Twitch is being slammed over a new feature that lets streamers “give back” to their communities by sending their money back to the platform.
On May 20, Twitch announced that it was testing a new program where streamers can buy Bits and gift subs with the money they make from broadcasting.
“Give back to your community or support other streamers you love using your spendable balance,” the platform said.
However, streamers and viewers on the Amazon-owned site were a bit baffled by this, especially because of how Twitch’s revenue split works, arguing that it could just end up generating more money for the platform.
Streamers accuse Twitch of “double taxing” them with new feature
Immediately after the announcement was made, streamers began to argue that Twitch supposedly benefits more from this than viewers.
“Wait, so: Chat donates 100 -> 50 goes to Twitch. Creator uses the other 50 -> 25 goes to Twitch. So 75 to Twitch, 25 to creators & community?” streamer Sir Hans Vader questioned. “Are you high?”
“You get double taxed (by Twitch) on your money viewers give you,” another said. “Smaller content creators will be getting less payouts if they use this feature which means Twitch doesn’t have to pay as many processing fees.”
“So people gift subs to support creators and you take 50%, then creators use their cut to buy bits or gift subs to support others and then Twitch takes ANOTHER 50%? That’s basically double taxing lmao,” commented ABYSS.
Kick co-founder Trainwreck also chimed in, accusing the platform of having streamers in a “a perpetual Stockholm syndrome.”
However, Twitch stars Knut and Nmp disagreed, pointing out that Twitch wasn’t making anyone use the feature.
“I see a lot of people complaining. Just don’t use the money on Twitch if you don’t want to. No one is forcing you…. Stop complaining about things that isn’t a problem,” Knut said.
“I think people at this point just enjoy complaining about sh*t that don’t matter in the slightest,” Nmp added.
We’ll have to see if Twitch decides to make some changes to how this feature is implemented to make it more appealing to creators.
Currently, it’s only available in the US, but the platform intends to extend access to other countries throughout 2025. This feature also comes as streamers have reported their ad revenue being at an “all-time low.”
Content shared from www.dexerto.com.