Twitch already makes money from people watching ads for bits. Then Twitch could take half the money of the 5$ for someone subscribing with bits. It's a win/win for Twitch.

As a streamer however... I would much prefer the full 5$ from the bits than only 2.50$ from the sub with bits. This is not a good idea for streamers. This is only a good idea for Twitch and people with no direct access to money. I personally would be sad if this idea was implemented as half of streamers potential revenue is flushed right back to Twitch instead of the streamer.

Hypothetical - If a streamer has regular viewers who watch ads for bits and donates them at a regular interval and gets the 100$ payout monthly. Now lets say the viewers start subbing instead of donating the full amount of bits, the streamer would get 50$ and no payout until every other month when they hit the payout minimum.

This idea would be good for anyone trying to save money in general rather then spending out of their pocket. :D

good idea.

Some individuals; especialy kids; don't have a Credit Card on hand. So watching adds to earn bits and then using bits to buy a subscription would help said individuals, which would otherwise not subscribe at all.

I like this idea! Especially because you can earn free bits watching ads

my idea is that you donate bits for a subscription instead of doing it using a credit card so kids can watch ads and get a free easy way of getting a subscription to there favorite streamers

Streamers shouldn't like the idea. Considering twitch takes a portion of the bits. And then half of the sub so they'd be better off with just the bits.

But if someone gives the streamer the bits. Twitch still have to pay them the money. And if they get enough bits for a sub than Twitch gets half of that.

But if the person getting the bits would rather get emotes and no ads instead of giving the streamer all the bits. Why not? I've given streamers the equivalent of a sub worth or bits in a month and they care more about a sub in general XD. So tough shit for the bad math streamers i guess.

Bits should just be Twitch credits, each bit used in a cheer gives 1¢ to the streamer. By that logic one bit could just be considered a Twitch monetary unit equivalent to 1 US cent. A subscription could cost 500 bits, or 5 USD a month. You can purchase them from amazon for an exchange rate of $1.40 for 100 bits or $1.00. You can also watch adds to earn bits, like now. Make it a little work to get bits by watching ads, but you then can get revenue from extra ad money that they generate. It may not reach perfect cost, but even if it were 50% of what you would normally get from a subscription there would be more people subscribing. At worst you are making more money than you are now by just having more people sending less money. So you get $5 from the majority of people subbing normally, and then say $3 for people who would like to sub but cannot afford to subscribe due to their financial situation.

I love being able to watch advertisements so that I can support my favorite streamers. Why not allow us to subscribe using bits; even if it's only one month at a time?

and the people will use bits also for donations because its fast to use.

Open bits to ALL streamers...partnered AND non. While non partnered streamers would not be able to collect any revenue from the bits they could use them in a variety of ways. Subscribe to others...getting their name to pop up once a month in other potentially popular streams giving that slight word of mouth experience...aka free advertising for their own channel (in a sense). Give bits as rewards to their own viewers who then in turn can use them as they see fit. Use bits to purchase Twitch branded merchandise. Partner with sites like TreatStream so bits can be used to buy food for streamers. SO many possibilities for bits other than filling a ridiculous on screen cup for streamers already receiving tips via StreamLabs :P

Just came up with this idea myself, glad to see its already on here with 350+ votes :D

The main reason I like this is because you can get bits from ads & sometimes from surveys and people like to subscribe, but not always be able to afford them. Obviously you wouldn't buy bits to subscribe, but it's an extra option.
This would obviously be something the partner would opt-in to, but as for Twitch getting half, I'm OK with this, I as a partner myself I don't mind Twitch getting it. I want them to grow as well.

Awesome idea especially if ads for bits comes to other countries

As some people can watch ads for bits, it is actually a great idea for people to support their favourite broadcasters that they can't afford to, just by saving up ads bits.

Great idea, but we still need mobile bit

This would be 'unfair' to those who pay for subscriptions with money, because you can get bits for free by watching ads.

@Taizun Well they take 50% of the MONEY for subscription, but I don't think they take a cut from bits after the fact that it's been bought by the user.

And if they made subs slightly cheaper using bits I think they'd sell a lot more.

I think this is a great idea, considering you can get bits by watching ads. That way you could subscribe to a partner totally free and and ads are delivered in arguabley their most effective form...at the request of the user.

The issue I see with this, is the fact that Twitch/Amazon would then be taking two cuts of that bit-exchange.

The first cut would be from the initial purchase of the bits, and the second cut would be the default 50% that Twitch takes from subscriptions (Less than 50% if a partner is on a different plan).

For this to work, I would have to add a side-suggestion that would eliminate the 50% cut if a subscription was purchased using bits, or make a subscription cost 250 bits (or whatever amount of bits equals the amount of $ the streamer would normally get from a subscription, depending on the partnership-plan they're on).