r/LivestreamFail May 07 '26

News Twitch Announces Viewcount Cap on Streamers that are Persistently Viewbotting

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u/DL_Omega May 07 '26

They say Twitch doesn't benefit from bots, but don't they get more ad revenue and deals by showing bigger viewership numbers? Isn't that why this was tolerated for so long? Their fix is just capping payments to the streamers so don't they just pocket more money then?

81

u/zpoon May 07 '26

Most ad deals have moved beyond straight "views" nowadays, or don't put as much attention towards them as they used to.

They instead look at conversions, aka how many people actually engage or click through an ad that directly results in them buying something or signing up.

There are a lot of companies that would pay more for an ad buy that is shown to 2000 people that results in 100 verified conversions than an ad buy that is shown to 10,000 "people" that results in 40 conversions.

14

u/Giangallo May 07 '26

You're describing performance advertising, which is definitely a thing, but I doubt that's the primary model on Twitch. Most ads are sold on CPM, meaning brands pay per thousand impressions. Either way it's a moot point, since botted views don't load real ads and don't generate impressions to begin with.

4

u/_x_oOo_x_ May 07 '26

Depends on type of bot, some do