[Music]
youtube
is by far superior to twitch i could get
controversial and extend that to the
actual creators as well
get a flamewar going in the comments and
on my other social media by saying that
youtubers
are better than twitch streamers but
that might be a topic for another day
it's true in my opinion as a broad
strokes generalization but for now i
will focus on the infrastructure
opportunities
culture and value of the respective
platforms i'm going to assume that
everyone already knows what youtube and
twitch are and understands the
differences youtube is a platform of
primarily video content pre-made and
uploaded twitch is a platform of
primarily streams
broadcasted live to an active concurrent
viewer base however
youtube also now has a streaming service
on top of their existing framework and
their market share along with other
competitors to twitch by the way has
been growing
this is because youtube is better than
twitch in almost every conceivable way
save two the ui and for now the
streaming revenue opportunities both of
these things however can be changed
and when they have been updated or
improved in any respect there will be no
conceivable reason to use twitch over
youtube unless you are an existing
broadcaster
with a massive viewer base who simply
does not want to endure the grueling
process of migrating that audience
for everyone else literally everyone
else youtube is categorically superior
to twitch
and today i'd like to outline why the
very first thing to talk about is
operating at scale
youtube has a global audience of over 2
billion monthly unique visitors
compared to twitch and it's 140 million
this could be argued as an issue of
specificity owing to how the twitch user
base are mostly just viewing active
streams
whereas youtube viewers are spending
time on a now immeasurable archive of
static videos but
the point of operating at scale is that
youtube has already been forced over the
past eight or so years
to solve a series of problems that
nearly killed the entire platform
some might say that they were slow that
the solutions are imperfect at best and
that youtube could have done a much
better job
all of this is true but the reality is
they at least have
systems for these issues and twitch
simply does not
the biggest one that comes to mind right
now is copyright twitch
is cruising for a monumental beatdown
when it comes to copyright
and that could be because amazon doesn't
care it could be that the current
management does not even know what to do
or it could be a bloated and sluggish
corporation that struggles to get
anything through its spider web of
individual departments
but regardless of the actual reason the
fact is twitch is not responding to
these issues hardly at all
a small scale example is music music is
played by twitch broadcasters constantly
to probably tens maybe hundreds of
thousands of people
and very recently just one company with
a couple of different songs
took notice and retroactively filed some
copyright claims
twitch is so draconian that their system
for solving these claims
upon receiving a dmca takedown notice is
to cleanse the stream and automatically
ban
the creator for 24 hours with a
three-strike system that results in a
permanent on-the-spot ban
if three different copyright strikes are
received the difference on youtube is
that there is actually an expiration
period where these strikes will expire
after a given period of time
and also there is a buffer period if you
get three all in the same week or
something like that
where you can appeal and see what's
going on your channel won't be
terminated immediately there will be
about a seven day buffer period where it
will tell you
this is going to happen but you can file
and talk to youtube
and figure out what's going on it
doesn't just all come crashing down
around you all at once
this one company filing claims for a
couple of songs resulted in the panic
of millions caused multiple high-profile
streamers to receive suspensions
and the ensuing panic saw broadcasters
deleting their entire
library of vods removing all of their
popular clips
and basically just falling apart because
twitch didn't have any system in place
to solve this problem despite knowing
full well it was looming on the horizon
youtube on the other hand as imperfect
as they admittedly are
already have comprehensive systems to
deal with this process
music can be claimed and monetized or
claimed and struck down but more often
than not it is simply claimed and
tracked by the claimant or the ad
revenue is split between the two
but in almost all circumstances claims
or strikes can be appealed
firing back a counter notification to
the opposing party this gives creators
more feedback
more control and more security the
system isn't perfect i'm not saying that
it is far from it but
at least there is a system and that is
just one
tiny minuscule example of where youtube
has implemented
actual solutions for problems that will
arise
at scale another issue is moderation
again youtube
has issues of their own no one is
disputing that but when you compare them
to twitch it's night and day
on twitch moderation is a subjective
process determined by a trust and safety
team
these people review each individual case
with partner managers stepping up to
lobby for their favorite streamers
defend them go to bat for the ones that
they like or not and the whole thing
becomes kind of like a jury system
among a single social group the result
is that creators have
absolutely no consistency the rules in
terms of service simply do not
exist for certain broadcasters owing to
their connections or the number of
internal staff who will
step up and defend them because they
personally like them or
