But what I find with all these creative professions is an undertone of... desperation. A lot of people seem desperate to be famous. It’s kind of sad.

Thing is the majority of wannabe Twitch streamers (and this includes YouTube) just aren’t entertaining.

I think they see the top 0.1% and say “I could do that”. What they Do note may be easy but getting there wasn’t. People don’t seem to see the years of building an audience and luck among the way.

Too many people now just see solar signs. 10 years ago (at least on Twitch) it wasn’t a profession. People did it as a hobby.

I imagine this is similar to other fields like acting. So few people are professional actors. The vast majority are working casual jobs for years hoping to get their break and most won’t ever get that break.

At least With field like dancing there’s a barrier to entry. Dancers train for years.

A lot of YouTube creators don’t have any skills. They just want to be famous based in their looks and their lifestyle. That’s the worst kind of fame seeker (IMHO).

You're talking 10-12 hours _every day_ entertaining people. Successful streamers work 6-7 day weeks at those hours and if they're lucky take 2 weeks off a year -- one of those spent at TwitchCon. Most of them are playing the same game for long stretches of time (months to years). That's really hard!

And if you regularly have ~3k viewers, you'll probably earn $2k-4k a month between ad money and donations. Except for outliers, obviously. The overwhelming majority of streamers are not successful, by the way, or are only successful for a year or two.

It's absolutely a labor of love. You do it because you can't stand doing the alternative.

That's just a long way of saying that if you wanna get rich, learn how to write code and talk to people. Way easier than becoming one of the top 3-400 streamers in the world.

Yes some is luck, attractiveness, etc. But that's true in all careers.

Just because they're playing games doesn't mean they aren't working. Athletes get insane amounts of money to play games. They exert themselves more physically, but I expect being a top steamer day in and out isn't a cake walk either.

I mean this seriously; not as a dig. Why be exclusive when everyone knows youtube? I may even watch a video if i see it when browsing.

But who just watches OTHER PEOPLE play games for fun? How can you build a hugely expensive business off this? Is it all basically advertising for video games funded by companies?

Like others have mentioned it's a combination of luck to get the initial attention, and skill to maintain that following (either actual video game skill, entertainment skill, or a combination of both).

Speaking of Twitch specifically, a lot of people are lured into streaming with the promise of earning money doing what they love. And a lot of them don't make it, despite streaming 8+ hour sessions most days of the week. The unfortunate reality is that success is not purely proportional to dedication, and it quickly leads to horrible problems like burnout and depression.

I love watching Twitch, and watch 5-7 gamers regularly (almost every night). From what I can tell, most of them:

- Are in their mid-20's to early 30's.

- Live with their parents.

- Make just enough from Youtube/Twitch/Patreon/merch to fund their gaming rigs, buy new games, buy their own food, and maybe pay for an upgraded internet connection.

These are people who in some cases have hundreds of thousands of followers on Youtube and each Twitch stream attracts over two thousand viewers. It's not a good way to make a living.

I've asked several of them if they make a full-time living (via Twitch chat), and they've acknowledged the question, but didn't seem to want to really answer it.

A couple of them even make a joke out of it every time their sibling starts torrenting and it slows down their network connection.

If I ever have a kid, I'll support their dream of becoming one of these people. And I'll also tell them they're not living in my house past the age of 18. Figure out a way to make money while doing what you love.

The take that it's an easy job seems very weird to me. If it's so easy, why don't you quit your job and start streaming instead?

'Obscene' is a superlative not hugely relevant here unless you start with calling pro-athletes and actors getting paid 'millions' as 'obscene'.

Twitch streamers have even considerably lower barriers to entry than athletes or actors. In the later case, probably 1/2 of well known actors are born into the industry. Athletes work through a selective system that is gamed so is the workplace.

On Twitch - people are paid literally in donations from viewers, there are no powerful layers of value chain here, which is a very powerful signal of valid intent on the part of those being entertained.

Twitch Entertainers is possibly one of the most free, open and fair markets going.

Once again: your hints of 'money to pay people for promotion' isn't valuable foremost because 1) 'marketing' exists in all professions (actors have agents, press people, managers and work in a highly controlled system of promotion and 2) those activities are scant and not powerful. Nick Merc is not paying big bucks for marketing, and it wouldn't get him anywhere anyhow.

"Technically most of the contributing creators should be paid and promoted by the platform equally," - no. They should be promoted fairly - which they are. Obviously there is some incumbency in that more popular people get promoted more, however, there's ample opportunity for long tail discovery.

The truth is (and this is a very key understanding) most creators are not creating interesting content. Full Stop.

"The inequality reflects on our current societal problems as well." - no, there's little parallel here.

"The level of labor and efforts in being a platform user and a creator are very high," - this is not relevant. Nobody cares how much work or effort goes into the content creation. They want to be entertained with good gameplay or charismatic personalities, and that's it.

"Even very talented creators don't stand a chance of being recognized " - totally the opposite. They have a very good chance of getting some viewers, and if they have something people want to see, more will tune in.

The reality is, like everything in life - 'most people are not good at it' and the eyeballs are going to veer towards the more talented streamers.

Frankly, I think they get paid too much, I'm glad they get paid something but I'm not going to give them my money.

That said, the system is pretty good. A lot of people making a living out of playing video games, and a lot of people seem to be entertained by that.

Just look up how much the highest paid streamers on Twitch make per month, and you'll see there's some value to it.

So we are still talking about an absurd low number of people.