Technology

How does simple communication and the rollout of new polices remain so very, very difficult for Amazon’s Twitch platform? Over the past several years, we have written up many posts of all the ways that Twitch has sucked out loud when it comes to communicating with its creators, particularly when it comes to policy changes the platform decides to make. It changed how it responds to DMCA takedown requests without bothering to tell anyone about it, for instance. Then it turned its vaunted affiliate program into essentially a pay-to-play scheme. All the while, creators have been subject to DMCA abuse, Twitch started playing silent games demonitizing some creator content, and it failed to promptly inform creators that it had banned as to the reason for those bans.

Has it gotten better? Not really, no. The most recent news is that Twitch decided to change up its rules and policies on how streamers can partner with advertisers on the platform in a manner that has the potential to have massive effects, before quickly retreating from its own announcement.