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Comment by Qahlel | Hacker News Reader

Technically, that's how I had found about Asmongold in the first place. The real money -for streamers- is in Twitch. What he's doing, is logical and smart for his bottom-line.

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Yeah, I found about Asmongold on YouTube as well. Watched some clips, amusing stuff. But where that failed was that I didn't go on Twitch to watch his streams. I think an important question is what's the conversion rate from YouTube to Twitch. And what kind of an incentive is there for people to go on Twitch if the "best bits" go on YouTube anyways?

I think it depends on the audience.

Personally I don't watch sports because I don't find it very interesting at all. Seriously, I would rather watch paint dry than most sports.

But I would (and sometimes do) watch a few minute highlight clips of someone who is extremely talented just schooling the competition at a professional level. It caters towards a different type of perspective. I don't care who wins or loses or even what sport it is. I just like seeing people excel at their craft, and it's super interesting to see how big of a skill gap there is between a really legendary player and an average player at the pro level.

A sports network will never get a dime from me, I'll never purchase tickets to a game and I would never wear any merchandise related to that player or sport. But in the end, I'm now aware of that player for something positive and I think for something to really take off that general awareness is critical.

I think there's an entire section of the audience that don't like livestreaming but do like watching highlights of cool stuff in youtube. I don't watch twitch, but I know who Doctor Disrespect and Shroud are because I've seen their compilation vids on youtube. At a certain point just general recognition of who and what you are is worth something even if you can't directly monetise it.

I also found Asmongold this way and did catch a couple of his streams. The big draw on twitch is community/participation. That's not my thing so I didn't stick around. I'd be interested to know conversion rates, but I have no doubt there are enough people who go from discovery via YouTube to Twitch subscriber that it makes it worth it.

I’m still amazed by the sheer amount of money there is in this. $30,000 a month for reuploaders? $100,000 in a day for ad deals?

Makes me wonder if I chose the wrong career.

But this is for top 1% streamers. Average streamer makes nothing close to what average programmer makes and it's much, much easier to be average programmer. Plus 1% programmers are probably better compensated than 1% streamers.

That is definitely on the high end of remuneration. The median I expect is about $2K a month.

It would surprise me if it's even that high. From the "successful" ones perhaps, but there are so many people who do this only for a few bucks because they don't find success.

You're right, I am discounting the staggering fraction of people who are making essentially no money. The median number of viewers on a Twitch stream may well be 0, but it's surprisingly hard to find hard numbers here.

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