Twitch has been playing a bit of cat and mouse with its audience as of late that isn’t too far removed from the form that cheat developers and game developers often engage in.
Yet this involves advertisements, and the constant frustration that stems from website owners relying on them for monetization, and users attempting to sidestep them in order to actually engage with some dang content.
A month ago, Amazon-owned Twitch introduced what the community referred to as ‘unblockable ads’ that circumvented all ad blockers, greeting users with multiple ad segments that could not be skipped and constantly play throughout Twitch streams.
Kind of sad I have to use like 5 different adblock tools just for Twitch itself. I want to support all amazing streamers out there but I just can't handle this annoyance with ads.
— Dat1niceguy (@dat1niceguy) October 27, 2020
Suddenly, people were missing the clutch plays as ads would suddenly arrive and block the incoming audio and video stream from users as full-scale advertisements about fast-food chains would play non-stop. Streamers were powerless to stop the influx of advertisements, so the responsibility fell to the public to figure out how to avoid them.
A post within /r/LiveStreamFails that has been stickied for the past 28 days outlined to users of uBlock Origin to set up a special script that would block certain scripts from loading.
Now, almost a full month later, and Twitch has managed to circumvent the circumventing to bring the ads back onto everyone’s screen, and they’re just as cancerous as they were prior.
https://twitter.com/Hazardlife_/status/1321217423316570118
Roughly three hours ago the shift appeared to have gone live on Twitch, and users are struggling to figure out how to navigate beyond the rough full-screen advertisements that, some have posited, are wresting control away from streamers and fans alike to bring a bit more money from said users.
A moderator has requested that the community form together and figure out how to stymie the advertisements yet again, but this is a noticeable step into a new age of Twitch.
It’s clear that Twitch staff are bent on ensuring that full-screen advertisements play for everyone on Twitch, and they will continue to develop technologies that will circumvent users attempting to dodge them. Much as cheaters and developers, or scene groups and DRM, this will bring everyone down a frustrating road where one tries to out-pace the other and the other is shortly behind, shoring up gaps in execution.
Somehow, Twitch is turning into cable television, and many are noting that it bodes extremely poorly for streamers and viewers alike.
Either Twitch needs to recognize how interweaving their adverts could work without turning off the entirety of the community, or we’re locked into this cat and mouse hell until one side accepts defeat. Of course, you could always opt for Twitch Turbo.
