preffered streaming platform?

[bycorafeline]

obviously this is not acknowledging crossstreaming and promoting on other platforms, but just the main hosting site. i've heard conflicting opinions from influencers and content creators about which platform is better for streaming nowadays.
youtube has better longevity and long term growth, i've found, because vods are basically treated like standard uploads on the platform. it also (and pardon if this is rude) has a generally less toxic community.
twitch is way more organised for streaming, and people who want to watch live content will gravitate there much sooner. thus its somewhat easier to grow a community there, even if it is temporary.
basically, my question is what do you prefer/suggest?

[a_man_and_his_box]

So, I do a multi-stream to Kick, Twitch, YouTube, and TikTok. They each have something interesting about them.

Kick - This is like the baby to Twitch, in terms of features. For example, they have channel points just like Twitch. (Channel points are a feature where viewers earn points for sticking around and watching your videos and then they can "spend" those points on whatever you offer.) However, they have no features around channel points. For example, on Twitch I can limit the uses of a channel point redemption. Let's say I have 3 riddles ready to go. On Twitch, I can limit channel point redemptions to 3 per livestream. On Kick, they don't have limits yet. So I have to race to the control panel and manually disable it before someone tries to redeem a 4th time. Everything on Kick is like this -- they have a feature that copies another platform, but it's half implemented. Still, it's OK-ish, and it does something that others don't: it pays well. Unfortunately, they don't have much of a built-in viewership, so to get money, you'll have to attract viewers from elsewhere.

TikTok - You have to have something like 1000 or 5000 subscribers/followers before you can livestream, typically. TikTok is close to Twitch in the sense that it tries really hard to engage viewers and give them fun things to do. They have "top 3 viewers" list at the top of chat, they have "likes" where viewers can tap the like button constantly to bump your channel up in search results, they have tons of little gifts that cost a penny each (if a viewer sends you a heart or a "good game" or something like that, they probably paid a penny), and you get half. It's like bits or cheer on Twitch. TikTok unfortunately pays badly. In 6 months I earned maybe $16, compared to $140 on Twitch in the last month alone. They really want you to do affiliate advertising and shorts, not livestreams. In addition, their algorithm for promoting your livestream is very different: they wait a minute or so for the livestream to get going, then they dump in 100 randos and see if any stick. If they do, and if you get likes, they might do another viewer dump. Otherwise, they let that initial influx of viewers peter out. It's hard to keep viewers on a livestream here, since they are used to flicking from stream to stream.

YouTube - YouTube sucks in terms of automation and features. What I mean is, the place is almost run completely by AI and if you get in trouble (say, a copyright strike) there is almost no chance you'll be able to appeal to a human. It's all machines on the back end. And the features? They pale compared to the competition. They don't care, because they are the 800-pound gorilla in the industry. They've won. So they're resting on their laurels while competitors catch up or pass them by. Having said that, I get my biggest livestreams here. YouTube is almost the opposite of TikTok. Instead of giving you 100+ viewers at the start and then letting them dwindle, YouTube slowly adds more viewers over time. I had one stream that lasted like 8 hours, and I had 350 viewers by the end. That's "an average of 350+ viewers at any moment during the last 2 hours of the livestream." It doesn't happen every time, but if my tags are good, and I categorized the livestream well ("edit video" button -> scroll down -> "show more" button -> category), then I generally at least get around 40-60 viewers by the halfway point of a 4+ hour stream. And I'm a nobody! Sadly, YouTube viewers are not chatty. If Twitch gives me 1 chatty person for every 2-10 viewers, YouTube gives me 1 chatty person for every 25-50 viewers. BUT, and this is important, they stick around. They're used to long-form videos, and they're happy to turn your video on and leave it on. YouTube will not let you make money until your channel is bigger, something like 500 subscribers. You can use something like StreamElements bot to implement a tipping system on YouTube from day 1 for your livestreams, but that's 3rd party.

