Many Twitch channels are essentially podcasts, auditory ASMR, and otherwise are just fun to listen to. Sometimes people will also have multiple streams open in the event of a collaboration and be regularly switching back and forth.

It doesn't make sense to only make a view count on the active tab when people are bound to multitask. I'm sure it is because of advertisers, but ads have audio cues as well. Not to mention, a lot of times the people who will inevitably be multitasking (because who can sit still for a 6+ hour stream) are subs who have shown their support for the channel.

It feels disingenuous, and the viewer count takes so long to update that I find that for both my channel and channels I mod in, the number of people actively chatting and engaging with the streamer (so i know the stream isn't muted either) will often be higher than what the viewer count displays.

To me, it makes more sense to have the viewer count align more closely with how many people are in chat, but then things like 'active tabs' should be analytics available to twitch and the streamer on the back end if they so choose.

Not to mention, many potential stream participants might be turned off from a stream if the view number seems too low or the community seems too small when in reality people are probably tabbing in and out to participate.