Do not deprecate hosts.
There was a notice put out about hosts becoming deprecated next month.
This is an awful idea. Do not do this.
The reason given for doing it is clear and obvious deflection; it's false. No one with average viewership under like 6000 uses twitch chats as a community server; when someone is offline, that's it. Their attention is off the chat and elsewhere. The idea that hosts prevent interactions with streamers is complete bull.
Moreover, raids are not a direct replacement for hosts (most people don't even -know- this because this fact has been so thoroughly obfuscated,) because of the referral ID causing a viewer to not count to the raided channel for ad or partnership metrics. Hosting was an incredibly useful -community building tool- on twitch; you host into another channel, that user notes you down, they host into you and share their audience in a way that actually contributes useful numbers beyond "was a viewer". Raiding does not do this. Raiding is an anti-growth tool. Viewers might follow and check someone out again following a raid, but many are there primarily just because a streamer raided them over and have no interest in staying; hosts, because they required active interaction with the hosted channel were more likely to stay because it tested viewer interest.
Hosting was and still is an invaluable community tool. To remove it and not provide its actual functionality to raids is extremely anti-user.
Hello everyone! Thank you for coming together to bring us your feedback on Hosts. We made the decision to remove this feature because it consistently confuses viewers–particularly new viewers or those who are less familiar with Twitch–because they don’t realize the channel they visited is hosting another stream and also they cannot interact with the hosted streamer in chat.
We also hear your feedback and acknowledge the need for community building tools that help promote other streamers. We’ve recently introduced the following features that help you do that:
- We recently released a feature called shoutout that lets you promote another streamer’s channel in your chat and makes it easy for your viewers to follow that channel without leaving your stream. To initiate the shoutout during your stream, use the chat command “/shoutout [channel]” - viewers who do not follow the channel will see a pop-up with a follow button for that channel. If the streamer has an upcoming stream in their schedule, the shoutout will also highlight their next scheduled stream with a button to set a reminder to watch.
- Recommend another stream to viewers when you are offline by adding them to your Suggested Channels list in your channel settings (formerly known as your “Autohost list”). When their channel is live, their stream will appear in the carousel at the top of the page. You can also display your suggested streamers list in your streamer shelf.
We appreciate the feedback you’ve shared, and look forward to new suggestions that help your communities connect with one another.
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BreiTling_1992 commented
Hosting’s are also used in Community's to watch events together. I know many Channels/Community’s, which watch events like the AGDQ together, via the Host feature.
With this decision, you kill the complete event type "Host-Watch-Partys". Please stop this bad decision and keep Host’s alive! -
Wolfs_Rain90 commented
WTF, please DONT deactivate the Host-Function! There are so many positive facts about it, streamers can get new viewer, charity-events can get more attention, i really dont understand why you want to shut this down?!
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DirectorStephanie commented
Jeez, get back after a year off and the most realistic way I could get new viewers is going away? WTF????
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Ohtacaro commented
Twitch, what? It is a feature a lot of people use. I find streamers all the time and it is Extremely useful for when raids partially fail and leave people behind. They then click on the hosted channels name and join that way.
People are literally 1 click away from interacting with a streamer.
I do not see the point in removing something because it does not work the way you want it to. Instead of removing a core feature like hosts, improve upon it instead? Add what is missing, make it even more useful!
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TheDankOreo commented
As when I first saw and used the host button there was awesomeness! On another note, there shouldn't be a need to bring it down. And what I know on my own, it was a way to give way to what people came into your stream to check if you're offline. Hosting as I saw it was used for your viewers to see what you liked without you having to tell your viewers yourself. Hosting was a way to open up. As for others, hosting is a tool for not only letting viewers come in and see what you do, but it also kept mods at bay for checking in on the broadcaster. How I used the host tool myself was to let my viewers or mods know I'm still trying to be active. On another note, hosting was a way to promote other broadcasters and get them to stay motivated to keep the stream running. When someone hosts you it was a sign to feel like you are welcomed. The way it grabs a users attention is really good, there is no need to make one broadcaster the biggest it is instead to bring in a larger community which is the flaw of your platform. If you remove hosting then you are telling us and yourself, Twitch is a one for all battle of who is the best streamer.
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SimonTheDigger commented
Hosting a great way to introduce your viewers to the channels of friends or just people who you think are cool. Leave them be.
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Zhaefari commented
Hosting is a fantastic way to give offline support to the channels you enjoy. Shoutouts and raiding only has an effect if you're live, but if you are taking a day off and still want to support your favorite broadcasters then hosting is the way to go. Removing hosting is removing support.
