[echohack]

Experienced Twitch streamer here. I've been streaming for almost 2 years now to Twitch.

On Profitability: In the gaming space, it's all about the sponsorships. Yes, Twitch ads are going to be nice cash for them, but I would ultimately expect their business to ride on helping promote company's gaming events.

Stream partner payouts are trash, pure and simple. Pull in 100,000 uniques over a month? You're not even eligible for partner status. On YouTube, you can get ~$300.00 for the same viewership. Somehow I don't think that partnerships are costing them much money at all.

Own3D.tv was only a "competitor" in the sense that they promised to pay out more to stream partners. They were full of lies. Several times Own3D.tv had big pushes to gobble up popular streamers from Twitch. I was contacted several times. Overall the Own3D.tv site was trash compared to Twitch's features, and the second you ask them the hard questions, "How often do you pay / When do I see my first paycheck", they couldn't answer you.

TLDR; Twitch will be profitable by keeping their costs down, building partnerships, and building brand recognition. Advertising isn't the end game for Twitch.

[brymaster]

Own3D.tv was a competitor in the sense that they provided the same service Twitch does.

Twitch has "contracts" with a lot popular streamers.

> building partnerships, and building brand recognition. Advertising isn't the end game

Those two terms are exactly the same as advertising though.