Show HN: Twitch Roulette – Find live streamers who need views the most
161 points by ellg 18 hours ago | 89 comments
Hey HN, I re-launched an old site I remembered back in the day that someone made called twitchroulette.net with a lot of new features and stats and I would love for people to check it out. The idea is you can easily browse the less browsed parts of twitch and find cool and new streamers to say hi to, and maybe make some new friends.

I also added some real time stats and breakdowns per channel and I think some of the things they show are pretty interesting. Check it out!


drunkan 51 minutes ago
Am I crazy or is this just social/financial charity roulette for streamers. Also is there not inherently an issue building the foundations of a friendship on the predicate of one person being watched and the other having to watch and potentially pay the other? If one side doesn’t like or subscribe are they friends.

The idea that people turn to streaming to either support themselves or make friends and people feel the need to help them do so is everything right and wrong with society. It’s nice people are willing to support someone else and wrong that the most supported are often the worst and really we should just support people socially and financially outside of the streaming charity system we have created. I find it all a bit mind boggling.

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tyjen 36 minutes ago
Egalitarianism for Twitch, nice project.

A friend of mine who has streamed for years, maybe garners 3 viewers at the most, but he's absolutely terrible at viewer engagement. Despite having a dual monitor setup, it often takes him 5 minutes to recognize a single line in his chat and respond.

Growing a base followership on Twitch seems like it'd be an interesting challenge considering how saturated the market is.

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flowgrammer 15 hours ago
Great idea. One of my saddest projects was making a site to help Twitch streamers get sponsorship for playing games. You automatically got picked if your view count was high enough. I saw thousands of people streaming on Twitch by themselves for weeks with no viewers whatsoever. Surely many of them had families and partners, but I'm also sure many did not.
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sanswork 10 hours ago
I used to live code on Twitch regularly with zero viewers and it didn't really bother me. It forced me to actively talk through my decision making processes just by streaming which slowed me down but was often useful. I'm not sure what the family/partners part is about, I certainly had both while streaming.
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hombre_fatal 17 minutes ago
Last year I would larp as a Spanish-speaking gaming streamer on Youtube to practice Spanish, talking out loud while trying some new game to force myself to speak it.

If I were trying to do that in private, I would stop after two minutes.

But the mere threat of someone watching me forced me to take it seriously even though I knew nobody would.

It was so effective that I would default to Spanish for the rest of the day, or I'd listen to Spanish and then realize how I could have communicated certain things better instead of just passively ingest it.

Though the same reason it was so effective also created a mental toll that I started avoiding by not doing it at all. Need to start it back up.

That said, I reckon the vast majority of streamers are gamers who do want viewership and aren't using it as some productivity hack.

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afferi300rina 3 hours ago
Does knowing that someone could be watching change your performance? I wonder if the "Live" status acts as a mental catalyst that you can't get by just talking to yourself offline.
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prox 4 hours ago
Yeah, the snark by some commenters is unwarranted.

There is this programmer and he is just chilling, programming and listening to music. Just 2-3 viewers. On occasion I say hi, make a chitchat. It’s harmless and a bit of fun/socializing.

I think most streamers know what they are doing.

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neonroku 4 hours ago
I’ve thought about doing this at work. Schedule an hour of programming once a day or once a week where others are free to join and watch, and comment or otherwise engage, or not.
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meehai 5 hours ago
Actively doing this. It indeed forces me to think things through, organize thoughts and speak them out. I open paint/miro to draw. It's good practice.
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vector_spaces 13 hours ago
Maybe I'm naive, but my sense is not everyone streaming on Twitch is trying to make a career out of it. Even for those that are -- everyone starts somewhere. Hopefully those that aren't successful on first brush notice and realize that it takes more than simply starting a stream to build a sticky audience.

Also, there are many people out there who lead fulfilling lives without families and partners. Either way, I don't think you should pity people so readily. At best it's somewhat condescending and missing much of the complexity and nuance of what it is to be a human person

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mmarvin 6 hours ago
why would you stream on Twitch then? just because it‘s „fun“? come on
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victorbjorklund 5 hours ago
You think everyone on instagram/tiktok with a public profiles tries to become an influencer?
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esperent 4 hours ago
I think that way more of them than would ever admit to it - even to themselves - want that, yes.

