The day of the simp - Twitch git leaked on 4chan

[SolarNova]

I'd have to agree with what some people are saying here, i've said it to myself a bunch of times.

 

Successful streamers are not 'gamers' playing games and getting paid. They are 'entertainers' ..entertaining and getting paid.

 

It is why ill never try to stream and make money from it. I may be above average when it comes to gaming, though i dont classify myself as a gamer anymore (dont play enough different games), but im no entertainer, not even remotely.

 

That being said, the amount of money these guys are making is crazy. i think most sensible people already knew it was in the millions a year, all it takes is to watch a few streams spread over a month or 2 and u can see the kind of viewer / sub counts, not to mention donations.

 

#nopolitcsintended

[Morgan MLGman]

I just logged out & logged in to twitch, what a completely unrelated coincidence that right after re-logging in I got a prompt to update my password because "increased security"...

[Kisai]

9 minutes ago, Morgan MLGman said:

I just logged out & logged in to twitch, what a completely unrelated coincidence that right after re-logging in I got a prompt to update my password because "increased security"...

They've done this before, and it IS the right action.

 

However unless they closed the leak (remember that this leak started sometime last week), that doesn't really change the situation.

 

It should be pointed out that this is one of those reasons why Cloud services are BAD. The configuration is difficult to secure (look at how often S3 buckets get discovered and are the source of leaks), and private "git" repo's aren't private enough. If you have an expensive website setup, the stupid thing to do would be to store the source code on github/gitlab/etc. This is why configurations, passwords, api keys shouldn't be hard-coded into source code, nor compiled into the application, because it takes no effort to leak those by discovering the variable names.

 

I actually find it kinda funny how the channers were surprised that the Twitch chat is just IRC. Twitch has made no secret of that.

https://dev.twitch.tv/docs/irc

 

 

[Bramimond]

2 hours ago, Kisai said:

Read the analogy on that page. One person hiding their money from oversight vs every crooked individual ALSO hiding their money in the same place.

 

By proxy, if you had a shell corporation in Panama, Ireland, Bahamas, etc, you are quite literately dodging taxes that should be paid to the country you actually live in. Notice how some of the worst people on the planet were also among various world leaders in hiding their money.

Legally avoiding taxes is the duty of everyone in the business of making money. 

 

It's not like tax money is used for important things, either. It's mostly squandered on inane things and shoveled into the pockets of assholes. 

[DeScruff]

6 hours ago, porina said:

Shows how out of touch I am with top Twitch. I've only heard of two people on that list, and one of them only because of an earlier collab with Linus.

 

Asmon only entered my radar when he started FFXIV. Not been watching recently but I guess now I have a possible idea how much ball park 100k active watchers gets you, not counting external revenue sources.

 

Anyway, time for early lunch then I'll do the password change. I presume I'd have to re-enter it in all clients which will be a pain.

Ive always felt the Twitch, and Esports communities are very much their own bubbles with very little bleed over.

If you do not actively watch Twitch, it doesn't matter how many followers someone has, you probably will never heard of this 'famous' streamer until they suddenly enter your circle (like Asmon with FFXIV)_{... or news comes out that they are grooming minors...}

I can't count of how many times Ive seen awards like "Best Streamer!" or "Best Esports player!" or the marketing on a mouse/keyboard showing someone apparently famous, and thought "I have never once heard or seen this person before in my life." despite lingering on several videogame websites, and following a wide variety of youtube channels. Nobody seems to mention them.
I guess its a "What happens on Twitch stays on Twitch".

[GDRRiley]

well that forced me to update an old short password. thankfully one I didn't reuse

 

I think people forget that having amazon primes gives you a twitch sub so while not all this money is flowing in from amazon quite a bit of it is.

Yes top streamers make good money theres a lot of time and effort into most of the top creators in a platform.

[Dracarris]

2 hours ago, GDRRiley said:

I think people forget that having amazon primes gives you a twitch sub so while not all this money is flowing in from amazon quite a bit of it is.

