On August 5, 2021, the streaming platform Twitch announced that the prices for subscriptions in Europey and Austria will be reduced by 20 percent with immediate effect. You can find all information about the new prices in the following news article:
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Twitch: Subscriptions are getting cheaper
There are now initial reactions to this price cut: While the popular streamer Gronkh shows how hard streamers large and small will be affected, they are already worried for their future livelihoods.
It’s going to be tough for Twitch streamers
Gronkh has now shared a self-created graphic on Twitter. This shows how many new subscribers are now needed to generate the missing income. Even if the most elaborate mathematics are not hidden behind this, the concrete numbers make it clear how hard it will be in the future:
Link to Twitter content
It is important to remember that a a large part of the subscribers on Twitch only use their Amazon Prime subscription, which can be used once a month without additional costs. These also bring the streamers only 2 instead of 2.50 dollars
Let’s look at the example Subscriber Statistics of the Europe streamer Papaplatte and assume that he only earns 50 percent of all subscribers – even if, as a large Twitch streamer, he certainly receives a larger share. Of almost 14,000 active subscriptions, a good 9,300 are Prime users – this corresponds to almost exactly 66 percent of all supporters.
Twitch is promoting the price change as a good thing, because now more people can afford a subscription and therefore the number of subscribers should soar, which compensates for the lower income. But if a large part of the fan base uses the Prime Sub, there will be less money in the end – because there will not be more of them all of a sudden. After all, Amazon doesn’t lower the price of the Prime subscription, only its value.
In the case of Papaplatte, he would lose 20 percent of 66 percent of his income if he were to manage to increase the number of regular subscriptions by 20 percent: according to our own calculation The bottom line is that he lacks 13 percent. Other streamers with a higher or lower Prime subscription share then lose more or less accordingly. Only Amazon will win here.
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Downside of Twitch: dying for the stream
This is how other streamers react
Of course, the price cut also made waves on social media, especially on Twitter. While many of the well-known Twitch partners are silent, small and medium-sized streamers see the change critically – especially because of the devaluation of the Prime subscriptions.
Staiy, for example, suspects that small streamers in particular feel the “crisp” effects:
Link to Twitter content
The streamer Honeyball writes that she can now stream less and has to concentrate more on her job as an illustrator:
Link to Twitter content
Valorant professional Asmoogl, on the other hand, criticizes the considerable price differences and suspects that cheap subs can be bought on Ebay soon or that viewers with a VPN will use regional pricing for their own benefit:
Link to Twitter content
Inzayniah’s tweet shows that Asmoogl is correct with his assumption. Shortly after the price cut, she discovered an Ebay offer where you can buy cheap subs:
Link to Twitter content
Ten pieces for 16 dollars – the streamers should only receive a small amount of it in the end. In the future, it will be a lot harder to turn streaming into a profession. And it would definitely be a shame if we were denied exciting stories like the one about the streamer in the $ 30,000 suit.