So we are currently running an experiment on Twitch. I have disabled prerolls on the channel for all the streams I run, that means you won't see an ad before it tunes you into my stream anymore. I believe that prerolls in a live environment are not the way to go. Unlikely VoD content, the video doesn't wait for you to watch the ad, you miss parts of the stream when an ad runs so they are extremely intrusive. Not only that, but Twitch in particular has a lot of viewers that simply want to browse streams and that often involves a lot of prerolls, making that experience much less enjoyable.



Adblocking is a real problem for online content creators. On Youtube we are seeing 35% monetizable views across the board (that means around 1 in 3 people are actually seeing an ad, for a myriad of reasons), so content creators are earning far less than what they otherwise would be able to. This is due to many factors but one of those is adblocking. I understand that adblocking is a choice people can make. It's not illegal and let's be honest, ads are irritating and they get in the way. That said it's the only way the internet can remain free without putting out the begging bowl for donations, which many of us would prefer not to do, since we are trying to run businesses not charities. I feel that if we treat you guys right, you will do the same for us in return, so we are going to take the hit in lost revenue in order to make your stream watching experience more enjoyable and less of a hassle. We ask for nothing in return other than your understanding that we are trying to make an honest living making the content that you want to enjoy and to remind you that it is possible to use adblocking software and whitelist the content creators you wish to support. I'd also like to take this opportunity to thank the Twitch subscribers for going above and beyond in their support of the stream and the brand. Your contributions have been very much appreciated.

We will let you know the results of our experiment in a few months.