The new “auto running ads” is a great start. Now add a countdown alert where the hype train is indicating an upcoming ad & how long it will be. Offer a pop up in chat allowing non-subs an option to click sub to avoid it & subs to click to choose to view it for extra support & offer cool “ad supporter badges” for people that change & get cooler the more ads they watch as a reward for supporting through ads. For more of my ideas please look under the hashtag #bladesideas on Twitter. I’ve already come up with 20+ ideas that Twitch has used & are on the website. Honestly should have been hired by Twitch years ago. Anyway this should solve your ad problem, in my eyes anyway. - InventorBLADES

User controlled ad experience:

-Users run their own ads to build up an "ad immunity" duration for their current account.
-This ad immunity duration will allow the user to view streams without encountering preroll/midroll/other ads for this period.
-Longer the ads watched the longer the ad free duration.
-Can have an upper limit of ad free viewing time, requiring additional ad viewing to top off the duration.
-Users can choose who gets the ad revenue share, depending on where they trigger the ads to view. Either with a channel they want to support, or give the share to Twitch. Use button prompt to choose revenue split and keep user engaged with the ads.

Ad Gamification:
Give users more incentive to run ads themselves via daily/weekly/monthly goals to work towards.
+Rewards can include but not limited to:
-bits
-exclusive emotes
-exclusive temporary emote edit options
-exclusive badges

Example,
Ads season pass goal can include:
-Watch ten 30 seconds ads: rewards X bits
-Shared ad revenue with X amount of channels: thumbs up emote edit option for 24 hours
-Viewed one hundred 30 seconds ads: 1 random ad emote
-Viewed one thousand 30 seconds or longer ads: tier 1 ads badge

The main idea is to allow users to run ads on their own time, and give themselves an uninterrupted time to visit Twitch and view familiar or new content creators. Users understand the importance of advertising, but they do not have any control over how that is presented to them (currently being slammed with ads with every visit/refresh).
Give users the control for ads, allow them to customize their ad experience, and even personalized ad preferences so they're more open to the idea of the product/services being shown.

Let the ads be a positive experience for everyone, Twitch users understand games, let this be fun and profitable at the same time.

Instead of having only pre-rolls and mid-rolls, I suggest including an ad credit system. Whenever people watch ads, they'll earn credits (similar to how bits used to work) and will be able to spend these credits to "skip" ads on channels they watch. This can be done in a few ways. I suggest having an ad stream where people can accumulate credits or some type of ad viewer of equivalence. This way, people would be able to accumulate as many credits as they want, to afford the price of a skip button on ads. This has absolutely no down side for viewers as there is a way to abuse the system. Should the ads be similar to a stream or video feed system, viewers could potentially afk and farm ads while doing other things or while their favorite streamer is offline. This "abuse" of the system doesn't have any downside for twitch either. In fact, the downside is towards advertisers. There's no reason to pay for ads if no one will actively watch it. People would just open a tab and switch tabs accumulating as many ad skipping points as possible. However, to avoid this, it could be coded in a way where if the tab is not open, it does not count. I know this is possible. Then what's the point? Viewers would have to watch ads regardless. No, this can be done by just leaving the window open while you do other things. Of course, those with multiple monitors would be able to abuse this but it's unavoidable. This can also be abused on the phone by leaving the ads on the phone constantly on. Any advertisers who complain about this abuse system clearly doesn't realize that they would not know in the current state whether people just walk away when ads play anyway. So their claims that this is the case would not be valid.

All in all, a system where viewers are able to watch ads whenever they want to earn credits to use to skip ads on streams would be something to give thought. This also benefits streamers and lets them earn money through ads by just counting how many skip ads are used on their channel. This would register as a viewer watched an ad from them and they'll earn their portion. Of course, those people who do not have enough points will have to sit through the entire ad.

I hope something like this can be implemented. I enjoy watching twitch and I must admit the amount of ads are insane. I understand their importance but there is a difference between twitch and tv. While tv specifically choose segments to cut and showcase an ad, the content is paused. On the other hand, twitch is live. Therefore, no content can be paused at all. Ads make people miss a lot and although the top right viewer feature was greatly appreciated, it definitely still leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.

If interaction breaks, momentum dies. There are dozens of ways to keep the momentum flowing while an ad is playing-- just look at all of the YouTubers who get sponsored and do skits/product placement during their videos.

Example: If the streamer has the ability to temporarily defer ads and play them back to back, ("collecting" an ad every 15 mins or so, to play 6 at the end of 1.5 hours,) this gives the streamer more control on when their intended content is interrupted-- or, even better, an option to play the ads FIRST in order to unlock SUBSTANTIAL ad-free time, with a timer to your next unlock.

How to not break momentum during those collected ads? Don't mute the stream! The streamer hits "play" on the ads when they are ready, and the streamer can INTERACT with the viewers during the ads. This could mean picture-in-picture, or it could be a visual ad while the streamer is sound-only for commentary on that ad.

Above all else, do not allow ads to be punishing. Make them part of the experience, and the STREAMER controls that experience.

If you guys used the same logic for bounty board on ads you could have a much easier time getting us to run them. I used to make hundreds a month in 2011 from ads and now despite growing etc etc I only push viewers away spamming them for MAYBE a few bucks if I'm lucky.

Myself and many others would likely be more happy to run ads if we had a target goal of "ad hours per month" that based on our viewership could fluctuate but would generally give us a target.

Example: Currently I stream 5ish hours a day, if you wanted 10 minutes of ads every hour and could guarentee I make even 20 bucks from the stream I would happily do it (as this would turn into 250+ revenue for the month minimum for me). As is, you will never get me to push my viewers away so I can make 5 extra dollars for the whole month.

Give better CPM rates or make deals with us, this is the only good solution.

ADS should not be on live streams, only on VODs!

From my understanding ADS on live will give you one of the following drawbacks, If an AD plays for 10 seconds:

• you will be sent back to the current moment the stream is at thus losing 10 seconds of the live stream and what happened in that meantime be it a answer to your message, some epic moment or anything in between.

• you will be 10 seconds behind with the live stream, meaning you are also 10 seconds behind interacting with the streamer

Thus I am requesting the ADs to be kept with VODs only!

Give mods and streamer ability to give specific users an ad break.

Limit it only to three times before real ban.

Reasoning:
sometimes users will say dumb stuff in chat and/or something offensive instead of banning (which just causes user to make a new account or wait etc) make them watch an ad. Can be a minor punishment. And also can be a reward to spend channel points on. Give another user an ad break could be fun.

However this will make channels toxic in some cases so maybe have it as a feature toggle that a streamer can enable on their channel at will. Also could result in worse chats if they think they can get away with something. Probably better to make an a/b testing for streamers to try out and see if community is less or more toxic.