But aside from that, nearly everyone on Instagram has followers, at least their families and friends.

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jasonlotito 43 minutes ago
Your comment (along with mmarvin's) really just shows you are making grand assumptions about Twitch and streaming on Twitch that are not based on any level of real information. That you would equate viewers to followser is silly at best. (And don't pretend you did, either, as there is NO reason to bring up IG follower counts otherwise)

> I think that way more of them than would ever admit to it - even to themselves - want that, yes.

For many reasons, they aren't what many would consider to be influencers. The ignorant might sugget that streamers are influencers, but that's, well, ignorance. Secondly, most people do it for fun. Not as a full time job. This is a hobby. And it's a fun one.

It's okay to just not comment on things you are ignorant about. It's okay.

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monssooon 7 hours ago
It can also be a way yo practise or find like minded
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vasco 11 hours ago
What does having a family have to do with anything? I see many people with different hobbies that aren't "successful", do you also think if they have families or not?

I don't even get the implications, presumably it'd be worse to stream all day if you have a family you're neglecting, but even that is making wild assumptions.

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bobsmooth 10 hours ago
>What does having a family have to do with anything?

Presumably that at least one of their family members would be pity watching.

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carlosjobim 7 hours ago
If you have a family, why would you be screaming into the void while playing video games? Go spend time with your family, where there's endless company and good to be done.
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nkrisc 5 hours ago
One needn’t spend every single waking hour with their family. Everyone needs some time to themselves.
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carlosjobim 5 hours ago
So why live stream your alone time?
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nkrisc 5 hours ago
Ask them, not me.
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novachen 30 minutes ago
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Lorean1 6 hours ago
I'm not sure about the framing from the title, it's like "find businesses which need your money the most" - not a great advertisement
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realharo 2 hours ago
Yeah, it makes it sound like your attention is given as an act of charity. A lot of online discourse tends to be very "creator-first" framed, rather than "audience-first".
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tasuki 2 hours ago
Mhm, I clicked the thing and got shown World of Warcraft. I'm not sure the streamer needs the views the most. Perhaps it's a single mother desperately trying to raise money through streaming to feed her ten children?
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chundicus 16 hours ago
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ucarion 11 hours ago
Leads me to discover: https://www.twitch.tv/chat_loadtest_01 ... neat!
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nubinetwork 9 hours ago
Theres a lot of weird channels on twitch, I run into ones with "ingest" in their name quite often.
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ellg 16 hours ago
also neat! never heard of it, seems like we have a bit different ways about browsing similar data. very cool site
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logicallee 10 minutes ago
This was an interesting site and was the first time I tried Twitch. It seems like video-based social interaction is an interesting field in general, since it's easier and cheaper than going someplace for an event (which is naturally limited by space, as well). How does Twitch work in general? Can you tell me a little bit more about it?
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hombre_fatal 31 minutes ago
On the other hand, this might be like buying someone's overpriced mediocre product at the artisanal weekend market: probably better not to encourage them so they drop the delusion and do something else.

Like that time I spent $9 on some guy's 8oz "turmeric milk" and he said I was the first sale all day, so thanks for the support. Felt bad for making him think this thing has a shot.

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lovehashbrowns 15 hours ago
really fun! already found an MLB stream, someone streaming Age of Empires 1 no talking and chat in emote mode, someone going absolutely crazy on a racing game I think multi-streaming with their audience primarily on YT. and now I'm on a BG3 playthrough I'm pretty sure.
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jmpavlec 11 hours ago
Very nice. Currently on mobile where it mostly works in landscape. (Unusable in portrait). Will check it out on desktop later.

Love the idea of making someone's day.

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john_strinlai 10 hours ago
these types of projects are always fun, whether it is the old youtube videos with no views, or the few other twitch ones like this i have seen. thanks for sharing it.

it would be great to be able to filter by language, but i have no idea if twitch exposes that information or if it would have to be some hack with the title/game/etc data.

and, probably not your fault, but, probably 1/2 of the spins give me a 10-second pre-roll. weirdly, it isnt an advert, but some twitch-related thing i have never seen that says stuff like "preparing the stream" and "an intern stepped on a wire while your stream was setting up". i am signed in, so not sure what is going on there.

anyways, spun the wheel for awhile and had fun talking with a few people. crazy amount of people still playing call of duty, i had no idea.

