Popular streamer xQc said the recent increase in monetization options on Twitch on his broadcast doesn’t necessarily take away from the platform’s main experience. The streamer was reading a recent report from Bloomberg’s Cecilia D’Anastasio, in which several former employees and executives condemned Twitch’s recent corporate direction and monetization.
On a March 4 stream, xQc read through the report, which revealed more than 300 employees and six top-level executives had departed from Twitch in the past year. Former executive Marcus “DJ Wheat” Graham faulted the company’s traditional approach, recruiting new employees who shared little interest in Twitch’s community. Other unnamed former Twitch staff mentioned recent backlash from endeavors to expand monetization options as another example of the site’s growing disconnect from its audience.
xQc, the single most subscribed to channel on Twitch, seemed to disagree that increased approaches to monetization would harm the platform. While the streamer admitted that the “exodus” of Twitch staff could pose a big problem, he said he did not believe that monetization necessarily came at the cost of Twitch’s core experience.
“I feel like overall, monetizing some features or adding more monetization doesn’t really take away from the main experience on the website,” the former OWL pro said. “If you degrade and erode the main experience that people had because of these tools, then yeah, that makes sense, but if not, then no.”
XQc brought up an example to emphasize his point. Though the presence of advertisements may have increased on the platform, xQc rebutted with Twitch’s introduction of picture-by-picture, which still allows viewers to watch the stream while ads run.
The Bloomberg report mentions increased monetization as one in a long list of controversial aspects within Twitch leadership, which also include a growing dissonance in the top levels and empathy problems. As far as concerns monetization, however, one of the highest earners in the platform finds it defensible as long as it’s not disruptive.