Yes top streamers make good money theres a lot of time and effort into most of the top creators in a platform.

The leaked data distinguishes the tons of income sources, like bits and whatnot. For the cases that I had a look at, Amazon Prime really only was a small fraction. The lion share comes from paid or gifted subs.

 

As for effort: Most of them literally buy a streaming setup, play their favorite game and chat with the community. Yes you have to hire mods and similar, but cmon - compare that effort to what it takes to earn remotely comparable amounts of money on Youtube. Twitch business model is literally pay for attention. Actually a genius that thought of this. And becoming a top streamer is IMHO most about being likable and charismatic.

 

I would be much less critical about Twitch if donations/subs/bits whatever would simply end up in the streamers pocket as a sign of you liking their content without interrupting stream and content flow to call out your name and an absolutely meaningless "Thank you" or even worse "Sending out love to you". Or your name ending up on various body parts as these hottub streamers did.

[Kisai]

3 hours ago, Bramimond said:

Legally avoiding taxes is the duty of everyone in the business of making money. 

 

It's not like tax money is used for important things, either. It's mostly squandered on inane things and shoveled into the pockets of assholes. 

Are you talking about the corrupt billionaires or the politicians they bought to keep the loopholes from ever being closed because they also directly benefit from it?  

 

At any rate, twitch's data leak showing who earns what, and panama papers showing which world leaders should never be elected aren't exactly that different in scope. 

 

Sure, maybe you earned that money? But I bet I several of those top 100 streamers were taking money from various casino games/gacha/lootbox gambling companies. Personally 8 people I watch are on the top 1000 part of the list, and if the screws ever got turned on twitch, they'd likely be booted from the platform for various kinds of mild copyright infringement.

 

Many streamers this year have taken to re-streaming Gordan Ramsey and similar cooking shows.

 

 

[mr moose]

8 hours ago, Grand Admiral Thrawn said:

I see nothing malicious in exploiting an oppressive system for your own advantage. It can only be called smart.

There would be no place for tax havens if tax systems everywhere were perfect.

The same can be said about sports because as well as streamers do, football players are paid by advertisements and the subscribers of the content their contractors produce.

Entertainment governs itself by its own undefined rules. Comparing it to a 'common job' is foolish.

No it can't be compared to sport.  Any sportsperson  who gets paid from sponsorship and advertisements has to put in an extraordinary amount of work to earn that.  Easily more work than someone working at a supermarket,  but someone playing games on twitch works that hard?  please.

 

 

[Swidt]

Wouldn't the leak indicate that twitch clones would come out of this or is the source code not usable in that way?

 

[Kilrah]

Of course not, anyone using it would get sued to hell. 

[Swidt]

3 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

Of course not, anyone using it would get sued to hell. 

Well if you live in the other side of the world like china or somewhere where copyright is not enforced?

[Arika]

9 minutes ago, Swidt said:

Well if you live in the other side of the world like china or somewhere where copyright is not enforced?

If it's on the internet, it can be restricted in pretty much any country, so it would just become a Chinese only twitch, which i'm pretty sure they already have.

So even if they did make a clone, it wouldn't be around for very long

[Brooksie359]

19 hours ago, mr moose said:

He wasn't being viscous toward people earning more money, It was a reaction to noticing the effort he puts into his job (which is likely way more necessary to societies functioning) doesn't earn anywhere near what someone can earn playing video games (which by comparison adds literally nothing to society).

 

It's all in the last line "fuck this world"  notice he didn't say "fuck those guys" or "fuck twitch" or even "fuck the rich".  I twas clearly "fuck the world" which highlights an issue with the way the world values some things.

 

 

 

 

I mean tbf they do provide entertainment and that's why people pay them. I honestly listen to one of the top streamers during work and it honestly makes my day much more enjoyable so I would say it's valuable. I think the problem is that unfortunately there are simply certain things that scale well and streaming is one of those where they can provide a service to thousands of people at a time and if even a fraction of those give them money then it adds up to alot of money. You compare that to most other service industries and it simply doesn't scale as well which can sometimes be compensated with much higher cost like with lawyers, doctors, dentists, etc.. There is definitely an issue of wages not keeping up with inflation for lower tier service industries which is probably why people get so upset about something like this because it does absolutely suck.

