Twitch's Ghost Trains, YouTube Premium Lite, Kai Cenat on Jimmy Fallon + Twitch Exec Departs

Hey! Welcome to the recap, which is slightly later than usual because of Daylight Savings. I'll keep the intro short and promote that if you want to support this work directly, a $5/month premium subscription does help me a lot! But with that, let's jump into the recap!

Platform Updates

🟪 TWITCH

• Twitch was mentioned as part of a week-long economic blackout against Amazon companies.
• Jeremy Forrester, the VP of Product & Engineering, has left Twitch after 8.5 years. Guest Star fatigue?! Jokes aside, one less tenured person who can speak for the community isn't great.
• An experiment is ongoing that runs Hype Trains at random. They still require subs/bit to progress. Ghost trains, I guess?
• New Global Emote: WeDidThat
• Here's how Twitch is celebrating International Women's Day.
• Twitch's former CEO Emmett Shear shared some insight into how he used to answer a common question from interns at the company.
• Moscow courts again fined Twitch for violations of personal data.
• After 8 years, there's now a way to watch Twitch streams on Roku (via third-party apps that lack a lot of core functionality).
• Partners can again apply for Ambassador.
• I sought to answer the question, "Is being a Twitch Ambassador good for your career as a streamer?" After looking at all 180 Ambassadors, the data suggests that ~60% have higher viewership in the 1.5 years since becoming an ambassador compared to the 1.5 years before.

🟥 YOUTUBE

• YouTube Premium Lite is launching in the USA. It offers ad-free access to most videos for a lower price than the current Premium.
• Live has a new feature (in very limited testing) that essentially creates a YouTube-controlled 'BRB' screen.
• YouTube has updated its policies regarding gambling content to limit the visibility of content not certified by Google, and is introducing new age restrictions.

⬛ TIKTOK

• LIVE Subscriptions have a new UI.
• Trump says the deadline on TikTok's sale will "probably get it extended."
• Reportedly, TikTok has not been negotiating for its sale, though.

🟦 TWITTER X

• Twitter is again raising the price of X Premium Plus—from $40 to $70.

⏹️ DISCORD

• Discord is reportedly in early talks for a potential IPO.
• Data mining Discord shows a verification system (including ID, Video, and age) is in the works.

🔲 OTHERS

• SOOP's (Korean streaming service) stock dropped 9% after a report about the decline of the streaming industry. The report claims that Twitch's MAUs dropped 12% year-over-year.
• Kick has launched a $100,000 developer bounty.
• Kick announced 7TV and Restream integration.