I formulated the title drastically because it‘s a serious problem lately happening on Twitch and don’t see that getting addressed from them, at least not in the level as it should.

I said it several times on social media and i also say it here: Twitch is ruining their ads business, constantly and -seems like- willingly:
- The sheer amount of ads which you face as a viewer of the platform is simply ridiculous
- You‘ve guys taken the control of the ads out of the hands of the content creators
- You implement changes to the ad system without notifying anybody nor testing it out
- the Ads for bits function is not working

So, let me explain that points one by one:
— Amount of Ads —
If i enter a stream (the so called „pre-roll ads“) the player tells me:
- „Ad 1 of 2“, then ofc „Ad 2 of 2“ and then it starts over again, 8 times in a row.
- Which makes by
- - an average ad length of 10 seconds (lowest value in Twitch advantage and easier to calculate here),
- - 20 seconds per „block“
- - which makes it 160 Seconds or over 2,5 Minutes i watch ads.
I really have to ask you Twitch: Are you guys kidding us?

Not is that just annoying, which leads me (and many others i spoke with) to leave the site. Which means the tab will be closed. And your mid-roll ads have the same issue.

— No Control for Content Creators —
Yeah when we are at the mid-roll ads let‘s come to a good point. You guys implement the mid-roll ads without any control for the content creators.

Okay, the streamers can trigger ads to push the mid-rolls out, but that‘s not the control i‘m talking about. It‘s about the content won‘t be interrupted suddenly by an ads in the worse timing, well how could we prevent that? OH by giving the streamers the fully control about the ad placement for example.

You guys know that streamers suffer from your „fantastic test“ right? They loosing viewers which leave the channel because of the mid-roll ads, they try to come back but the ads keep playing and playing and they won‘t come back. Many Streamers i spoke with recommended their viewers to install adblockers to keep them in the channel! If that is not an indicator to you Twitch that something is completely wrong with your ads then i recommend to not be ad based anymore.

— Implementation Failures and Bugs —
We, as Twitch Viewers, are already used to bugs all over the place: Emotes and Badges don‘t load, Whisper Function does often not working.

But the implementation of the mid-roll ads, takes failure to a whole new level! Not that nobody was informed, not partnered streamers, affiliates, normal streamers or viewers. The mid-rolls have also been served to subscribers of channels which is a complete no-go. Obviously nobody tested that before implementing it into production or the test methods are not working at all.

— Ads for Bits Function —
Okay, let‘s leave that all to the side and imagine: We want to watch ads and get something for it, like bits. Welp that‘s also not working.

For months i can‘t use the „ads for bits“ function, at all. Strange when i see that you guys can serve the ads over 2 minutes, but if i want bits to watch ads there are suddenly no ads?!? Why don‘t you use the amazon ads here, why i don‘t see the other ads here? The only time a user would get a literal benefit from watch the ads you block the function? I have to repeat myself: Are you guys kidding me?

I wish Twitch would think more about the user and the content creators and simply not backstabbing on both of them by spamming the user with ads and barely severing and of the revenue to the streamer

Right now Partners and Affiliates have the ability to give their subscribers 'ad free viewing'. I think subscribers should be able to opt-in to watching ads on a channel their subscribed to even if the channel has 'ad free viewing' turned on for subscribers.
There's not many ways you can have an ad feature that is a win for everyone involved, but I think this is one of those ways.

For Twitch:
- More ads watched on their site.

For Streamers:
- More ad revenue, while also keeping 'ad free viewing' as a perk for those who want to subscribe.

For Viewers:
- More control/choice over the content they're watching. The would be able to toggle ad free viewing on or off depending on if they want to see ads or not.

Some people may wonder why even have this as a feature?
My reason is because right now the streamer only gets ad revenue for ads that are viewed. If you have 'ad free viewing' turned on for subscribers, then none of those viewers will see the ads. If a channel's viewers are made up of mostly subscribers then no ad revenue is being made from an ad break. If anything that ad break is turning away non-subscribers who are the only one's seeing the ads.
Some subscribers may want the ability to support the channel their watching through viewing an ad so the streamer gets that ad revenue. It would be 100% voluntary by the subscriber to toggle on, and give them another way to support Twitch and it's streamers.

