> I mean at the very least they should hand controls to the streamer to run an ad: right now it’s the algorithm that does it.
They do: as a streamer, you've got a button to trigger an ad break at any time. But the streamers rarely push it, for the reasons already mentioned. Video ads pay so little that it's not worth it to streamers to annoy their audience that way, when direct monetization methods which depend on happy viewers (subscriptions, shout-outs, merch) are much more profitable to them.
There's a real problem of incentive misalignment between the streamers and the platform re: monetizing the stream by sticking ads in it, and I don't think it can be resolved; hence the layoffs.
They do: as a streamer, you've got a button to trigger an ad break at any time. But the streamers rarely push it, for the reasons already mentioned. Video ads pay so little that it's not worth it to streamers to annoy their audience that way, when direct monetization methods which depend on happy viewers (subscriptions, shout-outs, merch) are much more profitable to them.
There's a real problem of incentive misalignment between the streamers and the platform re: monetizing the stream by sticking ads in it, and I don't think it can be resolved; hence the layoffs.