I’d like to suggest a new chat feature for livestreams that could potentially increase both viewer retention and engagement.

The idea would be to expand the current subscriber-only chat system by allowing streamers to grant chat access to two additional groups:

• Selected users: The streamer could manually choose certain accounts that are always allowed to participate in chat without needing a paid subscription. These could be friends, family members, collaborators, regular viewers, etc.

-A limited percentage of regular viewers: The streamer could choose to allow a small percentage of the current audience to participate in chat, even if they are not subscribers.

For example:

A streamer has 10,000 followers, with 100 paid subscribers. All subscribers would retain access to chat as usual.

The streamer could additionally give permanent chat access to 5 manually selected users.

Then, if the livestream currently has 1,000 viewers, the streamer could set 1% of the audience as eligible to chat. This would give 10 additional regular viewers temporary access to the chat.

These slots could work dynamically: if one of those 10 viewers leaves the livestream, their chat slot becomes available to another viewer who is currently watching and waiting for access.

This creates a kind of rotating chat access system.

I believe this could provide viewers with an additional incentive to stay in a livestream, since continuing to watch gives them the possibility of gaining access to the chat. At the same time, it allows creators to maintain a more controlled and manageable chat environment.

The percentage or number of available slots could be configurable by the streamer.

Overall, I think this feature could help improve viewer retention, engagement, and interaction, while giving creators more flexibility over who can participate in their communities.