Maxcfm

Powered by the love and support of @TheAteamGC Retired Sr. Systems/Virtualization/Data Center Architect.

[Ryan Hall, Y’all @ryanhallyall]

Yesterday's storm system triggered 728 Severe & Tornado Warnings, the highest single-day count since the historic April 2011 outbreak.

The data shows we just experienced the third most active severe weather day in nearly four decades.

[Maxcfm @maxcfm]

@Soaryn117 Does the monitor support something else like 120hz or 90hz and have you tried that?

[Maxcfm @maxcfm]

@Soaryn117 @pc_mean tried tuning off hardware acceleration in chrome? try any other browser?

[Maxcfm @maxcfm]

@Kintinue I was expecting pictures of bean when I saw this txt.

[Kintinue @Kintinue]

Huge HUGE thanks to @AMDGaming for sending over this awesome new AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D processor and the sweet hat!

I’ve been using AMD for the last few years and have been LOVING it. (My cpu and gpu are SICK AWESOME!)

Thanks again!

#GoAMDRyzenX3D #AMDPartner

[Devin @DevinNash]

Here’s the truth about the Twitch Adpocalypse from an actual ad buyer. I’ve seen too much confusion and bad data on this issue. Are individual streamers to blame? What’s going on with streamers getting demonetized? Is this a political/extreme content issue or something else?

Let’s go -> 🧵

The short answer is yes, there is an ad problem on Twitch. Twitch isn’t keeping pace with the growth of digital advertising, which increased 7.4% in 2024. Recently, multiple key advertisers paused ads on Twitch. The catalyst for the pause is increased media attention on high risk content (political/polarizing) being featured on Twitch. This is why you see Twitch rushing to apply CCLs (content classification labels) that we’ll talk about later. But IMO Twitch is not losing advertisers primarily for this reason. They’re gone and might stay gone for more practical reasons we’ll discuss below.

Ad budgets are not created equal. Twitch is considered a “niche ad product” or “experimental budget.” Most agencies don’t know if Twitch ads work or not, so they assign a small percentage of their budget to see. The rest of their budget goes to tried and true market leaders like Adsense and Meta.

So the first thing to understand is, when a niche ad product underperforms and/or has controversy, it is the easiest and fastest to cut.

As advertisers, we evaluate where we spend budget on four factors, in this order:

- ROAS (Return on Advertising Spend): Do the ads actually work? Do they make us money?

- Targeting: How well can I control the ads I run? Can I control where they show up? Can I control if they end up on ineffective/bad placements?

- Demographics: How relevant are the viewers of these ads to the client’s product I’m selling? (Age/gender/disposable income/etc)

- Brand Safety: Will the ad run alongside content that is destructive to my client? (Politics, porn, polarizing content)

Twitch ranks the lowest of any non-adult digital ad spending options on all four. If you understand this, you understand the truth of the Twitch adpocalypse is just that it sucks to run ads on Twitch. There is no real drama or individual streamer bringing down the website. Some are doing more damage than others, but overall - the system itself is antiquated and ineffective. Especially compared to incredible options like Adsense, Meta, or even Tiktok.

There is little sense in running ads if you aren’t a game publisher, and I’ve never seen any strong case studies that show success on Twitch ad campaigns. Here’s an opportunity for someone at Twitch sales to DM me and educate me if I’m wrong, but it hasn’t happened in the 5 years of me running ads. I’m still waiting.

We’re seeing a decline in Twitch ad sales because ads don’t work on Twitch. At my agency, we’ve run hundreds of ad deals through Twitch. From 2019 -> 2024 we’ve moved almost all our ad budget to other digital platforms. The answer isn’t dramatic as to why, just follow the money. Many brands don’t have the data we have yet and they’ll keep running and testing ads. So Twitch will always get some business. But until Twitch improves their ad systems, ad spend will continue to decline.

What about individual streamers being demonetized?

