Reduce the greed on Ads
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

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FoxNZ commented
> — Amount of Ads —
Congrats you found yourself joining a stream in which the streamer has also enabled Mid-Roll ads which could result in the behaviour that you're seeing, or by looking at the date of this uservoice this also could be the result of advertisements being shown improperly, since checks (such as if you've already received a pre-roll from another streamer, if you came from a raid, if you're watching from an embed etc.) on your video player may not be properly loading/functioning.
Which I guess is an argument that Twitch is buggy in someways... but that can also be said for any website on the internet, and can be more so that Twitch is a User Generated Content publishing site that is uploading, downloading, distributing and transcoding information 24/7.
> — No Control for Content Creators —
> It‘s about the content won‘t be interrupted suddenly by an ads in the worse timing, well how could we prevent that?
Some time (I believe?) after this user voice was made, the Ad Scheduler was added to help notify streamers that an ad-break was approaching (in which they can delay it by 5 minutes if the scenario TheEpsilonAlpha has said occurs) and how spaced out they can make mid-roll ad breaks be throughout their streams.
This isn't as far of a solution as like disabling ads completely from their channel, but I think this feature is a good definition of giving ad break control to the streamer.
> Many Streamers i spoke with recommended their viewers to install adblockers to keep them in the channel!
Which is not recommended at all, since some "Twitch Adblockers" have the tendency to break checks and functions of the video player, resulting in Subscribers seeing ads, or people seeing multiple ads after a sequence of ads (which may explain the previous issue in this post)
>— 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.
It's almost like Twitch is a platform run through multiple remote servers having to send, encode, transcode and distribute data to users all over the world, and there exists a couple of failure points and issues that come as a result of the complexity of this service.
> The mid-rolls have also been served to subscribers of channels which is a complete no-go.
Again can be caused by factors internal (video player not loading properly) or external (user installing a "Twitch Adblocker")
> Obviously nobody tested that before implementing it into production or the test methods are not working at all.
I mean, the best test for a global distribution of a feature is to... test it globally, which means implementing it to random assortment of channels to see if the performance of the feature is similar to internal tests. Obviously something did go wrong, but that's also why that wasn't initially announced in the first place.
> — Ads for Bits Function —
A regional problem, as a result of a range of factors. The biggest of which is that, depending on the season and place you live in the world, businesses spend more money on marketing & advertisements in more dense, urban and populated areas than those living in rural, less populated, or more remote areas of the world. As a result, the implementation of Ads for Bits raises two complications:
1. How much of an ad equals 1 bit?
2. How many paid advertising spots are able to fulfill these optional demands?If 1. can't be calculated to a sustainable amount for Twitch, the feature is not implemented. If not that many business or companies want their adverts being played on an optional ad spot that's controlled by a viewer (who may or may not be active), then the feature is not implemented.
Also Amazon Ads are different from Twitch Ads, because both are technically separate business entities with separate income sources for advertisements. Amazon display ads to their ecommerce store, Twitch display ads to their platform's video player. If one asks to the other to have some of their ads play on their platform for no additional cost or compensation, both would immediately say no.
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NuggyRoad commented
For people saying YouTube has YouTube premium twitch has twitch turbo which removes all ads except the ones streamers put through auto magically. Eventually all platforms will make 1/8 ads normal. YouTube is working on it at the moment to increase ads on live streams to make them earn more. When I was watching Ludwig I got 1/8 ads and none of them were skippable the only one that was, was the last ad. All being 15 seconds each. Twitch is being told to do this by Amazon as Amazon wants them to be profitable. YouTube earns 15+ billion yearly while twitch makes 2-5 billion yearly. They're all making ads more normal for live content. If twitch could make them less introisive or at least show the stream with ads I think people won't care as much
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Randal_x commented
On Youtube you can pay a subscription to be ad free for all of Youtube. Twitch wants you to pay that for each channel. Think about that. I've just muted Twitch and gone to Youtube everytime the ads start, and get back to Twitch maybe 20 minutes later. I've quit buying subscriptions on Twitch forever - sorry content creators!
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esth_er commented
I don't even like watching my favourite streamer live any more, because I miss too much with all the ads
So far I've preferred Twitch as the streaming platform to watch, but the amount of ads recently has me thinking about switching to youtube - many creators are leaving for youtube anyway, might follow them.
Honestly, I don't watch the 20s ad before a youtube video - why would you think I'll keep watching Twitch with 4-7 ads in a row of 30 seconds? -
jerseymike123 commented
It's pretty obvious that no one is listening to us anymore. I was gifted a sub on a channel and immediately I was greeted with 4 ads!!! I wasn't the only one. When I FINALLY got back to the stream, others were complaining about the number of ads. I semi-regularly watch ONE, count it ONE channel and only because he's a real life friend of mine. If it weren't for supporting him, I'd already be gone!
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tosfountain commented
I haven't renewed a sub in a while and am lately even dropping follows over the huge volume of repeated ads. Whatever short-term gain Twitch is taking over this, it's at the expense of the brand and the streamers. One foot out the door.
