EPTSo over the past little while I have been watching a ridiculous number of streams. Mostly for my own entertainment's sake but also to catch up one the meta having been gone for so long. It also does not hurt to get ideas for one's own stream in terms of quality and content ideas. That being said hearing streamers talk about the undependable nature of subscriptions as an income source got me to thinking, this model is not sustainable.
DISCLAIMER: Bare in mind this is simply my opinion. Clearly the current model is still profitable but to whether that stays true in the longer terms is murky. This is not a commentary about Twitch in general and is specifically geared towards their subscription system.
If you would like to skip to my suggested fix go to Amalgamation.
Price
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The first and most obvious issue is the price of subscriptions. Five dollars does not seem like a lot, but if the intention is to have people subscribe to a series of their favorite streamers, this adds up fast and is discouraging.
Comparing the price point vs content gained to services like Netflix and its competitors, getting access to a single streamer's content for five dollar's hardly seems worth it on a monthly basis. This is especially true in terms of streamers who relay their content for free to YouTube. This is further diminished if streamers allow free access to content when they have subscriptions enabled.
Building Value
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It is incredibly unclear what one exactly gets from subscribing. It varies drastically from channel to channel and although building value in the product is mostly on the streamer to maintain, perhaps stricter guidelines on what subscribers should get to enjoy should be enforced as a bare minimum. This might allow for some consistent branding of what you get as a "Twitch Subscriber".
I cannot speak to the assistance Twitch gives directly to help people build value in their channels but it is quite clearly inconsistent in the very least. It is hard to tell from one channel to the next whether the subscription price is worth what you pay.
Going Turbo
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Turbo is a service in which you no longer have to watch commercials across streams, as well as increased storage, increased font colors, increased emoticons and badges.
Two of these features have real value and the rest are fluff. Increased video capacity and the ability to not have to watch commercials are both worth something. Whether its worth $8.99 is speculative. Especially considering the odd viewer consciously watches ads to help support the people they watch, and others ad block, making the service pointless. Either way it is hard to see the value in this as a viewer, especially if you do not stream and the storage is pointless.
Amalgamation
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Optimization needs to happen here. Turbo is a bad stand alone service plain and simple and should not exist. Especially considering that certain perks are granted to subscribers of channels that turbo also covers, ie the fluff.
Instead why not offer a simple package price. The same $8.99 or what ever market value price a month gets you what turbo gets you, but also it lets you subscribe to any three to five channels you choose. You can switch channels you are subscribed to for the following month. This lets you try subscribing to channels that you think might be interesting also sending revenue to those streams you enjoy and to whom which the business model is so dependent on. A person would not have to watch commercials on the streams they are currently subscribed to.
Adding additional subscriptions past this, is say another $0.99 to $2.49/sub. Its another exchangeable slot but once again, can only be changed for the following month to help stop extremely inconsistent subscribing.
Finally there should be some sort of unlimited access package where you get access to all subscriptions at some fixed rate a month. $39.99 for an example price.
Note: Obviously some streams that offer a way higher volume or level of quality for their content may have to have varying prices or be exempt from access through some sort of unlimited package. GOM Exp comes to mind, but this just a general feel with the exceptions not taking precedence.
These are just my thought on the issue as it seems to me that I would happily put money in a content provider like this if it were just slightly better structured to suit a constantly changing and dynamic content creation scene. It is hard to tell what I will be watching from one month to the next, and hard to justify spending $50.00 - $60.00 a month on the grouping of streamers I watch most.
Thanks for the read.
Regards,
Basic