any number of other nebulous reasons
others get slammed for a single
frame of nudity on a video that was not
even supposed to contain it in the first
place
for the sake of time i won't analyze and
play each individual instance where this
type of thing occurred
i've done that in the past on numerous
different occasions so you can check the
video archives for twitch videos if
you're interested but
the point is the entire judicial system
on twitch is a subjectively determined
and enforced
social group on youtube because the
platform operates at scale this is not
really
as possible in truth it won't be
possible on twitch for much longer
either
but much like that one music company
striking a couple of different songs
when the system changes there will be
panic and there will be turmoil there
will also be a horde of different issues
and youtube has already solved the bulk
of those issues
yes the algorithmic banning system has
flaws yes it results in lengthy bans on
occasion for broadcasters
who really did nothing wrong primarily
as they roll out new parameters but
the issue of subjectivity has been
mostly solved
we can argue about internal employees
enacting shadow bans or blacklists or
any number of shady pseudo-systemic
sanctions against creators
i feel like my own channel actually got
shadow banned recently if we were being
completely honest
the metrics stopped lining up at all and
there are all sorts of really strange
analytic and viewership issues or
discrepancies that
never used to exist but as a
generalization youtube has solved the
scale issues of moderation
in some way albeit imperfect very
imperfect
while twitch has done absolutely nothing
on the one hand you might have sketchy
circumstances with lower views you could
be suspended on youtube by the algorithm
for a period of time that is painfully
long but if you look at the actual
user-based sizes for the different
platforms
that's incredibly unlikely to happen but
generally speaking in my experience
these past four years
eventually you will receive a
clarification and be given help within
the confines of a system that is still
woefully inadequate absolutely but at
least there
is a system on twitch you can get banned
or not banned which has little or
nothing to do with actual infractions
and the standards of what is and is not
enforced are
entirely flexible based on nothing but a
subjectively operating group of
individuals
while their company has not even begun
to tackle issues
that will arise when the scale outpaces
their cobbled together scotch tape and
popsicle stick infrastructure
there are many more examples of how
operating at scale will throw twitch
into a wood chipper but the next big
item is discoverability youtube is
by far superior to twitch in terms of
how one can get discovered
the reason for this is multi-faceted but
i'll do my best to simplify it
one any content you produce on youtube
can be recommended alongside
other relevant content as an example
there is a creator named
slush who creates interesting streamer
documentaries one of his videos
pertaining to dr disrespect is actually
recommended right
under dr disrespect's main content such
as a live stream with hundreds of
thousands of viewers
this means that as a smaller channel a
much smaller channel slush has his
content meshed right in with a
massive broadcaster because it's
relevant for the viewer
and this growth opportunity is not
rivaled by twitch in
any conceivable way now i understand
that the mediums of video and live
stream are somewhat different but hear
me out here
on twitch when you stream your video
gets archived as a vaude but the vast
majority of twitch users visit the
platform
purely for the live content alone on
youtube you can stream and archive your
streams as a vaude again
but also make on-platform edits to those
streams
and that vaude is then pushed out to an
audience of two
billion monthly uniques and meshed into
other browsing features or playlists
furthermore as your vod content is
utilized by the algorithm and has the
ability to tap into this massively
superior overall audience
you can now stream in the future with
live recommendation slash notifications
that will funnel new viewers who find
your content from other vods
clip reels or material all across the
platform and brings them
right to your most current live
broadcast all of which can happen while
being meshed together with other
streamers
other creators other popular uploads etc
and all of this on a platform with a
massively increased
overall user base effectively the growth
potential for anyone who is not already
a top
one percent or more likely the top one
tenth of one percent
on twitch is not even worth comparing
because twitch will never even come
close to youtube
but going further maybe it was never
even intended to
next up on our list is advertising
because it may seem like a fairly
standard and uniform item twitch has ads
youtube has ads whatever it's the same
but it really isn't
youtube is owned by google google is
arguably the world's premier advertising
platform through their adsense program
amazon is high on the list absolutely
with their own ad serving network but
the core of their business model is
marketplace sales
and delivery google on the other hand
places a top
priority on youtube because youtube and
its two billion monthly uniques
serve as a pipeline for their adsense
program amazon has certainly made great
strides in promoting twitch but if you
really examine the relationship here
amazon helps drive users into twitch
with the prime package or other
incentives
they can profit from this relationship
yes but twitch is not really
driving users into amazon to their main
pipeline
to function within that ecosystem for
