottery ticket territory".
It's also worth noting that at the time of the leak about 50% of active channels on Twitch were about a year old. It takes years to start seeing any sort of "real" money from entertainment, and that's not unique to streaming. The chart in the article showing distribution of earnings seems to show a pretty typical power distribution, which is to be expected in entertainment media.
nekcihc|4 years ago
1. subscriptions
it takes only 250 tier 1 subscribers to reach that 15 000$/year, if we take into account, that twitch is taking 50% from charges
2. ads
This actually turns away all the casual watchers, who are not subscribing, but only donating. Subscribers do not see ads in most cases anyway, so there is not that much income for streamer.
3. bits
They were implemented to take away cut from donations. Not really useful, compared to other types of donations from paypal, patron or from donations that are going into cryptocurrencies wallets.
I'm very sceptical about that twitch streamers who do streaming as a serious job only get 15 000$/year(more like 15 000$/month would be more realistically, otherwise there would be not that many twitch thots who have switched from streaming in adult industry to twitch - their income numbers from streaming on twitch were posted to be in range of 60 000$ - 90 000$ per month, so they are not nowhere that poor, as those who are donating to them). For a well established streamer donations are rarely less than 100$ per stream. That makes very decent salary even for US.
PS only insane person can write with green ink article, to irritate anyone else who is trying to read that BS crap article.
aahortwwy|4 years ago
Can't edit, but it's 92.8%. I typo'd it.
jimmydorry|4 years ago
RF_Savage|4 years ago
nradov|4 years ago
danudey|4 years ago
coldtea|4 years ago
TheRealNGenius|4 years ago
paulryanrogers|4 years ago
nsonha|4 years ago
Related https://www.swyx.io/meta-creator-ceiling
choclice|4 years ago
* passive income folks whose business is to teach passive income
* van lifers who earn by... selling the van life.
Ultimately they're profiting on the difference between reality and people's wishful thinking.
erulabs|4 years ago
mwattsun|4 years ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Fisher
vintermann|4 years ago
I wonder if this isn't true of e.g. Spotify as well.