Most of the small content creators I know seem to favor Twitch as the live-streaming platform of choice. On the other hand, YouTube has far wider distribution and many of the most culture-defining streamers on Twitch are making the jump to YouTube.
We've already seen Lupo, Tim the Tatman, and Dr Disrespect make the move over the YouTube. Most recently Ludwig just announced his decision to switch platforms.
Ludwig feels like a significant "canary" for the future of live-streaming content. He achieved top-level Twitch success following his massive subathon earlier this year and is commonly considered one of Twitch's biggest success stories, especially considering he started relatively late on the platform (2017ish I think).
When I say culture-defining streamers are leaving Twitch, Ludwig is a great example.
Small Streamer vs Hobbyist Streamer -- Which are you?
I've spent way too much of the last two years streaming on Twitch. When the pandemic was at its peak in the year 2020, I fell into a habit of streaming full-time hours (200+ per month) for basically no money, making around $200 per month on Twitch.
Since then I've taken a huge step back from Twitch, realizing that live-streaming all day every day is absolutely no way to build a brand or a life. It's clearly unsustainable.
Unfortunately, Twitch is like catnip to streamers with no audience.
This might be unpopular but I do need to be clear. What is a small, medium, large streamer?
Tbh a small streamer would start around 300-500 viewers.
If you, like me, are below 300 viewers average, you're not really a small streamer -- you're a hobbyist streamer.
So many people think they could "make it" on Twitch, when in reality they are actually treating it like a hobby. They have no professional prospects, absolutely no real path to success or consistent monetization via Twitch. How many people are grinding it out on Twitch to 30-50 viewers or even less, trying so hard to live the Twitch lifestyle and be one of the best streamers, but never really getting anywhere? Hell, some people are doing it with literally 3-5 viewers.
The YouTube Opportunity
YouTube is honestly a much simpler, healthier platform to create content on. You could do a great job with 1-2 videos per week at a fraction of the time it takes to do anything reasonably cool via Twitch.
Honestly, the only smart move is to not stream on Twitch. Multistream across multiple platforms, or pick somewhere else as your home. Most likely YouTube is that place, although Facebook -- ahem -- I mean, Meta is interesting too.
That's why today I experimented with my first YouTube livestream. After going back and forth in my mind on whether I'd try it or not, today I woke up with the fire in my spirit, I simply had to try it. No more procrasinating.
And... it was fun! Viewership was lower than my average Twitch stream, but not by too much and many of my regulars came over to YouTube after seeing me tweet about it and posting in discord.
The cool part is that for the entire rest of my life, I'll have the VOD uploaded -- my first Twitch livestream! That's evergreen content.
You can check out the first livestream over here:
It's an Axie PvP grind session. I've been in the top 5000 players consistently lately and it is fun to share the success with my community, after many months of being really bad at Axie and streaming many struggle sessions lol.
What's Next for Flux Streams
I'm loosely planning on 1-2 YouTube streams per week for the rest of the month, and then a few Twitch streams on the other days. In early 2022 I am strongly considering leaving Twitch behind and focusing 100% of my energy on YouTube for streams... but, I'll take some time to think about it.