PLATFORM UPDATE


Twitch has deemed most of us, irrelevant.

As a top 5 twitch creator in the world for 16.5 months straight, and currently a top 10 twitch creator in the world, I have a good understanding of twitch, its foundations, whether they be underground or mainstream, and the way everything works. Twitch pads the pockets of a handful of creators, and they are the only ones that won’t admit twitch’s negligence toward the majority of its streamers. I’ve always believed in Twitch and want to stream there, but they are going in the wrong direction. Twitch has built an empire off of our backs and has the audacity to spit in all of our faces by not only giving us no financial security, with its inconsistent policies, but by also cutting our pay in places that they have no right to cut. Twitch claims to be in one of the strongest positions ever, citing the highest viewership, sponsorship, and profitability in the history of the platform; despite their claims, streamers continuously get pay cut after pay cut. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. Twitch says they need to cut our pay because it costs too much to run a stream, but then they tell Amazon and the media that they are profitable and have more viewership and advertisers than ever. Whichever it is, it's obvious no benefits are being passed onto their creators who are the lifeblood of what made them successful in the first place.

Twitch takes the highest percentage split of any platform in the livestreaming world. At 50%, every streamer on Twitch will only receive $2.50 of each subscription, and less if they’re not in a first world country. I don’t believe it’s right to take such a high percentage of the work that a streamer does. Twitch does nearly no marketing for streamers, no discovery, and limited help in building their business. Those streamers only succeed from the blood, sweat, and time they put in themselves. Twitch’s only role is as a website host. Given their contribution, it is absurd that they take 50% of our income. A few months ago Twitch announced that the 70/30 splits streamers were hoping for are not coming. They said it’s too expensive to run their website and that those costs have to pass onto the creators. Yet platforms like Youtube maintain a 70/30 split on subscriptions without issue. But I think 70/30 is still not enough – and that we can do even better.

As most of you know, I've been working on a couple projects to make the live streaming world better. Today I want to announce one of those projects. I'm joining https://www.kick.com/ as a non-owner advisor and non-exclusive broadcaster. I will work with their team to help creators succeed where Twitch has failed them - starting with a 95% split of all subscriber income to creators.

I choose to work with Kick because their investors are willing to listen to creator input to make their platform better. Kick understands that a successful platform starts with a successful streamer. I've worked with their team already to create these benefits that no other platform has. These features will roll out in the near future:

- Everyone gets a sub button. 95%-5% subscriber split with 95% of all subscriber income going to the streamer.

- 100% of all tips made on Kick, called "kicks", will go to the streamer. Same day withdrawal.

- An innovative new exclusive creator program that will pay our partners for their stream's success. This program works like no partner program before. You won't have to rely on your subscriber count alone every month. You'll get a steady income based on hours watched and total viewers you stream to with an option to be paid out on the same day.

- A TOS designed to be fair to streamers with clear rules on what’s okay and not okay. No ambiguous bans. Kick’s current TOS will be completely updated. The new TOS will include rules governing ethical gambling. Fill balances must be disclosed. No wager locked giveaways, no code locked giveaways, and no lying to audiences regarding the reality of gambling’s losing nature.

- Plus many more features I will share on my next update via Twitter.

You will wonder how these splits are possible. Twitch has led people to believe that subscriptions are a big revenue driver for their company. That's why they tell creators they can't give them a 70/30 split. But subscriptions are a tiny amount of revenue for livestreaming websites. What drives revenue is ads.

Kick will partner with the world's leading advertisers to generate cash flow. I believe that creating the best incentives for creators will lead the best creators to Kick, and the best creators will bring the best advertisers. Kick will stand out because of how it takes care of its creators.

The platform is the beginning of a completely different approach to livestreaming. The platform is still in the building stages. Kick will roll out these features in the near future under my direction. I'm in constant communication with the ownership and developer team and I'm confident in their mission.

Be patient with Kick and give it time to develop. There will be bugs and issues, and this isn't a complete launch. I'll be running test streams alongside my Twitch streams starting today. It takes time to make a good platform and to be clear, this isn't a hard launch. Kick will add features and fix problems as they come up.

If you're a streamer reading this, give Kick at least a year to develop. Watch Kick's development and decide if it's the right platform for you. For that reason the Kick team and I are making Kick a baseline non-exclusive platform. We're putting the power into the streamers hands to decide if you want exclusivity or not. If you want to pursue exclusivity, we will offer additional paid options through our creator program.

Somewhere along the line, Twitch lost its grasp on reality. Twitch used to feel like a place made for us, by us. But Twitch built their empire off our backs and then forgot about us. They lost the reason Twitch became #1 in the first place. Kick's team and I have a vision to make a livestreaming platform that's actually built first for creators. Not just for Twitch's huge creators with paid contracts, but for the small and mid-sized creators who are the foundation and backbone of all livestreaming platforms. We'll bring livestreaming back to what it was before Twitch lost its way. An authentic experience between viewers and streamers.

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