Twitch’s Dominance Threatened by YouTube’s Rise in Streaming
Twitch has been the go-to streaming platform for content creators since its launch in 2011. Despite attempts by competitors like Mixer and Facebook Gaming, Twitch has remained the undisputed leader in the industry.
However, YouTube has emerged as a formidable rival, particularly after attracting popular streamers like Ludwig Ahgren, Sykkuno, Lily “LilyPichu” Ki, Ali “Myth” Kabbani, Benjamin “DrLupo” Lupo, and Timothy “TimTheTatman” Betar.
According to Ludwig, Twitch is feeling the pressure and he predicts that their reign as the top streaming platform will come to an end within the next five years. He believes that YouTube will take over and dominate the industry.
During an episode of the Trash Taste podcast on Aug. 26, Ludwig stated, “I think, for the next five years, Twitch will probably remain the top dog. But I do think Twitch is mismanaged so badly at the top.”
According to Ludwig, the first major issue with Twitch is that he believes the only way to grow on the platform is to establish a presence on another website and then switch over. This has become common knowledge among popular streamers.
He also points out that Twitch is under a lot of pressure to be profitable, which is leading them to make decisions that are less appealing to content creators.
Ludwig explains, “They’ve said they may slash pay by like 30 percent for creators, or they might make people run ads. They’ve done a lot of things that are unfavorable.”
In Ludwig’s opinion, if Twitch were ever to eliminate Twitch Prime (now known as Prime Gaming), it would be the final blow. Twitch Prime offers free subscriptions each month for Amazon Prime members, and it contributes to a significant number of subscriptions on the platform.
For example, the most subscribed streamer, Felix “xQc” Lengyel, currently has 77,231 active subscribers, of which 31,767 are Prime Subscriptions. Ludwig believes that removing Twitch Prime would further accelerate what he sees as an inevitable decline of Twitch’s dominance.