google the relationship to
youtube is inextricable amazon could
drop twitch right now and not bat a
single eyelash
they could not care less because it does
not affect their core business
google would not and never will drop
youtube ever
they will continue to pump insane
resources into it even operating the
platform at a loss for many years
because of how important it is to the
rest of their core business model
if you look at this from a top-down
perspective you can see two corporate
behemoths
with two content platforms one already
bigger than the other with
more resources flowing into it by the
very day and the other is a side project
with little to no comparable reason for
support
this could be the reason we see twitch
floundering when confronted by even the
most obvious upcoming issues such as
copyright
for example whether it be music video
material or anything else for that
matter
the things that see twitch nearly
spinning out of control could have been
dealt with easily
had amazon dedicated a team with
resources to the project
but in my opinion this is quite clearly
not happening which results in
predictable
upcoming issues becoming rather obvious
and damaging problems
now to be fair there are a couple of
areas where twitch pulls ahead of
youtube such as user interface and
streamer revenue programs
the ui on youtube is just bad it's
really bad
figuring out exactly how to set it all
up is a learning curve that does not
need to be there it does not need to
exist
and it's a painful experience all around
finding new streams for users browsing
the youtube live section of the site
is like pulling teeth right now because
of their latest ui update
and twitch blows youtube out of the
water in that category
furthermore twitch has programs like the
bounty board which allows streamers
mostly just larger broadcasters at this
time i believe but still a very good
program
to stream specific games through a
contract interface and get paid based on
viewership numbers or number of installs
etc
and this program is exceptional for
creators and should be emulated
elsewhere
youtube does not currently have that
type of program and there are certainly
a few
other aesthetic or revenue oriented
areas where twitch excels ahead
but youtube is currently developing new
items such as brand connect which will
facilitate partnerships between brands
and creators directly on the platform in
the studio dashboard
and to go further a lot more reputable
brands are taking out huge contracts in
the youtube platform when compared to
twitch it's really night and day a lot
more money flows through one particular
platform
this is comparable and might one day
extend to streaming i'm sure but
if we look at all of this with a broader
lens we can see that youtube has rapidly
created and emulated the successful
aspects of twitch such as bits which
take the form of super chats
memberships which mirror the
subscription program for example and
even a method of integrating merchandise
partnered with a dropshipping
manufacturer
directly into your live streams and
videos twitch and youtube are competing
on features but one of them has an
existing
endemic user base to funnel into the
streaming section of their website that
is larger than any other website on
planet earth save google itself which is
actually the owner
on the one hand twitch has just
rebranded twitch prime to prime gaming
leaning into the dominant video game
oriented section of their user base
but youtube has a wider ranging user
base to funnel into streams of nearly
any subject matter at all
twitch for a long time at least
attempted to branch out and secure wider
demographics which appears to have
failed or at the very least been
somewhat deprioritized
while youtube can do so at will all in
all twitch and youtube are perceived as
monumentally different
yes but that's not entirely accurate
twitch is a live broadcast platform in
its infantile stages it really is
while youtube is a live broadcasting
platform and the largest video serving
infrastructure on planet earth
that has already solved or at least
mitigated most of the problems twitch
has yet to encounter
twitch has a current first mover
advantage in the space
which resulted in a dominant market
share but is now owned by
amazon who is very clearly not
prioritizing it as heavily as google is
with youtube
and the disproportionate resources
combined with the disproportionate user
base
all on top of the fact that a first
mover advantage is only effective as
long as you continue
to overcome issues which honestly twitch
has not done
we can see that one platform is superior
in almost every single conceivable
metric to the other
and that gap will only ever widen over
time in the end
youtube is better than twitch and this
will become much more readily apparent
with every core
issue that twitch slams headfirst into
like wiley coyote from the roadrunner
while youtube with its larger resource
allocation an existing set of solutions
to operate at scale which it currently
already does
pulls much farther ahead that's it for
today though if you want support please
consider joining and subscribing on
locals.com it's a monthly fee yes but i
will be providing full video scripts
topic polls merge discounts and
eventually incorporating the locals
members into a credits role
on all the youtube videos as a thank you
to them the idea is to establish a much
more reliable and consistent income
stream that will allow for easier topic
choice without really having to consider
viewership as much
other stuff is linked down below as well
twitter merch another gaming youtuber to
support as well but i'll cut it there
and stop rambling as always thank you
all for watching
and have a nice night
[Music]
you