Dear Twitch,

I think I speak for most of the streaming community when I say we do NOT like your new mid-roll strategy. Ads are among the biggest annoyances on the site and the solution is not to give us more ads. Here are some ideas on making ads on Twitch better for both the creator and the viewer.

1. Give the creators an actual cut of the ad revenue
   Right now, this is absolutely peanuts when you compare it to other video content sites, it’s actually insane. This would make running ads also a bit more attractive for creators and viewers will know that these ads would actually support their favourite creators a lot more than now.




2. Make your ads shorter and skippable
   The ads that are currently running on Twitch are often way too long. Myself and other viewers have often skipped these ads by simply going to a different channel, that is not okay. That should not happen.




3. Consider adding closable lower third ads
   When you first launch a stream you can have a lower third ad hovering over the videoplayer. Be sure to make it so that viewers can click these away.




4. Let creators and viewers (individually) control mid-rolls
   I really like the fact that as a creator you can roll an ad, for instance, when you need to take a snack break or toilet break. What if we add a feature like that for every viewer. Let’s say you have a button somewhere next to the stream that viewers can opt for an ad to support their favourite creators, this way both the creator and the viewer has more control over when they want to see ads.




5. Bits for ads
   Why is this not a thing worldwide? This is such a nice concept and should be implemented all over the world because it gives the chance for viewers that can’t afford a sub or bits to give bits anyway by just saving them up by watching ads here and there. This can go hand in hand with the ad button for viewers.




6. A certain amount of paid subs (gift subs excluded) = Twitch Turbo
   Lastly, make it so that viewers that have a certain amount of paid subscriptions across multiple channels have Twitch Turbo perks. However, they could still opt to see ads to support a streamer with the button and still see mid-rolls from the streamer.

In summary, I think there is a lot to learn from other platforms in regards to ads on Twitch. These are just some loose ideas, I’m sure there are plenty of people that have better ideas than me or that can make these ideas even better. Thank you for reading and hopefully, maybe, something will be done with this.

Special shoutout to @HarrisHeller and @Jasper55RL (both on Twitter) for providing some of the points talked about in this post.

If you are going to have midrolls you need to provide us tools to work with the midrolls as best we can as creators. Enough people have given you a reason it is a bad idea. I am offering up ideas to make it at least workable if you continue this route.

• We need a countdown on the streamer dash and the mod view on when the next ad will roll. Like a producer would have.


• We need a limited ability to push back an adroll. Like a one time 2 minute snooze button, or a trigger early button.


• We need an API triggered event when an ad runs so that we can use our bots to let us know, so we can wait on what we are doing.


• The ONLY reason I would want this is to eliminate preroll ads. If you aren't eliminating preroll just don't bother.

Obviously we don't want Twitch to lose money and die out like other streaming platforms. The ads are a necessary evil. Let streamers control when the ads drop during the stream. Give them a requirement for how many ads have to be run per hour, or whatever the terms are, but let them determine when they run. Bathroom & food breaks would be ideal. Some streamers find the beginning of the stream critical, so running pre-roll is a bad idea for them. If the streamer doesn't run the required number of ads, hit them where it hurts - their wallets. That's a guaranteed way to make sure enough ads are run to hit revenue targets, and the streamers can benefit from it.

Also, increase the variety of the ad pool. Nothing drives viewers crazier than seeing the same stupid ad every single time an ad rolls.

Consider a minimum viewer count/average for ad requirements. If a streamer only averages 1 viewer, they shouldn't be required to run those ads. That's unfairly squashing the competition. Wait until they get to a higher number, like 500 viewers on average (for example). Then require the ads for them.

Part of the issue that the currently implementation of ads completely passes over is audio. Twitch did a lot of work to add this new picture-in-picture mode, that moves the stream above chat, so the audience isn't "missing" anything. However this is a flawed idea.

You see, visuals to a stream are only 50% at a maximum and can be even less depending on the content. That's where audio and interaction come in. A large number of viewers come to interact with streamers. They come to see and hear the streamers reactions to awesome moments in games, esports, announcements. They come to be a part of the content and experience it.

The current implementation of mid-roll ads completely takes that all away. We quite literally saw a clip of a streamer watching the PlayStation event this past week who was seeing a cool unveiling of the new (but controversial) Harry Potter game, who then literally got a mid-roll ad in the unveiling. Sony isn't going to run ads so people don't miss the conference.

So my suggestion is to add what's known as a "lower third" to the stream. Easiest comparison is to YouTube. It's a small banner picture, or gif ad, that appears over the center middle portion of the video player. It's not super intrusive, it's not muting stream audio, nor shifting the entire video player. And viewers can just exit out of that ad whenever they want, or click on it to be taken to the advertisers site for more info.