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QuantumNomad_ 2 hours ago
> it isnt an advert, but some twitch-related thing i have never seen that says stuff like "preparing the stream" and "an intern stepped on a wire while your stream was setting up"

Twitch pre-roll played an ad for me on mobile in the web browser. Maybe you have an ad blocker in the browser you are using so it’s not loading the ads themselves and instead falling back to some twitch-related message?

Also I only got preroll on the first one not on the second or third. Maybe if you have an ad blocker it keeps trying prerolls more often?

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Akronymus 8 hours ago
those preroll "ads" are the alternative to mid stream ads.
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JohannesCortez 14 hours ago
Great concept! Brought me to a girl playing COD. She only has me as a viewer.

She thanked me so I stayed for a while lol

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mister_mort 14 hours ago
Perhaps you can add a check to see if the stream is behind a login/agegate? I pushed the random button and got a stream that I was locked out of.
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ellg 14 hours ago
ill check, I honestly didnt even know that was a thing, thanks for letting me know
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mememememememo 16 hours ago
Old discussion has lots of comments too https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23114103
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password4321 17 hours ago
Similar in spirit to IMG_0001⁰, IMG_0416¹, and astronaut.io² for YouTube but live on Twitch!

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47308547

¹https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42314547

²https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20432772

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ellg 17 hours ago
Check out a cool real time feed of people discovering new streamers here: https://twitchroulette.net/discover

And some neat global stats around twitch streams here: https://twitchroulette.net/stats

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RugnirViking 2 hours ago
whats the other end of some of these? you showed which categories tend to have 0-1 viewers, what categories have the least? what categories have lowest average age of accounts with 10+ viewers etc. What should you do to stand out?
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recursivecaveat 16 hours ago
For anyone who is curious btw: twitch will count you as your own viewer. So anyone with their own chat open in a browser (almost everyone so they can read it) will have that 1 viewer. Which is why the bottom of the distribution is so weird looking.
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tmtvl 32 minutes ago
You could just open your twitch chat via an IRC client, then you (might?) not count as your own viewer.
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ellg 16 hours ago
ya it's why I have the default set to 0-5, theres weirdness in what twitch counts as a viewer
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AlphaTheGoat 14 hours ago
Great idea for when you bored and want to discover new twitch channels. Just a suggestion: it would be better if you can ask the user what their preference is and then suggest accordingly.
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ellg 13 hours ago
check out the +filter button on the homepage!
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nosmokewhereiam 16 hours ago
There are some soundcloud and mixcloud versions that might need inventing ...cool concept!
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2OEH8eoCRo0 3 hours ago
I once scrolled all the way to the bottom of the streamers and it was a little kid trying to stream Fortnite using a phone camera and it kept falling down and he was happy to have one viewer. It was adorable
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monssooon 7 hours ago
Is there something like this for YouTube?
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munro 13 hours ago
Awesome haha, they look so shocked when you send a message, and then I get embarrassed and spin again
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kimchelgi03 12 hours ago
Cool concept! Discovery is the hardest part for small streamers — most viewers only see the top channels and never scroll down. The real-time stats breakdown sounds interesting.
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twentyfiveoh1 15 hours ago
my first one was junk essentially. I don't even think the host was there. They said they were streaming music videos, which is already questionable. Instead they were streaming an interview with a music artist.
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QuiDortDine 13 hours ago
Kind reminder that Twitch is owned by Amazon, which is a monster of a company. Check out Owncast and Peertube for alternatives.
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sudo_cowsay 7 hours ago
monster yes, but also very powerful
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jaequery 16 hours ago
i am actually even more impressed that you got this to front page
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ellg 16 hours ago
did I do something wrong or something
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password4321 16 hours ago
Not that I can see. I think most on HN root for the underdog.
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R_D_Olivaw 14 hours ago
Next up: HackernewsRoulette
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dezgeg 7 hours ago
Roulette to find all those vibe coded apps with zero users, sounds great!
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jaequery 5 hours ago
what? no, i love projects like these. but re-reading my comment, it does sound a little messed =p. what i meant was it gave me old HN vibes, back when weird, fun projects popped off instead of everything being AI-wrapped.
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dzonga 16 hours ago
this is pretty dope !!

was the only viewer to some guy playing far cry

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xyrox1 7 hours ago
Good job
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saadn92 13 hours ago
Can we make a version for YouTube as well? I'd love to be discovered haha
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muppetman 7 hours ago
Oh my god I love this. I tell every one I load up how terrible they are and to give up now.

