> You also have to consider that the average length of a "day" for a popular Twitch streamer is 10-12 hours.
carlsagan42 streams once a week for ~4 hours, and pulls in a couple thousand viewers at min, at 6pm on a Saturday.
His secret? He is super entertaining, hands down one of the funniest people and most entertaining people to watch on twitch. His YT videos of his streams then get a few hundred thousand more views on top of that. But yes he is an anomaly, in that he is really damn good at both game play and also entertaining.
Most streamers don't have that killer combo, so they have to work a lot harder.
Plenty of streamers are 9am-5pm, 8am-4pm, or 11am-7pm. Heck I know successful who are 8pm-midnight.
I'd argue that it really depends on the stream and the community. Streamers that build a super strong community can get away with shorter streamers and smaller viewer bases. They won't be pulling in millions, but they can get a steady income stream from it.
My overall point is that streaming is a valid career for people who have the right skills. The barrier to getting started is low, but the barrier to doing to an open mic stand-up is also low. The difference is there aren't a bunch of news articles about people flocking to open-mic nights, although I suspect on any given night there are a thousand or so people doing open mic in the US alone! But there is also a cultural realization that most people shouldn't quit their job, drop out of school, and start practicing their comedy routine 8 hours a day.