[mr moose]

33 minutes ago, Brooksie359 said:

I mean tbf they do provide entertainment and that's why people pay them. I honestly listen to one of the top streamers during work and it honestly makes my day much more enjoyable so I would say it's valuable. I think the problem is that unfortunately there are simply certain things that scale well and streaming is one of those where they can provide a service to thousands of people at a time and if even a fraction of those give them money then it adds up to alot of money. You compare that to most other service industries and it simply doesn't scale as well which can sometimes be compensated with much higher cost like with lawyers, doctors, dentists, etc.. There is definitely an issue of wages not keeping up with inflation for lower tier service industries which is probably why people get so upset about something like this because it does absolutely suck.

 

I understand the economics,  its the disparity between someone earning $100K+ a month for playing a game and paramedics earning less than 10k a month doing shit shifts.

 

I think in that regard, the complaint about how this world works is quite fair.

[williamcll]

You guys have certainly interesting opinions on a site whose boss also does the same thing. 

[Bramimond]

2 hours ago, mr moose said:

disparity between someone earning $100K+ a month for playing a game and paramedics earning less than 10k a month doing shit shifts.

 

I think in that regard, the complaint about how this world works is quite fair.

If it was that easy, wouldn't everyone just earn money by playing games?

Similarly, if the wage gap was a thing, wouldn't every business not just hire women exclusively to save money?

 

The world isn't really that simple that you can point at one thing and call it unfair. 

[AndreiArgeanu]

8 hours ago, Taranovski said:

So anyone found Linus's payout already?

It's about 30k$. They only really use twitch for the wan show so it's not surprising.

[mr moose]

3 hours ago, Grand Admiral Thrawn said:

Show me a streamer that just out right got a sponsorship without putting any bit of effort or time into it.

Why? No one said anything about getting your dream job/income instantly.

 

3 hours ago, Grand Admiral Thrawn said:

Streamers do not have defined wages like medical personel does. The government decides on that.

Which is irrelevant to the comments made.    The comment wasn't about the fairness of government dictated wages or that someone somewhere was stipulating things should be like this.  Hell there wasn't even a mention of control in any of it.  What was said was purely a frustration with the disparity between those who put in a lot of effort and those who don't.  If you think streaming yourself playing games requires more effort than most jobs then great for you.  But the rest of us aren't that impressed.

 

 

1 hour ago, Bramimond said:

If it was that easy, wouldn't everyone just earn money by playing games?

Similarly, if the wage gap was a thing, wouldn't every business not just hire women exclusively to save money?

 

The world isn't really that simple that you can point at one thing and call it unfair. 

 

Not necessarily,   There is a difference between being easy and being attainable.  Every child gamer I've met over the last decade had aspirations of being a game streamer/youtuber.  Most of them don't have a PC and/or internet connection good enough to do it.   For many people they just don't have the luxury of being able to play games long enough to get a viewer base willing to pay.   A child still in school with a parent who buys them a pc is the perfect place to start doing that,  someone paying their own way through school is not.  

 

 

 

 

people seem to be confused.  What we have here is an issue taken with the disparity of what society values and the effort that some people put in to society.   No one has said it is an overnight money bag.   No one is saying it shouldn't happen,  per se, what they are saying is the disparity in income (valued by society) between someone who's only value to society is letting people watch them play games and people who actually add to society for simply working in a super market (and being abused a the same time) is wrong.    I really don't see anything wrong with that position

[SolarNova]

9 hours ago, Grand Admiral Thrawn said:

Streamers do not have defined wages like medical personel does. The government decides on that.

I think the point some people are trying to put across is that those successful streamers who no longer have a 'normal' job and strictly stream for income, dont need a defined wage anymore.