I think I’ve discouraged about 250 so far!!

What a wonderful project.

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torlok 6 hours ago
No, stop, you're misusing it. The purpose of this site is to build parasocial relationships with strangers online.
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bombcar 4 hours ago
The danger with small streamers is you might accidentally develop a social relationship since they have nobody else to talk to!
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schaefer 4 hours ago
FYI: muppetman’s profile says “don’t take me seriously”, so I think this is a joke?
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KMnO4 3 hours ago
While tone often portrays poorly over text, I think this is an example where the sarcasm is very overt. I don’t think anyone would think the comment is serious.
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zephyrwhimsy 24 minutes ago
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zephyrwhimsy 23 minutes ago
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zephyrwhimsy 24 minutes ago
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deringeorge2 7 hours ago
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hikaru_ai 9 hours ago
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newgrit1004 10 hours ago
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genie3io 8 hours ago
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ferreyadinarta 5 hours ago
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reddozen 16 hours ago
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john_strinlai 10 hours ago
>Dan Clancy is totally ok with his contracted streamers constantly live streaming terrorist training videos

who is streaming terrorist videos?

you say it like everyone is, but i have never seen one myself. not that i watch all of the big streamers, but i definitely watch some of the biggest streamers on the platform and have no idea what you are referencing.

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ellg 16 hours ago
no comment on the political bits, but the fact that 80% of twitch is streaming to themselves cant be cheap to run

I do wish they would revamp their discoverability process

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vintermann 9 hours ago
I think there's a big "control premium" attached to these things. Not necessarily even that they will manipulate and censor rampantly, but that they could, I think the market prices highly.
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tuveson 14 hours ago
Twitch gets a big cut of individual creators’ subs, and I’d bet most people that stream also sub to other channels. Keeping people in the ecosystem is probably worth it, even if there’s some amount of “freeloading”.
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operatingthetan 15 hours ago
I mean if they are streaming to no clients, is there actually video being transmitted?
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ellg 15 hours ago
youre still encoding to like, 4 different formats and pushing bytes to a cdn for 80k+ streams in real time. I think the actual serving of hls chunks is the cheap part
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cwillu 14 hours ago
Transcoding is only guaranteed for twitch partners, and the cdn doesn't actually distribute the video to a given datacenter until at least one viewer using that datacenter requests it.
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ellg 14 hours ago
ya but 99% of streamers have their stream up in their dashboard or on a side monitor, so its always going to be sending and transcoding something
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Karliss 9 hours ago
Twitch can forward the stream as is without transcoding it. That's what transcoding not being guaranteed means. It will be a worse experience for viewers but it can work. Few years ago they even announced working with OBS on feature where streamers themselves can transcode and send multiple streams further reducing need for twitch to spend their compute resources on unprofitable streamers.
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saltmate 8 hours ago
That feature exists by now, called "Enhanced Broadcasting".
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cwillu 9 hours ago
In addition to the other reply, forwarding to one region in the cdn is not the same as forwarding to every region.
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vscode-rest 12 hours ago
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cortesoft 11 hours ago
Maybe they just don’t do that if you don’t have any streamers.
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nefarious_ends 15 hours ago
do you think they get a blank check for AWS resources?
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ellg 15 hours ago
honestly not sure, but it would explain how they can keep it running
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whaleofatw2022 15 hours ago
Well, I know a year (or 3?) Back they changed their retention of long videos, my guess is to lower storage spend.
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charcircuit 14 hours ago
It's important that they have a proper budget and pay near the sticker price that way they can play accounting games to make Twitch look unprofitable.
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sulplisetalk 16 hours ago
"Twatxh Loulette"
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56745742597 4 hours ago
No thanks. Why would anybody watch someone else consume an entertainment product?
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bombcar 4 hours ago
MST3K is completely incomprehensible!
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