Twitch Ads (and other Revenue)

Twitch Billboard

Recently Twitch.TV (also now known as Prime Gaming) has been making changes to how ads run on their service. They have found a way (and then another way and so forth) to stop ad blockers from letting people avoid their ads. Now, this has been on ongoing battle between adblocks and Twitch but it seems the tides are turning in favor of the streaming giant and the users are left unable to circumvent the series of sponsored videos. This has led to a slew of rage-filled posts on the Twitch subreddit and elsewhere as people feel bombarded with unwanted ads. While I’m no fan of ads interrupting my viewing experience, I seem to have the unpopular opinion that Twitch attempting to ensure their ads get seen is… okay.

In this post, I’m going to discuss the if Twitch forcing ads is okay (and what would be okay if not what they are doing), their other means of revenue, and what the options mean to the end user.

(more…)