this post was submitted on 10 Jan 2024
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Amazon’s Twitch to Cut 500 Employees, About 35% of Staff::Move is designed to stem losses after two rounds of layoffs last year.

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[–] [email protected] 73 points 11 months ago (5 children)

Could it be because it is dog shit? Ad ridden thot farm that killed APIs and exploits people on both ends of the video.

[–] [email protected] 97 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

They expected pandemic like growth to continue. Instead they made an absurd amount of money and are going to tone it down, socialise a bit of losses to realign the graph to something they can bullshit investors with.

(I was one of Unity's 1800, so I know the feeling).

[–] [email protected] 24 points 11 months ago

(I was one of Unity's 1800, so I know the feeling).

Sorry mate. Keep your head up.

[–] [email protected] 46 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

No no, It just means the market is shifting, people are now un-interested in streaming. It has utterly nothing to do with Twitch being run into the ground by the out of touch decrees of management.

Anyway, more firings for the workers and fluffier golden parachutes for company nobility.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 11 months ago

That sounds like it would be right up Amazon's alley.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago

What's the API ordeal? I don't use Twitch but I'm curious.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Ad ridden thot farm that killed APIs and exploits people on both ends of the video.

Try explaining this sentence to someone from 1980s.

#BackToTheFuture

[–] arandomthought 67 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Man, I forgot that Twitch is owned by Amazon...
We really do live in late-stage capitalism, don't we?

[–] [email protected] 25 points 11 months ago

Certainly a lot of once beloved online products are reaching late stage enshittification all together. Seems like the Internet is mostly that now, and you have to look hard for anything else.

[–] [email protected] 62 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Twitch is run like a private equity acquisition. The rates they are forced to pay their parent company, Amazon, are above market value. Twitch's services will get worse and worse for both streamers and viewers until all the equity is sucked dry. Late stage capitalism y'all.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Have you got a source on that?

I'd be shocked if this were the case, since internal rates at pretty much any tech company (source: I work there) are anything from 50-99% reduced.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I heard from a bigger streamer. But I started believing it because feeds degrade lot more than YT. I constantly get connection issues more than any other streaming site.

I'm vested in some of these smaller streamers, so I don't want them to lose their income. It feels like twitch is exploiting this sentiment because I'm not alone.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

It's not internal information. It's pretty much common knowledge across tech that companies arrange a rate card with their provider. In the instance of Twitch, even though they're mostly a separate entity to the rest of Amazon, they'll almost definitely have a rate card set for AWS resources.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I think they meant because 500 people who also work there are losing their jobs.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Ah, my bad, thanks! To be honest, there is so much fear of layoffs at Amazon that most people are either totally numb to it, or are constantly just waiting for their turn/an opportunity to leave.

[–] ramblinguy 3 points 11 months ago

I feel ya man, I don't work at Amazon but at a fintech startup, and I've survived through so many rounds of layoffs, demotions, and "restructurings" that I'm kinda numb to it all and just waiting for my turn too haha

[–] [email protected] 42 points 11 months ago (2 children)

If only Amazon had enough money to keep these employees. Like maybe some extra revenue from ads added onto Prime Video or something.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago

Lol, they just jacked up the amount of ads on twitch itself.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

All they had to do was not spunk half a billion on the LOTR show, and they'd have enough money to keep them enjoyed at above market rate for a decade...

[–] [email protected] 36 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Quick, quick, fire everyone before the shareholders realise the entire techbro industry is overvalued by at least 50%!

We're not a bubble, again, honest!

[–] [email protected] 15 points 11 months ago (1 children)

This has more to do with interest rates and meeting year over year profit increases.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago (1 children)

(Sub)Companies like Twitch also have the added mess of being increasingly unmonetizable.

Everyone and their mother loves to mash "enshittification" into their keyboards and grin. But almost all of that is because those companies have been operating at a loss or near loss for years and need to actually find a way to monetize. And the "easy" routes like advertisements and subscription models tend to be rejected with entire communities and industries built around bypassing that.

Like, on reddit, people were actively paying third party randos to bypass the ads on reddit. And on twitch, people lose their minds over getting an ad during a streamer's sponsored stream that is a giant ad for a different company.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

I literally just turned off Tyler1 after a 2:30 ad started. That's a fucking commercial break.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 11 months ago (1 children)

50? Idk the biggest techbro firms NEVER made any money ever. Fucking Spotify is yet to be profitable. Who exactly are they planning to sell more service to?

50 is generous.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 11 months ago (1 children)

You operate on the assumption that just because a company isn't claiming profits it's not growing in value, that is just not how the game is played anymore.

Now, sure, the game they're playing, "Go into debt to buy everything in sight and claim you're operating at a loss despite increasing the value of your holdings exponentially" was literally outlawed for being a major factor in the collapse that lead to the Great Depression, but they've surely learned from that, right?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago (4 children)

If a company makes a profit and they don't spend it, they're liable for corporation tax on it. It's in their best interest to spend it on growing.

It's just the more you spend, the more likely you are to hit diminishing returns. If you have shops in two towns, you can build another in a third town and make more money. Easy. If you already have enough shops to serve all the towns, building another might just take sales from your existing shops.

The corporations don't like this so now it's time to fire everybody and run a shit service with a skeleton crew instead, while jacking up the prices and hope your customers don't notice they're paying more for less.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

That only became a thing recently with the ability to buyback stock preventing stock dilution, the low cost of buying and selling stock, and a shit bond market.

And if there isn't a competitor on the horizon, why invest in R&D?

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Not shocked at all. Things have gone way downhill since I started with the platform. Time was, I'd start up a stream, a dev would come and hang out and actively chat while they worked. Occasionally they'd ask about my opinion about things that were being developed. It felt like actual, meaningful stuff... That was back when it was still Justin.tv and just a little bit after twitch.tv released. When I stopped streaming regularly a couple years ago, even getting a straight answer from a rep on simple questions was like pulling teeth. Then I'd have times where I'd get several different and conflicting responses for simple stuff like if what we were planning for an event would be kosher. Even arranging for some site coverage felt like begging the mob for a favor. "Alright, we'll get you front page, but it'll be at 4am, and only for an hour!"

[–] [email protected] 18 points 11 months ago

Brutal. Awful to see.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago (1 children)

So letting the camgirls strip didn't save things huh?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

"oh no, there's girls showing their bodies on my gaming app, they're taking viewers away from my 7 person stream!!!"

[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I interviewed there once. They had permanent massage rooms set up and staffed full time. The people in the place were 80% gaming neckbeards, 10% a mix of regular people, and 10% hot nerd gamer babe types they’d hired as eye candy to run around in skimpy outfits. It was so obvious and pretty embarrassing.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

... elaborate on the babes?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago

Headlines all day twitch... This is AMAZON

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago (9 children)

Its a bit hard to feel bad for them given what an absolute cesspit Twitch is as a company.

Like I understand the people theyre firing wont be the ones making it a shit company, but you still enable it by working there.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

I don't buy it. Many people that work there are there because they want to work for a company with lots of users that enjoy their product/service. It shouldn't be a reflection on them as people, especially as they're losing their jobs/co-workers, and are now entering a harsh job market.

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