Twitch is Limiting Streamers To 100 hours of Highlights and Uploads (theverge.com) 22
Twitch is planning to cull some of the content archived by streamers to save on storage costs. From a report: On Wednesday the streaming platform announced that it will introduce a 100-hour storage cap for Highlights and Uploads starting April 19th, warning that users will have their content automatically deleted until it falls below the limit.
Twitch says it's doing this because "Highlights haven't been very effective in driving discovery or engagement," and it isn't worth the cost of storing thousands of hours of such content. Twitch is owned by Amazon, a market-leading cloud storage provider -- a detail that hasn't gone unnoticed by streamers criticizing the decision.
Twitch says it's doing this because "Highlights haven't been very effective in driving discovery or engagement," and it isn't worth the cost of storing thousands of hours of such content. Twitch is owned by Amazon, a market-leading cloud storage provider -- a detail that hasn't gone unnoticed by streamers criticizing the decision.
Making Twitch less useful (Score:3)
Twitch has this mistaken belief that people don't watch old content. Clearly they do not want to be youtube, so you can't upload thousands of hours of past VOD's, and they expire broadcasts after 7, 14(affiliates) or 60 days (Twitch Turbo), so they are basically doing a lot to erode their platform's discoverability and only favoring live content.
You know why they are doing this though? Because it's easier to deal with copyright claims if you just make all content disappear.
Expect next year they will start booting partners who aren't streaming 25 hours a month across 12 days. They want live content, not people to stream once and collecting "subs" once a month.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Youtube is a better platform to archive VODs, and the shorts feature is a great fit for stream clips IMHO.
Youtube is better for shorts, yes, definitely. Not so much for highlights.
In fact Youtube has a Prohibition against reused content. [google.com]
Examples of content not allowed in Youtube videos:
Compilations or clips edited together with little or no narrative (examples include movies, sports, or gameplay)
Short videos compiled from other social media
Content that gets views from mostly non-verbal reactions to your
Re: (Score:2)
Twitch has access to actual usage statistics, and after getting an MBA and years of relevant experience, they have employees whose full time job is doing cost/benefit analysis on storing old videos. You are some IT professional in his 50s who enjoys watching "Battlestar Galactica." Be a little more humble, you really have no idea about the internal business decisions of Twitch!
Re: (Score:2)
So what you're saying is someone who has years of experience seeing the same things being done over and over and expecting different results, is less qualified than some hack MBA who thinks they can find value in a video stream.
Not to mention having the patience to watch a multi-year production and keep track of all the plot lines without needing to refer to anything online.
Re: (Score:2)
The thing about putting middle manager accountant types in charge of twitch ("employees whose full time job is doing cost/benefit analysis on storing old videos") is that they will aim for the largest, cheepest chunk of their audiance while cutting out the small sectors of their audiance.
Twitch already does this in a lot of ways, like giving money to the big streamers while ignoring the smaller ones who do more esoteric stuff.
This is the kind of decision made by a lot of companies these days. "Screw everyon
Re: (Score:2)
Lol. Nailed it.
It's shocking to some that decisions can be made based on data, rather than "feelings".
Re: (Score:2)
The whole point of twitch is live streaming. The key word is "live". In other words, if your job is "content creator - streamer" then it's your job to upload new content regularly.
Expiring content after a week is a way to do this - you're supposed to broadcast your gaming sessions. It's not a VOD service
Twitch is more of a live TV service where you can watch people play games now. They have limited DVR capabilities. If you're someone who wants to have recordings of your sessions for later playback, then you
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Twitch has this mistaken belief that people don't watch old content.
Twitch is in cost cutting mode, not in innovation mode.
They aren't trying to make a good thing, they are trying to make a profit.
Is it just me... (Score:2)
Or does Amazon seem to be taking a machete to its offerings lately?
Re: (Score:2)
The continuing austerity is concerning.
Re: (Score:2)
Yep. Trying to squeeze more money out on delivering less. They just advance their enshittification state, really.
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe Twitch found out how much AWS storage costs.
I bet (Score:2)
I bet that a "paid/unlimited" tier will appear shortly.
Twitch showing they don't understand highlights (Score:1)
It's amazing how if you don't give people a way to search through old content effectively, or some way to browse highlights, people don't use it.
If people had a way to post highlights, clips, and other things, stuff it into a feed like youtube or tiktok, and twitch would be doing better.
Right now, twitch is all about kingmaking. Whoever has the most views gets the most promotion, so if your channel is behind, it will never catch up.
The only way to grow on twitch is grow somewhere else, then move those peopl
Re: (Score:2)
It's amazing how if you don't give people a way to search through old content effectively, or some way to browse highlights, people don't use it.
Streamers definitely made Twitch aware of this...but, I'd agree with a previous poster, in that Twitch has the actual data, and has a better idea of what is going on than viewers or streamers.
If they're streaming enough to have over 100hrs of highlights....then they're streaming enough that they have fresh content on a regular basis.
It may actually benefit smaller streamers....rather than viewers wasting time on old content, they might do more channel hopping...which could result in more subscriptions?
I dun
Re: (Score:2)
in that Twitch has the actual data, and has a better idea of what is going on than viewers or streamers.
No. Twitch has more data, but they have mostly no clue what it means, Because they are MBAs not scientists, and they are out of touch with their own community, so they cannot properly interpret the data they do have Nor are they qualified to attempt to assess the validity of their interpretation. For example, they're all gung ho about how less than 0.5% of active streamers would be effected.
No shit
Twitch will do as it is told (Score:2)
Twitch will do as it's users want or it will perish.
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed. The less they deliver, the more the content creators will look for alternatives. And those will appear.