First, an important note on streamers in general. You should put literally zero stock into anything an individual content creator says or shows you. This goes double for any “take” or “opinion” they make. I respect many of these men and women for their work ethic and artistic ability to create great stories and content. But they are almost all entertainers. Being a streamer gives you no particular expertise over the industry you’re a part of - your customers are your viewers and you are paid by Twitch.

Only a tiny amount of streamers have any business sense. And most of those few just act as the face of a brand and C-level people do the work behind the scenes. You should discount anyone who isn’t actually a practitioner. Valuable resources are actual industry folk, ad tech specialists and buyers, and journalists who have creative integrity and put in work to dig. Talk to any of these people (Richard Lewis/myself/other ad buyers/news outlets) and the consensus is that about eleven major brands have paused ads and the site is declining in overall spending.

I wanted to put this above note here because I spend a good amount of time dispelling uninformed opinions made by posers (in my field of focus.) Everyone is trying to be an expert on everything and few people put in real work. Beware people whose bills are exclusively paid by the total attention they get. This incentivizes them towards extreme opinions and to creep into every issue they have no business speaking on.

Anyway, individual streamers are getting demonetized because of the new Content Classification Labels that Twitch added. It isn’t related or indicative of the overall ad situation on Twitch. As I predicted in my October thread, CCLs would be Twitch’s first move in response to an advertising boycott. You will see this happen much more to streamers. Streamers will randomly lose ad revenue. Youtube had to go through this during their own adpocalypse. As the tech is built it will miscategorize and mislabel streamers. The simplest version of CCLs is what Twitch just implemented. Twitch just exported a list of polarizing words (“political, Iran”) and categorically demonetized all streamers by those labels. It’s the most braindead implementation of any kind of brand safety measure, which is why you can safely rely on Twitch to do it first.

The twitch adpocalypse won’t look like individual streamers getting demonetized. It will look like a 20-50% overall decline in streamer revenue from ads. Twitch won’t be able to keep up with fill rates and ad inventory won’t be as valuable. Fixing this won’t come down to individual streamers (they just aren’t that important, sorry.) It will come down to Twitch’s ad tech improving to become competitive with market leaders such as Adsense and Meta. Twitch has had many years to compete on this level and has thus far failed spectacularly. This reason above all others is why I’m generally bearish on Twitch’s future.

Hopefully this thread is comprehensive enough that we have no more confusion about the Twitch ad situation. Please bookmark and send this thread to people if they are trying to understand the Twitch ad system or adpocalypse situation. Thank you for taking the time to read this.

[Maxcfm @maxcfm]

I'll be hanging out at #FortLAN with other @TheATeamGC members gaming and chatting this weekend! Come join us!

[𝐷𝑟. 𝐼𝑎𝑛 𝐶𝑢𝑡𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑠 @IanCutress]

Version 1: AMD Z1 Extreme beats Intel Lunar Lake!
Version 2: Intel Lunar Lake beats AMD Z1 Extreme.

I'm surprised someone was allowed to press post.
Not even a correction noted on the newest version.

[Maxcfm @maxcfm]

@tekwendell I remember them as Tektronix phaser before Xerox picked them up in 1999, good ole solid ink printers.

[Maxcfm @maxcfm]

@AnikaMistwalker

[Maxcfm @maxcfm]

@AnikaMistwalker love the nails!

[Maxcfm @maxcfm]

@cch217

[Maxcfm @maxcfm]

@Kintinue

[Maxcfm @maxcfm]

@SonOfATech Sadly no, We have a gig that we need to fly out to Sat/Sun thought about flying in and doing dinners Thurs/Fri with friends then fly out. Schedule is just too tight.

[Maxcfm @maxcfm]

@SonOfATech Wishing I was closer to lend a hand or two. My DMs always open for you bud!

[Maxcfm @maxcfm]

@Wyld yes very tasty stuff!

[Maxcfm @maxcfm]

@Wyld Maybe...

[Maxcfm @maxcfm]

@Wyld stay safe as I know what your going to be driving into.