Twitch boss explains why they’re sticking with the 70/30 split cap

A few weeks ago, in a lengthy blog post, Twitch President Dan Clancy clarified why the top Twitch streamers from mid-2023 significantly less money from subscribers will take. Anyone who earns more than $100,000 a year no longer benefits from 70 percent of the subscription income, but only from 50 percent. The main reason Clancy cited was the high cost of running the site. Delivering always-on, high-resolution, low-latency live video anywhere in the world costs a lot of money. Money that the live streaming platform under Amazon apparently no longer has.

The Washington Post’s Nathan Grayson had the opportunity to to speak to Twitch’s Chief Monetization Officer Mike Minton and asked the obvious question that many were asking when discussing the end of the 70/30 split: “Why can’t the multi-billion parent company Amazon, which provides the servers for the streaming platform, simply bear the costs? ” The answer to that is rather sobering.

Twitch sticks to 70/30 split cap

“It’s not so much about the change for current streamers,” Minton said. “It’s more about the other streamers who now feel like they are losing something they can no longer achieve. That leads to the question why don’t we just give 70/30 to everyone, right? We’ve looked at all possibilities to do that. Ultimately, those options weren’t practical for us.”

Minton knows what streamers are getting at, but he doesn’t think it’s quite that simple. “[Es ist] like, ‘You are part of Amazon. Of course you should be able to pay 70 percent,” Minton said. “The reality is that as an Amazon-owned company, we have the same expectations as the rest of the Amazon ecosystem: we are a sustainable, viable, long-term company. but the part that often gets lost in this discussion is that Amazon invests and the [Twitch]-Community has a lot of resources available through the Prime subscription puts.”

Twitch’s offerings are designed to offset the 70/30 split cap

Minton understands Twitch streamers’ frustration, but believes the platform’s other offerings make up for it. “I get it,” he said. “We don’t know all the details [über die Kosten für den Betrieb von Twitch] so that the community trusts us 100 percent.

Streamers should earn more money with super chats in the future. The feature is currently still being tested.

Source: help.twitch.tv

Delivering high-resolution, low-latency video around the globe is expensive. … But when you take that and all the teams investing in improving streamer engagement with the community, tools for growth, security and of course what we do on the monetization side, then 50 /50 the default agreement.”

Minton echoed last year’s big Twitch refrain: Advertising is the way of the future, for better or for worse. “I think we’re very focused on getting the pie bigger and making sure streamers make more money, because when streamers make more money, we make more money,” he said. “Advertising is a big part of it.”

The end of pre-rolls?

Minton’s current Therefore, the goal is to eliminate the ads that appear when viewers visit a channel for the first timeand which can keep them from staying and giving new streamers a chance.

“No one wants a pre-roll promotion when trying to find a new streamer,” Minton said. “So we need to remove ads from the discovery experience so more people can find the streamers they want to find – and most importantly, so the smaller streamers don’t feel disadvantaged by pre-rolls.”