In July, there will be a one dollar increase in the monthly membership fee for Tier 1.
Additionally, Twitch is following Spotify, Max, Peacock, Crunchyroll, Electronic Arts, and other multimedia services in the corporate trend of increasing subscription costs, which is everyone’s favorite corporate trend (almost as enjoyable as the parallel trend of layoffs in the Big Tech industry). On Tuesday, the firm that is owned by Amazon announced that the price of Twitch Tier 1 memberships in the United States will increase from $4.99 to $5.99 beginning on July 11. This is the very first time that the monthly fee has been increased for customers in the United States.
In a support article, the firm stated, “As part of our efforts to help creators build and grow their communities worldwide, the following countries received subscription price adjustments as a part of Local Subscription Pricing.” This was written in reference to the process of adjusting membership prices for local subscribers.
The firm emphasized in a second X comment that streamers will continue to earn the same 50 to 70 percent through Twitch’s revenue-sharing scheme, which means that they will earn more per subscription. This is presumably the justification for the problematic framing of “It’s for the creators!” Nevertheless, the amount of additional cash that streamers might make is contingent upon Twitch’s user numbers remaining the same or growing steadily. The loss of paying subscribers could be the result of an unpopular price rise if a sufficient number of people choose to ignore the increase.
Twitch has forewarned fans that this day would arrive. Chief Monetization Officer Mike Minton stated that an increase in membership costs in the United States would “probably” occur at some point during this year. This statement was made in February, when the firm hiked subscription pricing in Canada, Australia, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. Moreover, here we are.
2024 has been a challenging year for the corporation, and we haven’t even reached the halfway point yet. In January, Twitch reportedly let go of 500 people in order to “cut costs” and “build a more sustainable business.” This was done in response to CEO Dan Clancy’s admission that the company in question was not profitable. As a precautionary step, it reduced the amount of money that authors make from Prime subscriptions. Then, around the end of the previous month, it dismissed every single member of its Safety Advisory Council and replaced them with “Twitch Ambassadors,” which sounds a lot like community volunteers.