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Comment by brymaster | Hacker News Reader

Twitch desperately needs a competitor as they're running in a space virtually unchecked. Youtube doesn't count because they're not putting their full weight against video game live streaming and the article was simply throwing Azubu a bone by mentioning them.

Apparently their last real competitor, Own3D.tv, couldn't make good on payments owed to streamers and closed up shop. That should be a pretty good indicator about the profitability of this business model. Twitch has some interesting exclusivity deals with Xbox, PS4 and Mojang but forced ads for a Honda Civic I don't care about on the video preroll can't be paying their bills.

Twitch is still powered by venture capital, with their latest $20 million Series C round a few days ago. No doubt the exit strategy is to reach critical mass and then unload the business onto a company that can handle the bandwidth bills + stream partner payouts.

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YouTube isn't a contender, but they could very well be if they wanted it. They're most poised. YouTube just needs to implement some of the gamer-specific features that Twitch has. Namely subscription revenue and broadcaster customization.

Most Twitch broadcasters are already using YouTube heavily as part of their income, just not for streaming. They upload highlights or other videos on their YouTube partnered channel.

Experienced Twitch streamer here. I've been streaming for almost 2 years now to Twitch.

On Profitability: In the gaming space, it's all about the sponsorships. Yes, Twitch ads are going to be nice cash for them, but I would ultimately expect their business to ride on helping promote company's gaming events.

Stream partner payouts are trash, pure and simple. Pull in 100,000 uniques over a month? You're not even eligible for partner status. On YouTube, you can get ~$300.00 for the same viewership. Somehow I don't think that partnerships are costing them much money at all.

Own3D.tv was only a "competitor" in the sense that they promised to pay out more to stream partners. They were full of lies. Several times Own3D.tv had big pushes to gobble up popular streamers from Twitch. I was contacted several times. Overall the Own3D.tv site was trash compared to Twitch's features, and the second you ask them the hard questions, "How often do you pay / When do I see my first paycheck", they couldn't answer you.

TLDR; Twitch will be profitable by keeping their costs down, building partnerships, and building brand recognition. Advertising isn't the end game for Twitch.

Own3D.tv was a competitor in the sense that they provided the same service Twitch does.

Twitch has "contracts" with a lot popular streamers.

> building partnerships, and building brand recognition. Advertising isn't the end game

Those two terms are exactly the same as advertising though.

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And what streamer is going to trust them? I think there are MANY top streamers that were owed thousands of dollars. Twitch.tv was a DISTANT 2nd place to Own3D but then streamers were paid to move to Twitch (Dignatas LOL) and than once the checks strarted not coming it was a fast transition to twitch.

Also Azubu has streaming in Korea http://www.azubu.tv/index.do.

Europe is the place for someone to come in and fix their latency problems that Twitch causes.

Parent comment said that Own3D.tv guys have started up again as http://hitbox.tv/

Reposting here because parent deleted his comment.

there are a lot of companies doing this in Asia. Lots of them are printing money. Majority of them are involved in production in one way or another though.

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