Beginning next month, Twitch Prime members will no longer be able to benefit from the universal ad-free viewing feature. The news came from an official blog post from the streaming service stating that as a result of some "re-evaluation of some of the existing Twitch Prime benefits, ad-free viewing will no longer be part of Twitch Prime for new members".

This change takes into effect starting September 14 for new members but if you already have a monthly subscription, you will still be able to enjoy ad-free viewing until October 15. Annual subscriptions will benefit from this experience until the next renewal date but you can also opt to upgrade to an annual subscription before September 14 should you want to take advantage of the disappearing feature.

Nevertheless, the blog post states that "all other Twitch Prime benefits, like monthly channel subs, monthly games and loot, and chat badges are not changing".

As for the reason behind this change, the blog post reads the following:

Advertising is an important source of support for the creators who make Twitch possible. This change will strengthen and expand that advertising opportunity for creators so they can get more support from their viewers for doing what they love. We want Twitch to remain a place where anyone can enjoy one-of-a-kind interactive entertainment, and ads allow us to continue making Twitch the best place for creators to build communities around the things they love and make money doing it.

Ad-free viewing experiences will still be available via the service's other offer, Twitch Turbo, at the monthly fee of $8.99. Additionally, Twitch Prime subscribers can get channel-specific ad-free viewing as part of Prime by using their monthly subscription token on a channel that has ad-free viewing for subscribers turned on.

What do you make of this piece of news? Will it affect your subscription plan?

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[SS4]

Everyone with premium should cancel and everyone should use adblocks. That should help them get the message when their revenue has a massive crash spike lol

 

[limpbiz411]

Except that ads don't care about volume controls. Given that many people keep channels playing mostly for background sound that isn't obtrusive, being blasted with sound from an ad playing is going to be the quickest way to make people stop using the platform completely. With some of the ads being 20-30 minutes long, this is just going to piss alot of people off. Making ad-free limited to only the channels you subscribe to unless you shell out an additional 8.99 a month is basically an insult. This will just make people stop subbing to individual streamers so they can afford turbo... killing revenue for smaller streamers.


Unfortunately adblocker doesn't work for some channels due to the way that the ads are embedded in the actual video instead of being a kind of redirect. They rolled out this process a year or two ago to channels that opted in.

try ublock

 

[Deleted User]

I just use mixer. Could use some performance improvements, but overall I prefer its features

Also, the point of this move seems to be to support content creators.

 

[grossaffe]

More importantly, Amazon US is losing the 20% off pre order bonus too :/ that one sucks way more

Huh. So Best Buy's Gamer Club program that offers 20% discount goes away (killed by Amazon Prime that comes with Twitch Prime offering 20% discounts), and suddenly Amazon doesn't feel it needs to honor the 20% discount it was offering. Which, by the way, is something I already paid for and they're removing. At least Best Buy had the good graces to grand-father in existing subscriptions (with no renewal option). I feel a case could be made for predatory monopolistic tactics here. Snuff out the competition and then jack up prices (or in this case, jack down benefits). And again, this is a benefit they are taking away after already taking my money.

 

[Captain_N]

Yet Google still manages to pay its content creators through Youtube Red, and with that subscription you also get ad-free (!) and unlimited streaming on Google Play Music. Oh and you can also download anything on the Play Music library for offline play.

can you copy that downloaded music to another device like a pc with out using a google app? Im sure they dont let you because its encrypted. You would have to hack to strip the drm or record it old school style the way we did it in the 80s/90s

 

[Subtle Demise]

can you copy that downloaded music to another device like a pc with out using a google app? Im sure they dont let you because its encrypted. You would have to hack to strip the drm or record it old school style the way we did it in the 80s/90s

Of course it's DRM'd and no you can't copy it to anything that I'm aware of but the songs work offline on your phone and there's still no ads.

 

[Captain_N]

Of course it's DRM'd and no you can't copy it to anything that I'm aware of but the songs work offline on your phone and there's still no ads.

I figured that. I dont really use any of those audio services. Not a fan of the restrictions. Unfortunately buying cds is on the way out. I suppose you can say i enjoy my freedom. vinal,Cassette tapes and cds are 100% audio freedom. they could not restrict you. Now with the digital age, the restrictions are here to stay....

 

[KingVamp]

TV and streaming services are so freaking jealous on how the games market turned out the last 10 years...

Are you kidding? There's a thing called cloud gaming that feels like it is being pushed as the future as fast as possible.

 

[Subtle Demise]

I figured that. I dont really use any of those audio services. Not a fan of the restrictions. Unfortunately buying cds is on the way out. I suppose you can say i enjoy my freedom. vinal,Cassette tapes and cds are 100% audio freedom. they could not restrict you. Now with the digital age, the restrictions are here to stay....

Well if you outright buy any of the songs, you get a DRM free copy, but otherwise I agree.