I havnt gone through all the data, iv only seen the top 50, but even the top 50 have earned in just under 2 years, enough for the average Joe to live an entire adult life without needing to ever work again.

 

I'd be interested to see how quickly that kind of income drops of once u get to the top 200 say. I would expect to see a sharp decline in top earners, as only the most popular streamers I would expect to make such money.

 

If however there isnt a large drop of, and hundreds or even thousands of streamers have earned enough in 2 years to be in a position where they never need work again... i would expect to see an increase in new streamers as people see this info and consider trying it themselves.

 

#nopoliticsintended

[IPD]

2 hours ago, mr moose said:

Why? No one said anything about getting your dream job/income instantly.

 

Which is irrelevant to the comments made.    The comment wasn't about the fairness of government dictated wages or that someone somewhere was stipulating things should be like this.  Hell there wasn't even a mention of control in any of it.  What was said was purely a frustration with the disparity between those who put in a lot of effort and those who don't.  If you think streaming yourself playing games requires more effort than most jobs then great for you.  But the rest of us aren't that impressed.

 

 

 

Not necessarily,   There is a difference between being easy and being attainable.  Every child gamer I've met over the last decade had aspirations of being a game streamer/youtuber.  Most of them don't have a PC and/or internet connection good enough to do it.   For many people they just don't have the luxury of being able to play games long enough to get a viewer base willing to pay.   A child still in school with a parent who buys them a pc is the perfect place to start doing that,  someone paying their own way through school is not.  

 

 

 

 

people seem to be confused.  What we have here is an issue taken with the disparity of what society values and the effort that some people put in to society.   No one has said it is an overnight money bag.   No one is saying it shouldn't happen,  per se, what they are saying is the disparity in income (valued by society) between someone who's only value to society is letting people watch them play games and people who actually add to society for simply working in a super market (and being abused a the same time) is wrong.    I really don't see anything wrong with that position

 100% agreed.

 

And I'd guess you are spot on about money/equipment/ISP service.  It's the same with a LOT of these "cool" jobs that everyone wants.  The amount of money required to get a kid from "toddler" to "F1 driver" is akin to the total lifetime earnings of many.  Twitch may not be nearly that costly, but you still have the "price of entry" that keeps going higher all the time.  Early starters (aka those were doing youtube/etc back in 2005-2009)--didn't have the competition that really makes it prohibitive to enter the market.  Fast forward to 2021, and the quality of content requires such a high degree of investment that many are just never going to be able to get their foot in the door.

 

And yes, the income disparity is definitely a FTW moment.  There are many people working jobs where every day on the job might be their last--and they are making <$60,000 a year (some have 4 year degrees in their chosen profession and barely make half that).  But then you have the Jake Paul's who should be living in a van down by the river--and instead are making more in a month than the former category of people can make in a year.

 

Same thing happens with the world's biggest bellend--Connor McGregor.  He's neither the most skilled, most deserving nor the hardest working.  Yet he commands a salary far in excess of many, more deserving fighters--who maintain less profile.  The world will never have a shortage of overpaid assclowns collecting paychecks for things that you wouldn't dream of paying a 5 year old to do.  Look no further than professional sports.

[Dracarris]

3 hours ago, IPD said:

*snip*

Nothing against that. If people would stop throwing insane amounts of money at them for sth that can be watched for free, these top streamers wouldn't make such ludicrous sums. I think watching other people play is a generally awesome idea (tons of Lets Plays on YT). However, if you watch the streams in question you'll immediately notice that it isn't about the game or advertised content anymore. The game just fronts for the stream; it really is about collecting all those subs and donations and thanking for them. Every time that happens, the "real" content/game is interrupted and on many channels such breaks literally happen every 10s on average.

 

Since famous streamers get early access to new games, I watched those streams to get some actual pre-release gameplay insight. After 15min or so I rage quit watching, since the pace at which the actual gameplay progresses is insanely slow due to constant "Thank you for [..]". I also got the impression that streamers intentionally slow down gameplay s.t. the they can stream for longer. Turns out game makers are also involved through what they call drops. If you throw enough money at a streamer, you get certain in-game items skins/ornaments. Twitch is such a huge money grab.

