Twitch has been having it rough lately. The Amazon owned streaming site has seen lots of controversy over the past few years. From the banning of Dr. Disrespect to a huge data breach back in October. Even with all this going on, some have questioned does streaming count as a job.
For a lot of people the answer is a clear yes. And with Twitch, they are able to support their families and stream full time to make a living for themselves. Well according to Bloomberg, Twitch may be considering a pay cut to its top paid partners, lowering their cut from 70% to 50%. These are just from the top producers, as most new partners start with a 50/50 spilt and it stays that way. Twitch is thinking about offsetting some of that cost by allowing tiers to the partner program and allowing partners the option to stream on other platforms.
This is all in an effort to focus on ad revenue form the biggest streamers on the site. The plan is to pay partners $100 for 2 minutes of ads per hour, which is an improvement from the previous $3-$5 dollars per 1000 ad impressions. This would only affect those with a big audience, as smaller streamers wont see much in the way of revenue.
Ads on Twitch has been met with controversy as the site is watched live and ads interrupt the flow of the stream and could cause fans to miss out on memorable game moments. But if Twitch wants to stick around as a contender, then it has to focus on it business.
