Twitch, the popular live streaming platform owned by Amazon, has announced a new policy introducing a 100-hour storage limit for highlights and uploads. Set to take effect on April 19, this change affects a small fraction of the community—less than 0.5% of active channels and accounts for under 0.1% of hours watched on the platform. The decision aims to optimize resource management while maintaining the support of the Highlights and Uploads feature.
Strategy to Optimize Resource Management
The newly imposed storage cap is part of Twitch’s strategy to manage its resources more efficiently, allowing the company to continue investing in innovation. As a leader in cloud services through its AWS platform, Amazon’s Twitch seeks to enhance user experience by allocating resources towards developing more effective viewer engagement tools. Twitch is encouraging users to download or export their content before the deadline to avoid losing valuable footage.
“Despite low effectiveness, some users have accrued thousands of hours of Highlights and Uploads (often used to create Highlights) over time,” an official statement from Twitch reads.
“The storage of this content is costly. Introducing this 100-hour storage limit, which impacts less than 0.5% of active channels on Twitch and accounts for less than 0.1% of hours watched, helps us manage resources more efficiently, maintain support of Highlights and Uploads, and continue to invest in new features and improvements to more effective viewer engagement tools like Clips and the mobile feed.”
Initially introduced to aid streamers in creating highlight reels, Twitch’s Highlights feature has seen varied usage among its users. Despite some discontent expressed by streamers on social media platforms, Twitch remains focused on rolling out new features such as Clips, Tags, and the Mobile Discovery Feed, aimed at enhancing discovery and engagement.
In a related move, Facebook has announced changes to its live video storage policies. Live videos will now only remain on the platform for 30 days before they are automatically deleted. This aligns with a broader trend in the digital streaming industry towards optimizing content storage and management practices.
What The Author Thinks
In my opinion, Twitch’s decision to introduce a 100-hour storage limit seems to be a practical move for managing resources, especially given that the storage impact affects such a small portion of the user base. While it may frustrate some streamers, the platform’s focus on investing in tools like Clips and the Mobile Discovery Feed suggests a strategic pivot to improve engagement. Ultimately, this change may push creators to focus more on immediate, high-impact content while promoting new features designed for better discoverability.
Featured image credit: Sa1bot via GoodFon
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