Optionally, there's a lot of wasted space just in the overall Twitch UI that could have banner ads as well to serve the same purpose.

I understand that Twitch is a business. I understand that Twitch needs money to operate as all businesses do. But Twitch needs to understand that their "product" is the viewer experience, and automated mid-roll ads tarnishes the entire experience. If a streamer wants to manually run ads, then by all means allow them to, but forcing this system on people will absolutely drive the quality of streams down, drive the quality of the viewing experience down, and just overall make people unhappy.

As a daily viewer, I am asking, please consider other alternatives like Lower Thirds before sticking to this.

Plz stop making me watch 6 ads in a row. It is very simple. It is absolutely ridiculous that I should have to sit thru 6 ads whenever a streamer decides to run some ads... 6 ads? are you actually kidding me? that is absolutely absurd... If you think that the way you treat people is okay... you got another thing coming, People will not sit thru that and neither will I. About 2 seconds from just stopping using twitch purely out of morals... You probably think I don't matter, I'm sure. But you better believe more will follow... Not bcuz of me, not bcuz of anything, but bcuz they will not stand for your sellout ***** and your lack of respect for the customer.

Had this idea, didn't really know where else to post it. Just trying to get it out there.

So I know Twitch has been struggling to come up with a way to monetize with ads, and with the whole "forced mid-roll" fiasco, I think everyone is worried that whatever they do will be very "un-Twitch" by trying to emulate live TV. So my idea was to just gamify it.

Twitch recently added the little icon dudes that everyone can choose as their logo, and I thought that could be like your Twitch persona, and you basically just turn ad watching into a survival style mini-game. Very basic, very trimmed down. Something like 3 main bars: Hunger, Thirst, Exhaustion. Bars slowly tick down at different rates, depending on your time in an online stream. To get rid of each you have to do a different type of "task" (an ad type) and then that reups/adds to your bar. Getting hungry? Clicker style game on a banner ad. Getting thirsty? Maybe hide a random brand logo somewhere on the page, that they have to click. Getting exhausted? Watch a 1 minute ad. Obviously, these are just examples, but gamify it in some way. Make it something active that the viewer participants in, instead of something they have to passively wait through.

Now why would people even participate? What's stopping them from just ignoring it? Tie mid-rolls to that. If 2 of your 3 bars hit 0, or you opt out, a 3 minute mid-roll will play along the timing they've already set out. People who aren't invested in the stream, and don't mind missing some stuff can ignore everything, and just have midrolls. If the viewer is invested in the stream, keep a streak of how long they've "survived". Unlock emotes for different lengths. Give chat badges. Make the ad experience something that people want to be involved in instead of just something everyone dispses.

Also, make sure all the timers are very obvious in how long until they're empty. Let a viewer get ads when it's convenient for them. There's a lul in the game play? Knock it out. Know there's a juicy part coming up soon? Knock out your tasks. ****, even get Streamers on board, by having them remind people to knock out their ad tasks before the next cut scene. Maybe even let the streamer run an ad to refill all 3 bars for everyone in chat, so chat will literally beg for an ad sometimes.

Obviously, this all requires work, and approval, and someone to sell it to the higher ups, but I'm convinced that having a system like this instead of the forced ads will make ad interactions healthy on Twitch, something that viewers and streamers can both exist with harmoniously.

What important points am I missing? Cuz it's almost 4am, and I'm sure there a glaring issues somewhere.

It feels counterintuitive from a creator stand point. Though I appreciate the stance of supporting creators, there must be better ways to implement paid ads. Personally, I'd love to see a system in place that connects partnered streamers to advertisers through some sort of partner panel. Plenty of streamers do paid ads already, but if you connect a streamer to a physical product to try on stream (a drink, snack, service, etc.) It's more interactive for the audience, and the streamer. Effectively stream lining your advertising practice, and through that service you would be able to still collect revenue of let's say 10-20%. This also gives the streamer the ability to advertise it in a way that's more effective to the audience itself, the streamer will know their audience best and how to cater to them.

In a tweet today Twitch Support stated "Thank you for all of your feedback. We have completed the mid-roll ads test. Ads are an essential part of keeping Twitch freely available and we understand your concerns. We'll continue to work on ways to improve the viewer ad experience and give streamers more control."

Please do more to communicate that the concerns of broadcasters and viewers were understood.

I am interested in what Twitch learned from the testing of mid-roll ads. What concerns did you notice trending and what feedback specifically are you accounting for in making "improvements" to advertising on the platform. Will Twitch make adjustments to their testing process, such as smaller batch size (e.g. Twitch Ambassadors)?

Some transparency on implementation of a site mechanic that can (and did) have extremely damaging results on viewership for broadcaster is vital to our ability to plan and implement content around these changes. Thank you.