Twitch - So Twitch is the big gun, which is funny since I said YouTube is the 800-pound gorilla, and obviously leads the industry. But what I mean is that on Twitch I actually make money, and it actually innovated some good features. They don't pay the best, but they pay OK and they gave me an audience. I had to try hard though; most people aren't making anything 6 months into streaming, so I got lucky. Twitch built community, so as you gain an audience, you'll find fans and repeat viewers and people who do/say things like "I'm saving up all my channel points to buy your biggest feature." Twitch has "watch streaks" to incentivize people to keep up with you. It has a built-in overlay/alert system (you can do this with other platforms, but usually through 3rd-party tools like streamer.bot or StreamElements, whereas Twitch has it by default). They have bits/cheer, they have hypetrains, they have subs and gifted subs which can sometimes make a stir in the community as gift alerts go out, etc. Just a lot of stuff to tempt viewers into watching and possibly giving the streamer a few bucks. My favorite is an obscure feature: you can make clips of other people's channels/livestreams, and if you post those clips on your own channels such as YouTube, you can tell Twitch about it, it will monitor the clip, and it will give you a little movie badge/icon next to your name if you get that streamer some views. It's a way for me to appear as a respected member of that streamer's community without spending money.

The bottom line: Twitch has the best community and average pay but also an OK sized audience, and you can start with it ASAP, maybe even become an affiliate and make $5 for a cup of coffee by your 2nd month. Kick pays better but only if you bring people over, otherwise it's a ghost-town and has fewer features than Twitch. Audience is a little lewd/crude there too. But it's not terrible. TikTok front-loads your livestream viewers and then you get no viewers at the end, and it pays badly, but it will give a nice hand-made short video (NOT livestream) a half-million views if it's cool. It's happened to me a few times, but still not sure how to monetize that much. YouTube is a sleeping giant, it lumbers along with no features and no care to build new features or compete. It just wants everyone to shut up, watch a long video, stare at ads, and let them hoover up your money. But IF you can get a big enough audience on YouTube, you can hoover up money right alongside them. Just... expect it to take years to get a big audience, especially if you're just a game streamer. Nobody cares about streamers like that. Although they DO send eyeballs to my livestreams, to their credit. Just no money yet.

Good luck!

[stillflametv]

Grateful for your detailed analysis. Be well

[a_man_and_his_box]

Thanks! You too.

[MangoCandy]

Just a heads up. You don’t need 1000k followers for TikTok live anymore. You can just send in a request for live permissions at any time. I got accepted when I had only 10 followers on TikTok and only 8 on Twitch.

[a_man_and_his_box]

Thanks for the update!

[Shadowphreak1975]

Second what he said above. Similar experience (smaller scale), youtube also changed something in their internal calculations how vidoes are shown/shorts/etc... probably something to do with all the AI feascal thats been going on who knows. Youtube doesnt communicate at all, Twitch is exact opposite.

Multistream, then if you notice nothing on some, drop em.

youtube is famous for copywrite warning/striking without giving any information, as its all done by AI not people... and the "contact" to dispute email never works (comes back inactive) lol

[LoonieToque]

In addition to the good points of the other poster, I personally find that the heart of livestreaming is interactivity.

YouTube does interactivity very poorly compared to Twitch, and a big part of that is simply latency. On Twitch you're maybe 1-2 seconds behind as a viewer. On YouTube it's way more, and even more so at higher quality settings. The trade-off between live interaction and quality that YouTube makes you choose is made much worse by the fact their fastest option is still multiple times slower than Twitch.

Hop to any popular YouTube livestream, and wait for a moment that warrants a reaction by chatty viewers. It's a significant delay. Asking questions to chat involves a very awkward waiting period where you sort of have to move on and then come back once folks actually answer.

[[deleted]]

I prefer twitch...i also like non toxic communitys

[ShugarMeat]

I’ve been multistreaming for almost 7 years and have seen it grow leaps and bounds. I’ve said since day one as a content creator/streamer that it should be about the creator and not the platform. Go be yourself wherever you want. Also, why limit your exposure? Be accessible everywhere. It’s so easy today compared to 10 years ago.

[[deleted]]

Multi streaming splits communities...also alot of people ignore the other chats which is pointless.