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mesa_metal commented
i have already dropped at least a dozen streamers because of ads.the other thing is prime subs get toooo many ads as well,you would think twitch would support a streamer that most people sub with prime.i pay 147.00 a year for prime but soon no more,tired of the bs with all the ads
update:i just clicked on one of my fave streamers and right off the bat i get hit with 5 fing adds before i could say hello.needless to say i stopped watching and logged out,,this is total *********,,fix this **** twitch enough is enough!!! -
oldtimeyhockey commented
The ads have gone insane. They used to pay bits to watch ads now they make streams unwatchable with so many interruptions. People won't grow as streamers anymore only people streaming to their subs will have streams because you can't go 15 min without ads. You join a stream ads. You get super loud ads over and over.
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RuneKnights commented
Actually absurd amount of ads, especially if you bounce between channels.
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iamSamoth commented
They do not care, nothing at all about what goes on concerns them. Only thing that concerns them is the dividend check, and any other money they can gouge from people.
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GreatShorty commented
Let us minimize and mute ads so they do not interfere with what is going on during the streams that we watch. We follow and subcribe these streamers to watch them, NOT 5-6 ads in a **** row! There is nothing more annoying then watching an amazing stream, chatting it up with the streamer, then having ads pop up right when it's getting good or missing the streamer answer a question that you may of asked them. Don't FORCE us to watch these STUPID ads! No wonder so many streamers are switching to other platforms. They are getting tired of their viewers getting interrupted.
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FoOlMax commented
Hi there, fundamentally I understand that I should live with ads if I choose to remain a non paying customer, but I have been seeing the same ads for the last 2-3 months. It's always the same ad (Lays and/or Doritos). Every time I change channel I see the same ad over and over, which has a negative effect on the advertised product. I've seen so many Lays/Doritos ads that I don't even want to consume them anymore, the simple fact of seeing the brand is really off-putting. When will brands/advertisers understand that spamming their brand has negative effects on people?
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TheSolarrisX commented
Thank you greatly for reading my opinion and experience on twitch i seen many complaints with twitch ads its just a lot of hassle keeping them on and at a frequent basis!
Speaking by experience!
Viewers miss what streamers say to them then streamers need to repeat themselves!
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TheSolarrisX commented
Ads are Disrupting viewer Enjoyability, theres plenty of complaints that ads are annoying, to enhance the experience can we meet in the middle and atleast have the streamer choose weather or not they want ads in their channel, those who have ads on get payed for ad content availability, those that turn off ads in channel get no no pay for ad content! Please consider this as a fair Opportunity for users and faithful twitch fans that dont like ads for disruptive reasons!
Ads block certain time off from viewing content so they lose some time off from watching a specific streamer which means less enjoyable for faithful twitch fans!
If not here is another idea only run one ad per stream not filter the streamers with unwanted ads in their channel!
Ads are way to frequent on twitch and is putting a lot of faithful twitch fans off from the service!
Please Quote Me Happy and Consider what I have said thoroughly and please understand nobody likes ads Disrupting their twitch viewing Experience!
This is Streaming not like watching TV, ads belong on tv not Twitch personal opinion!
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triangulox commented
Hi, stop broadcasting advertising without the streamer's will, there are important moments in the game and the advertising cuts. Make an agreement with the streamer, the streamer must pass 6 advertisements every 5 hours of live or 3 ads every 3 hours of live for example. You are amazing.
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LuciferVR4 commented
The amount of ads anymore is getting out of hand and everytime they play its longer and longer. Which in turn makes you miss a bunch of stuff. Maybe make them only before/after joining or leaving a stream. For most people ads are nothing more than an annoyance. Its the biggest reason I quit watching youtube videos and live tv for the most part. Ads ruin it all. I get it makes you guys money but so do all the subscriptions. If it keeps up the way it is i know a lot of people that are going to stop using it. Just an idea. Also, give us the option of the login code stuff. Its super annoying having to enter a code everytime i log on a new device or clear my cookies. Affiliates and partners maybe cuz it deals with money, but im neither so i dont understand why i need 2fa for.
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gulentabut commented
Reklamlardan gına geldi 15 ayır prime kullanıcısıyım ve abone olduğum kanal hariç tüm izlemek istediğim kanallarda 30-40 sn reklamlar çıkıyor ve bu reklamlar 1 kere değil bittikten sonra ardına bir daha çıkıyor ben izlemek istediğim her kanala abone olamam ki bence prime abonesi olan reklamlardan komple muaf olmalı yada reklamlara güzel bir düzenleme gelmeli gelmiyorsa bile başka platformlarda yayıncı izlemeye geçeceğim ve prime aboneliğimi de iptal etmeyi düşünüyorum iyice baydı reklamlar
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BananaBean03 commented
SHOW LESS ADS
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jonathan__cl commented
Sus anuncios son demasiados y en muy poco tiempo vengo de verme 14 anuncios de 30 segundos me da tristeza que sea una plataforma muy buena pero los anuncios le quitan eso es como si de alguna manera de obligarán a suscribirte solo para no ver anunciós en ese caso me veo el directo por Youtube o simplemente no lo veo porque odio la cantidad de anuncios no digo que este mal solo que son exesivos.
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taylorrofficial commented
i feel like twitch as a company makes enough money to be able to lessen the ad count. i can’t watch 30 minutes of a VOD without getting 7 rounds of 6 ads each. i can barely remember what i’m watching.