Twitch pricing is outrageous. There, I said it.
To subscribe to a streamer you can choose
Tier 1 - $4.99
Tier 2 - $9.99
Tier 3 - $24.99
Let us ignore Tier 2 & 3 as just fantasy land. Let's look at Tier 1.
For $4.99 per month you can remove the adverts, get access to 'emotes' and if the streamer happens to have it on, use 'subscriber chat'. That's the value proposition. For one account, for one streamer. If you wish to subscribe to more streamers, the price keeps going linearly so subscribe to just 3 streamers and you are paying $14.97 per month. To watch 3 different people in their bedrooms play computer games, yawn and eat their dinners.
I would also argue that for $4.99 per month you could instead get Apple's new streaming service. Which is an account for the entire family and has millions of dollars of new content such as Jason Momoa in 'See'. How does a streamer compete with that?
Its a direct competitor. Same price, wants my eyeballs.
Clearly I can't subscribe to everything. I need to make choices. Netflix, Amazon Prime, Apple TV+, Disney TV etc etc. Why do I choose a streamer on Twitch? And how the hell are any of them worth $4.99?
I don't understand why Twitch would have such a stupid business model. If it was $4.99 for Twitch ... ie the entire site and I get to watch ad-free for $4.99 ... OK, if I'm spending enough time there, that might be worth it. Apple TV vs Twitch ... sure ... they could both be worth $4.99. But a single streamer? This is madness. And I think deeply unfair on the streamers. To expect them to generate $4.99 worth of content per month.
"Hey, woman in her bedroom who bodypaints herself on Twitch, Disney just added all their Marvel back catalogue, their national geographic documentaries, their stars wars and Pixar content and all the Disney films and cartoons for me to watch this month. Just $6.99. What are you going to do to compete this month?"
How can it be that 2 streamers cost more that Netflix?
Netflix is 24/7. A streamer needs to sleep, take days off, have holidays. Let's say they stream a staggering 60 hours a week ... well my new Apple TV+ account is available 108 hours a week more! Most of the time, a streamers account isn't even on ... their channel is off ... a channel I might be paying $4.99 a month for. And why would I be interested in watching a single individual for say 20 hours a week unless I had a weird obsession with them? If I'm only watching 5 hours a week I'm not really getting my money's worth, am I?
Now there is the argument that you are 'supporting' the streamer. Sure. Why can't I do that via donations? Why is the subscribe 'support' the 50% goes to Twitch bit? Am I supporting Twitch? A multi-billion dollar platform whose parent company is Amazon? Surely amazon doesn't need my 'support'. If I'm just supporting I can donate, like I would to a busker.
I do not see how Twitch can scale under this model. Sure, there will always be people who will pay over the odds as money isn't really an object. But for most people it is. If you were going to subscribe to say 3 streamers a month and throw $15 at twitch every month, now I have to choose 3 streamers? And stay committed to those ones and only watch those ones for a whole month? The entire thing is bizarre. It is like being subscribed to Netflix and only being allowed to watch Breaking Bad and absolutely nothing else for $4.99 and if I want to watch say Sense8 ... another $4.99 and then I want to watch Orange is the New Black ... yup another $4.99.
Twitch should either be $4.99 for access to the whole site and you can tip streamers individually, or you set the price to what they are actually worth. About $0.10 a month each.
Even at $0.99 I could almost say "expensive for what it is, but its only $0.99 and I might watch say 5 streamers regularly a month and 5 bucks ... fine". But I'm not paying $25 a month to watch 5 different streamers.
And if you are reading this thinking "just watch with the adverts" then you aren't someone who has ever tried to watch Twitch and been smashed with 5 ads on the bounce every 5 mins. And its not like TV where the program stops during the adverts. Oh no. The stream goes on only you can't follow it until the ads are over.
Twitch is a stupid business model that vastly over-prices and puts unrealistic pressure on streamers to deliver content, that is just impossible for them to compete with other streaming services. Prove me wrong.