Even a pause is now being monetized.
Twitch is currently experimenting with new ad formats that are intended to interfere less with the viewing experience. However, it remains questionable whether the latest measure actually lives up to that promise.
Two New Ad Formats In Testing
The debate around advertising on Twitch feels almost as old as the platform itself, and there seems to be no end in sight. Twitch is currently testing new measures aimed at integrating ads into the viewing experience in a less disruptive way.
To achieve this, the company is relying on two new features that may seem familiar to many users from other platforms. On the one hand, Twitch is experimenting with skippable ads, a model that has been available on YouTube for years. On the other hand, ads are set to appear when a viewer pauses a stream, a feature known from Amazon Prime.
Twitch Support explained this in a post on X:
“New ad-format experiment: Pause-screen ads. As a part of our ongoing work to make ads less intrusive while offering creators additional revenue sources, these ads will appear when a viewer pauses a stream.”
Although the stated goal of making advertising less disruptive initially sounds positive, enthusiasm within the community remains limited. While some question how often livestreams are actually paused, others express more fundamental dissatisfaction with the overall development of advertising on the platform.
Advertising Isn’t The Problem, It’s The Scale
The muted reactions can be explained by the overall development of advertising on the platform. In recent years, the ad density has steadily increased, and even previous ways to avoid ads, such as an Amazon Prime membership without additional advertising, have been discontinued.
At the same time, advertising has long since made its way onto nearly every streaming platform. Netflix, Disney+, YouTube, and Amazon Prime now all offer subscription models that include ads during series, films, or videos.
Most people understand that advertising is necessary to a certain extent so that creators and platforms can cover their costs. When you watch a video on YouTube for free, many see a bit of advertising as a fair trade-off. It becomes problematic, however, when the impression arises that ads are no longer about financing content but purely about maximizing profits. If I watch a 50-minute YouTube video and have to sit through almost a minute of ads every five minutes, the enjoyment simply disappears.
So maybe people aren’t actually annoyed because of this one specific measure, but because advertising across all platforms is slowly but surely getting out of hand.
What do you think? Let us know in the comments!