Make it an option to play ads while your stream is static (meaning the streamer is not at the computer) This would be a great way for streamers to remove pre-rolls without sacrificing any content for the viewers watching.

How it would work: Twitch detects a static screen in a channel with the settings enabled. It then sends out a 30 second ad (Configurable by the streamer) The streamer comes back with a happy audience and with pre-rolls disabled for newcomers.

I'm no developer but I'm sure there's a drop in bitrate used whenever the screen is static, there's also no microphone output when the streamer is AFK.

I understand this feature will need a lot of fine-tuning but I think there is a demand for this from creators. I know for a fact streamers care about removing pre-rolls but sometimes it's hard to remember to run them during natural breaks in your stream.

Automating ads is pretty handy but automating non-intrusive ads is a win/win situation for everyone.

As the title says, I'd like the ability to be able to determine when I watch ads myself and bank 'ad-free watch time'. If you feel like the stream is a little on the slow side of things, you can decide to watch an ad instead so you won't miss that one epic moment that you're waiting for. Preferably add the options for '30 seconds' '1 minute' and '3 minutes' of ads.

Would also say this shouldn't exclude you from the streamer's own ad break. If the streamer does an ad break themselves, it'd be nice if those ads counted towards the ad free watch time I mentioned before.

Quite some people I know would definitely make use of it when they have to take a quick afk, or when they definitely don't want to miss out on something that might be upcoming.

Ofcourse this isn't some kind of replacement for any of the systems in place, but rather an addition that could make it a better viewing experience for people.

So mid-roll ads are going to happen, if we like it or not

How about telling the creator before they happen so that they still have time to do an ad break on their terms?

What if 10min before a mid-roll ad would take place the ad button in the stream manager turns red and displays a 10min countdown. The creator will have 10min to do an ad break on his/her terms - if he/she does, no (additional) mid-roll ad; if he/she doesn’t, play the mid-roll ad after the countdown is over

That way you get what you want which is people watching ads, while creators still get some sort of control over it

Please stop the fight against ad blockers. Not everybody is able to afford Twitch Turbo and those aren't people who you want to serve with ads, anyway, since they're low converters. Or do you want to sell ads to your worst viewers? The ones who don't spend money on your premium subscription are also unlikely going to purchase a product after seeing an ad and your advertisers will sooner or later figure that out when they see their low conversion rates...

Users who use ad blockers are annoyed by ads and naturally indisposed against companies who try to force their way into their door as well, so they are selling a spammer image instead of gaining reputation.

The only thing you do by pushing those ads is creating an artificial need on users who can afford to pay to remove them by making your platform substantially worse. Youtube has a massive back library and their subscription service is much cheaper than yours, they don't fight ad blockers and people are much more willing to subscribe to their premium service.

Now, if you don't want poor people in your audience, maybe you should put the entire site behind a paywall instead and be done with it.

I like the idea they have of sound ads

Although if I must suggest something that you may already have in mind, it is that each streamer will do well with one or another type of ads. Someone who is important is his game or what is seen will love the announcements of sounds like the one they are making. But someone whose audio is the important thing, continues to be bothered by the current type of announcements and the sound ones, for these people they will need announcements that cover a part of the screen but do not mute the subject's audio...

The simplest idea is that the subject can decide what ad to put in their entire stream but if they like to make it more complete, they could make the streamer can confugure the ads but create exceptions in certain categories, for example, that can activate the audio ads but when you are in just chatting, advertisements are placed on the screen without obscuring your audio

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

Streamers now have a Pre-Rolls Off Timer in the creator dashboard. This is a very nice feature, since they can see how much time is left, and they can keep the time up by doing short ads, opposed to doing 180s every hour. However, how are channel Editors supposed to know how much time is left on Pre-Rolls being disabled? They can't. The only way for us to know they're disabled is to torture our non-subs with 180s of ads every hour. 180s of ads is horrible though, and people leave.
It would be a great help to the site, if Editors could view this timer as well, so we can run short ads when it's at a good time, say if the streamer has to leave for the bathroom or a phone call, rather than forcing the 180s when my 1h alarm goes off.
Please Twitch, I'm tried of torturing the non-subs