Note: This section features a lot of my personal biases on streaming and streaming platforms as I feel like it’s extremely hard to talk about or recommend some platforms without additional context.
Why It Matters
Where you stream will have an impact on your audience, engagement, growth potential, and various other factors. In this section, I will highlight some of the pros and cons of streaming platforms.
Where to Stream?
YouTube
YouTube’s revenue split is 70% across the board.
YouTube automatically archives your stream VODs.
YouTube has a larger user base.
It is a lot harder to get monetized on YouTube than it is on Twitch.
Twitch
Twitch has a larger audience base for gaming content.
Many say that discoverability is easier on Twitch.
It’s a lot easier to get monetized on Twitch.
Twitch has different earning percentages for bits, bits via extensions, and subscriptions.
When popular streamer Jerma transitioned from streaming on YouTube to Twitch in 2021, there was a noticeable increase in transphobia and hateful messages.
Thoughts on Kick
I noted that Twitch has increased transphobia and hate speech compared to YouTube. However, neither of them compare to Kick.
Kick.com is a platform that not only houses dangerous content and content creators but also seems to encourage it. Kick has exclusivity contracts with large controversial streamers such as the transphobic Adin Ross who has:
- Streamed pornography to prove he wouldn’t get banned
- Offered his viewers money to perform acts of violence
- Told other streamers and his viewers to unalive themselves
Kick also launched without a “Report” button and only added one because a streamer filmed an escort using hidden cameras.
Most recently, there has been an increase of dangerous content that even Adin Ross thinks is going too far. In April 2024, a Kick streamer streamed himself speeding and causing a hit-and-run, only to receive a 1-day ban.
I would heavily consider what kind of community you want to foster before streaming on Kick.
Thoughts on TikTok, Short-form Content, and Going Viral
Unless you’re planning on specifically making short-form content on YouTube or TikTok, subscriptions from shorts do not become stream viewers.
In the clip above, VTuber Rin Penrose talks about their experience with going viral via YouTube Shorts and how it affected her viewership and growth.
The Case Against Multistreaming
The video above talks about some of the pros and cons of multistreaming/simulstreaming. The main takeaways is that, as a new streaming, maintaining and growing on 1 platform is hard enough. You should focus on growing you main audience rather than stretching yourself too thin.
And I agree. From personal experience, as a viewer, simulstreams are fun to watch but often only if you’re a Twitch user. Due to Twitch’s simulcasting guidelines, anyone who streams on Twitch is required to prioritize their Twitch chat and experience. This results in viewers on YouTube and other platforms feeling like an afterthought.
