LiluPichu is an OG of Twitch who had been streaming on the platform for a decade. On July 7th, Lily uploaded a video to YouTube titled “my big decision.” In this video, she revealed that she is going to be streaming on YouTube instead of Twitch.
Lily already has a huge presence on YouTube, with 3 million subscribers to her main channel, but prior to July 8th (the date of her first YouTube stream under the new contract) all of her streaming content had been on Twitch.
After releasing the announcement video (below), Lily went on stream to explain why she made the switch from Twitch to YouTube.
LilyPichu Reveals Why She Left Twitch:
“I felt like I wasn’t really going anywhere on Twitch,” Lily explained. “Financial stability, change of space… if I’m going to fall off, I might as well fall off on YouTube where I get paid.”
“It’s kinda cool because I’ve went full circle. I started with YouTube and now I’m ending with YouTube. Do you know how many music videos I can fund now,” she added. “Also YouTube if you want to push comfi beats in your algorithm I’m not going to complain about that. Overall, it was an easy decision.”
– LilyPichu
Financial stability is something that everyone worries about, and on Twitch you can have your income shut-off without a moment’s notice, which causes a lot of anxiety for creators. Twitch is often criticized for the way they enforce their Terms of Service, which has lead to them publicly announcing that they’re trying to fix it. At the very least, streamers might finally know why they’ve been banned, but that still leaves a lot to be desired.
Lily isn’t a controversial streamer or someone who should lose sleep worrying about a Twitch ban, but it’s still something that looms over streamer’s heads (even the wholesome ones), especially as they see their friends being banned and leaving for YouTube.
- You can subscribe to LilyPichu on YouTube and follow her on Twitter.
- You should also check out LilyPichu’s music project, comfi beats.
LilyPichu’s YouTube Channel Grew Rapidly After Leaving Twitch
The chart below shows LilyPichu’s YouTube growth in terms of video views and new subscribers, and by both metrics, her growth in the past couple of days has been staggering.
She likely has many fans on Twitch who weren’t subscribed to her YouTube yet, maybe they were more interested in streams than edited-video content, but many of them will now be finding their way over to YouTube.
Can YouTube Extinguish Twitch’s Flame?
YouTube is Goliath when it comes to video content on the internet, and even though their livestreaming platform feels like an afterthought compared to their main focus on edited video, their livestreaming player still works a lot better than Twitch does, despite livestreaming being the sole focus of Twitch and what Twitch is synonymous with.
YouTube’s video player works a lot better for livestreams than the notoriously bad videoplayer on Twitch. YouTube viewers can pause livestreams and resume where they left off at their convenience, and they can even skip backwards during a stream. On Twitch, it’s just super clunky all-around.
Guaranteed Contracts from YouTube vs. Twitch Prime Subs
The big plus with Twitch is Prime subscriptions, which are essentially subsidized advertisements for Amazon Prime that can amount to a substantial amount of money for individual streamers, yet represent a drop in the bucket for Amazon to subsidize.
YouTube recently added the ability for users to gift subscriptions to one another, so if it wasn’t obvious enough when they first started signing Twitch streamers to huge exclusive deals, it’s pretty clear that Twitch is in YouTube’s sights. Expect more big contracts for Twitch streamers to move over to YouTube in the near future.
Surely, some of them will stay on Twitch and find a new Twitch streamer to watch, but as more and more streamers feel the pull towards YouTube (whether to find a new audience, out of necessity after a Twitch ban, or out of fear of Twitch cutting off their income arbitrarily.)
On the financial side, Lily will be losing out on Twitch subs, especially the “free” ones from Amazon Prime members but a huge, guaranteed contract from YouTube is probably a much better deal.
This is especially true for established streamers who may not be seeing exponential explosive growth. They can head to YouTube, where they may already have a presence, get the bag, get themselves in front of a whole new audience, and stream carefree with money to invest in all sorts of streams and creative endeavors.
Sounds like a huge W for LilyPichu and for YouTube.
