Late last year Twitch started testing a feature that allowed people to pay money to boost a channel, with many people being concerned about the legitimacy and the ways this practice could be abused. As it turns out, it could be very easily abused as proven by recent events.
Paid boosts would work in the way that you promote your stream, thus (hypothetically) getting that stream onto the front page and getting greater eyes on it. The intention was that it would allow smaller streamers to become noticed, but the reality is that popular streamers just became more popular.
Streamer Zack Bussey noted that it seemed people were creating hype trains and paying to get pornographic material on the front page, noting the following in a tweet:
“Looks like determined trolls are literally paying for accounts with access to the Boost Train… and then literally creating hype trains to get porn onto the front page.”
It’s not like we couldn’t see this coming. Whenever large platforms attempt new experiments it tends to end in disaster, with people realising quickly how easily abusable these things can be. What remains to be seen is if Twitch will simply classify this as a failed experiment or if they’ll come back with it once again after changing up how the system works.
What do you think about all this? Should Twitch try this again, or class this as a failed experiment?
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