It’s common practice for more successful streamers to support smaller creators on Twitch. They do this in a variety of ways, including offering mentorship, introducing them to brands, and offering to collaborate with them. They also spend money on donations, Bits (Twitch’s virtual currency), and gift subs.
Twitch is streamlining the process for streamers, announcing via an X post that they can now purchase Bits and gift subscriptions directly with their banked platform earnings, rather than using an external bank account.
However, as numerous people have noted, buying and gifting these subs essentially means that Twitch “double taxes” you.
“So people gift subs to support creators and you take 50%, then creators use their cut to buy bits or gift subs to support others and then Twitch takes ANOTHER 50%?” streamer ABYSS said on X. “That’s basically double taxing lmao.”
Fellow streamer Sir Hans Vader broke this down further, as he explained on X how if a streamer’s chat donated 100 subs, the streamer would usually get 50% of the revenue from this, with the other 50% going to Twitch. Then, if this streamer decides to gift 50 subs using that money, Twitch would once again take 50% of the revenue.”
This, Vader points out, leaves Twitch taking a 75% total cut, with just 25% left for creators. Addressing Twitch directly, he adds: “Are you high?”
A third X user, Paladin Amber, asked: “Is this a pyramid scheme where the money stays inside the pyramid scheme? Because it feels pyramid scheme?”
So far, Twitch has remained silent on this backlash, although it has continued to roll out the feature in the past few days.