[Bramimond]

2 hours ago, mr moose said:

the disparity of what society values and the effort that some people put in to society.   [...] what they are saying is the disparity in income (valued by society) between someone who's only value to society is letting people watch them play games and people who actually add to society for simply working in a super market (and being abused a the same time) is wrong.    I really don't see anything wrong with that position

I see everything wrong with that position. 

 

Basically that position denies people both agency and freedom. 

You want to decide which job is worth what, instead of letting people decide by themselves. 

 

If you take issue with the disparity, you either have to knock one down or  prop one up. But wealth isn't growing on trees. If you print more money, you just make all the money in circulation worth less, which is called inflation. So to prop one up, someone has to be knocked down. And that is before even taking into consideration the difference between a stable job and one you could lose at any minute for reasons out of your hand. 

 

The whole thing reminds me a little of the Candle Makers Petition in terms of ridiculousness. 

 

 

No, people are not made equal and it matters who your parents and grandparents and great-grandparents were and how much money they had to invest in the future of their family. If it wasn't like that, then what would even be the point of it all. You'd be living in paradise and there would be no reason to work hard at all. 

[Kisai]

2 hours ago, SolarNova said:

 

I'd be interested to see how quickly that kind of income drops of once u get to the top 200 say. I would expect to see a sharp decline in top earners, as only the most popular streamers I would expect to make such money.

 

 

If it's like any other ad-supported content, usually only 1 person on an ad-supported site makes enough to live on, and usually takes 90% of the ad revenue of the site, the next 9 people earn "enough" to not sneeze at, and then everyone under them makes enough per month to maybe buy a meal. I've seen this repeated enough times that basically any "ad-supported" content aggregate basically survives off one or two golden goose pieces of content, and it subsidizes the entire service.

 

This is what happens with -all- ad-supported sites that do not have subscriptions, ad revenue is garbage for everyone except the most "brand-safe" content, and Twitch is pretty far from brand-safe, with all the profanity-laden bad-take streamers. Most of the time, the ads on Twitch are for all Amazon-branded content such as New World. I've also seen a few ads on "safer" streams for NHL, and the occasional ads for PSA government messages regarding covid.

 

If you know anything about ads, anything at all, you know that "PSA" ads are pretty much unpaid ads, and they're usually used as "filler" spaces when the site should have a paying targeted ad, but the user doesn't match the geotarget.

 

Subscriptions are a different animal. The average person, does not need thousands of viewers, they only need 100-200 people willing to fund their content around $5-10/mo, and there is a direct correlation between consistent viewers and subscriptions. If you stream enough around the same time, you will have a consistent viewership, and if you stream roughly 3 days of the week, that's enough for people to consider that "subscription worthy." Personally, I would not subscribe to someone who streams once, and then disappears for several days, or streams at random hours. The people who are the most popular on Twitch, stream for 4-6 hours per day, at least 3 days of the week. If you only stream for 1-2 hours, people simply will not find you, and unless you have a social media presence on twitter, you are pretty much streaming into the void.

 

A good point was brought up on someone elses stream about "why are you wasting time streaming to nobody." If you are not "value-adding" to what you are streaming, twitch is not for you. You must at the minimum stream with your voice and interact with the chat to make streaming on twitch worthwhile. If you are streaming just game footage... anyone can do that, why should they watch you who are putting in effectively zero effort?

 

Now, on the flip side of that. There are some "value adding" things I think harm peoples growth more than they help, because of the spamability or distractibility of the thing.  One of these are the "sound redeems" and TTS message redeems. If they're set at levels where people can endlessly spam them, or the audio is heavily distracting (eg jumpscares) and loud, it probably chases off people who might otherwise enjoy the stream, as to them, those distractions are the equivalent of people yelling in the movie theatre.

 

[JogerJ]

Now imagine if you can self host Twitch with all of this. 

 

We can rebrand it to something like Twatch and call it a day