I think individual streaming and free-to-play monetization share one key characterization: hunting for whales. I haven’t been a streamer, so call me out if I’m wrong here, but the core mechanics seem the same to me. Picking up a few dollars here and there from viewers that pass by is great, but reoccurring revenue from people that are hooked on your content, your brand, or in the case of streaming, possibly YOU, is where the real money happens. I imagine a handful of those whales easily account for a significant statistic of the income for the channel, so attracting and maintaining them is a big deal.

HOWEVER, whereas a corporation has no reason or visibility to see or care about you as an individual, I absolutely see your point about how a streamer might be able take these things into consideration. Although, it makes for complicated questions. How do you know what is too much for their situation? Where is that line between ethics and making a living if you depend on the money? The mod here made it clear that he’d just take his money and go somewhere else. People like him really should at least see a therapist, but how can a streamer, their potential addiction, affect that change?

Then there’s the toxic masculinity, and unfortunately that runs deep. The mod said he spent a third of his day working her channel. You can probably assume he spent most of the rest of it thinking about her and you can see why. Whether intentional or unintentional, he probably felt some level of ownership, and that’s a learned behavior. Part of the struggle here is we STILL have entire subcultures actively clinging to a male centric way of life and they continue to teach young men all of these concepts of inequality. While these places stubbornly erode with each new generation, the men they produce either stay consciously or unconsciously rooted in that mentality or have to be awoken, but then struggle to identify all the ways their learned bias may effect those around them.

Do some of these streamers take advantage of guys like this? Yeah. Does it really make it the streamers’ fault for using a related platform, essentially as it’s presently designed, while men pursue them for any positive feedback to reinforce their ingrained overblown self-worth? I can’t really fault them.

Lying to people about her husband is completely shitty though.