Kick Emerges as a Competitor: Amouranth Criticizes Twitch Business Model

The emergence of Kick, a new player in the streaming landscape, has caused a significant shift in the industry.

This Twitch competitor has already managed to sign some of the platform’s biggest names, including popular streamer, Kaitlyn ‘Amouranth’ Siragusa.

In this article, we explore Amouranth’s views on Twitch’s business model and its impact on content creators.

Kick’s Success and Twitch’s Influence

Kick emerges as a competitor and has made impressive strides in a short span of time by successfully recruiting renowned streamers such as xQc and BruceDropEmOff.

However, their recent acquisition of Amouranth, widely known for her hot tub streaming, has further solidified Kick’s position in the streaming industry. Twitch’s own decisions have played a role in Kick’s success.

These decisions include implementing a 70/30 sub-split policy, which currently applies to only 1000 streamers, and introducing new policies on branded content.

Amouranth’s Critique of Twitch

Twitch’s “sin” isn’t trying to squeeze their creators

Their sin is making a business model that doesn’t succeed except maybe at YouTube scale— but live streaming is a much smaller TAM than pre-recorded video (esp when tiktok won the ultra short form streams).

Instead of

— Kaitlyn (@wildkait) June 19, 2023

Amouranth recently expressed her dissatisfaction with Twitch’s business model through a series of tweets. She believes that Twitch’s failure lies not in squeezing creators, but in its target customer base.

According to her, Twitch’s business model is flawed because it is primarily designed for a larger market, similar to YouTube’s reach.

However, live streaming caters to a much smaller Total Addressable Market (TAM) compared to pre-recorded video content. Amouranth lauds TikTok’s success in the realm of short-form content, contrasting it with Twitch’s approach.

Twitch’s Failure to Adapt

create a MUCH better biz model/monetization engine.

Taking incremental share of streamer earnings is ham fisted, and you can’t cut your way to profitability that way (math it, chasm too wide)

I echo the view that if all the recent twitch actions are sacrificial lambs to

— Kaitlyn (@wildkait) June 19, 2023

Siragusa further argues that Twitch’s decision to squeeze content creators stems from its failure to integrate itself effectively into Amazon’s rapidly-growing business.

She believes that Twitch’s current strategy will hinder its ability to achieve profitability. Simply cutting costs and taking a larger share of streamer earnings is not a sustainable solution.

Amouranth strongly echoes the sentiment that if Twitch’s recent actions, such as policy changes and the potential removal of Prime subscriptions, are desperate attempts to delay impending challenges, the platform is headed for trouble.

Kick Emerges as a Competitor: The Future of the Streaming Wars

As the competition between streaming platforms intensifies, it becomes increasingly fascinating to observe how many other prominent figures will join Kick in the future.

Twitch’s policies have generated resentment among content creators, which could potentially push them towards alternative platforms (Kick for example). The streaming landscape is evolving rapidly, and only time will tell how this battle for supremacy unfolds.

Conclusion

Kick’s entry into the streaming industry has disrupted the status quo, attracting prominent streamers away from Twitch.

Amouranth, one of the platform’s biggest stars, has been vocal about her dissatisfaction with Twitch’s business model. She believes that Twitch’s focus on a broader market fails to consider the unique aspects of live streaming.

As the streaming wars continue, it remains to be seen how many more influential figures will migrate to Kick, especially with growing discontent towards Twitch’s policies.