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TOTOKITTY commented
I have found so many of my fellow streamers thanks to the host function, and it's great support for smaller streamers. Removing this feature will definitely change how people are found within Twitch.
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Mkcyborg commented
I legit see zero cons to Host Mode.
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SomeNerdFromWhatever commented
With Twitch removing the hosts feature in October, this change will be a step backward in what makes Twitch stands out from the competition of YouTube and TikTok live in terms of discoverability and support from small streamer.
Hosting helps boost discoverability to various small streamers when their favorite is offline and provides content to a stream group that way everyone wins and comes back for more. There's this big problem that discoverability is ranked on views which limits exposure to various small and rising talent, with hosts you host a small streamer that helps them and builds a connection between them and you. By removing it, it harms every party involved and makes the discovery game much worse.
Also with autohost being removed back before the announcement, bring it back to help out but add more functionality so that way when you follow a game as well, you get various streamers besides the group you have if they are offline to drive more discoverability to the system.
It's a fatal mistake for discoverability Twitch will make if they remove it.
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snesfreak commented
Why would you do this, Twitch?
It really makes no sense at all.
Listen to your community, no one wants hosting removed.
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pinktechno commented
IDK....hosting never helped me grow at all, especially since they were 1 person hosts most of the time and a lot of them came from channels that don't even stream themselves. I'm much MUCH smaller than even a small streamer, I'm a microscopic streamer imo tbh, but I still don't think hosting ever helped me.
Not to mention I never clicked onto other peoples streams that were being hosted on channels I DID follow anyway, because I'm there for the channel I'm already following, not anyone else. If I want to look for new streamers, there's newer and better ways to do that now.
Hosting, while still possibly useful to others, isn't really needed anymore IMO, not now that there's so many other ways TO find other streamers that are similar to the ones people already watch.
But really, at the end of the day, I've never personally thought that hosting ever helped me in any way at all, no matter how long I've been at it with streaming. It seemed like an empty gesture of "hey look I'm paying attention to your stream" that was rarely ever true to me....
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BizSnes commented
My streams are chill at the end. When the energy level is right I will raid but for the most part im a chill streamer who wants to host people to support without spamming emotes.
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Punio85 commented
you have decided to switch off the hosting completely from October? bad enough that you "improved" the authosting and deactivated the auto-team hosting without any info ...
we as a Twitch team benefited from not having to constantly change the host manually if you want to support all 100+ members ... just this forced us to create a chatbot that takes over the hosting ... now are you taking away this option from us little streamers? ...according to our statistics a good 60+ % of the viewers come through this very hosting...this range will be lost...
and the really bad thing is the reason "Viewers want to interact with a streamer when it is live, and that prevents host mode."
how please does the host bother me when I'm offline because the interaction with me when I'm live?
you said it yourself "We introduced Host Mode in 2014 to give streamers an easy way to recommend another stream to their viewers while they're offline themselves. Since the introduction, we've learned that streamers like to bring their viewers along want to share with other streamers to help them grow, so we've introduced new features so our streamers can do just that."
and this is exactly the reason why you should not deactivate it!
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ACowForAllSeasons commented
Hosting is an incredibly important part of the smaller communities. Please don't remove it.
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Barnardo7_ commented
Removing hosting is attacking the tools streamers use to promote similar content and build a community with their audience.
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kj_johnson_ commented
Hosting not only helps connect similar communities together but provides an easy way to support our streamers and their content. Helping smaller communities spread more but also another option to advocate uplifting more voices from all sorts of backgrounds. I see no con to having hosts as a user and would prefer twitch gives a direct answer as to why they would remove the feature. I don't think it blocks viewers from connecting with streamers. Hosting should and continue to be supported to help not only the streamers but the users find like-minded or similar content!
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Crowboat commented
why does twitch constantly want to ruin their platform. in no way does removing hosts benefit the creators that earn you money. just stop already
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Funageddon commented
This is a tool that all small to mid streamers love and adore. Why get rid of it? Twitch doesn't even provide a reason for getting rid of it.
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Thorlar commented
Autohosting was an AMAZING way for me to find so many streamers when a streamer I enjoy watching wasn't online for the day. Twitch broke this function months ago and didn't bother fixing it, making discovery go down by tons. I also had many of my viewers point out how many they found through my autohosts AND I also met many people because of autohosts. Their excuse for removing hosting and autohosting instead of fixing it has a weird made up excuse. If anyone complained, it was a very minor group of people. Twitch, just fix autohost instead of not bothering to fix it so we can all enjoy increased discovery again!