Twitch seems to be continuing to look for ways to boost revenue on the streaming platform. Paid boosts for streams could follow.
A possible new feature for Twitch is currently causing discussion among streamers. Allegedly, the platform is planning the option to boost a Steam. This would allow viewers to boost a channel for a certain amount of money and thus increase visibility and reach. Some influencers have already voiced their opinion, calling the concept a “terrible idea”. Especially smaller content creators could suffer from it.
💜 Paying for Discoverability 💜
..why it’s a problem pic.twitter.com/TneSw37yNu
— Harris Heller (@HarrisHeller) September 30, 2021
Harris Heller, the founder of StreamBeats, explained the negative aspects of the feature in a Twitter video on Thursday. In particular, “discoverability” would be further limited – that is, the discoverability of channels. “Paid boosting in itself is not a problem. The difference is that other platforms already have organic discoverability. We’ve been begging Twitch for years to implement some form of dsicoverability…”. Heller goes on to say Twitch would be very quick to add features that make the platform more money. They are not as quick with features that would help the entire community.
Presumably only all the already successful streamers:inside would be heavily boosted. Their large fan communities can spend more money on the boosts. Should Twitch really add the feature, some users would not be very happy with it and the boost would be another entry in the list of inappropriate decisions.
