The article ends up burying several important ledes: that whole companies are built around inflating livestream viewership numbers, and that popular streamers are threatening to slowly gut the competitive esports scene. For the latter, note the perverse incentives: Twitch streamers famously lose so many subscribers to even a day away from their stream (or, heaven forbid, a whole weekend) that the amount of money needed to entice them to spend days at a time traveling to attend tournaments leads to either ludicrous and unsustainable prize pots or a competitive scene where, ironically, all the best players decide not to compete because they would lose money by doing so (especially ironic considering that they likely became popular by competing in the first place).