As many of you might have noticed at this point, I really enjoy streaming on Dlive and have done that for quite some time now. Streaming isn't something new to me, although I never had a big audience on other platforms, I used to stream for fun on Twitch. Even before Dlive was announced I had made a few posts discussing how I am really looking forward decentralized streaming services on blockchain and especially Steem because of how things work here which I will talk about more in this post. I have to say the way Dlive has evolved since it still is fairly new has been amazing and I can't wait to see how it will continue to do so in the future.
Earning
Ways for streamers to earn on Twitch and similar streaming platforms compared to Steem are in many ways different. One of the main drives being adrevenue which doesn't exist here on the Steem blockchain. When you open up a stream on Twitch you will have to watch an ad, streamers at one point also had a way to publish an ad on their stream when they so wanted - like when going AFK for a few minutes or during load times. Sometimes it became abused, streamers asking their viewers to watch ads for them, etc.
Later on Twitch introduced the subscription method where viewers could subscribe to a channel for ~5$ per month, Twitch would take a cut and the streamer would take a cut and the viewers wouldn't need to watch ads anymore on said channel. To me this felt wrong in many levels, having to pay not to watch ads on your favorite stream. Adblock became more and more popular but many streamers circumvented that by placing ads directly into their own stream, so you couldn't block them unless you blocked the stream at the same time.
Here on Dlive you are not susceptible to ads unless the streamer wants to place ads themselves onto their OBS or show you ads on their stream if they are being sponsored by them, but as a viewer you can choose if you want to continue supporting that streamer with your votes/donations if that would be the case. So far I haven't seen a single streamer revert to ads on Dlive.
You also do not need to subscribe or pay the streamer directly in donations to find out when he is going live or have some other small advantages that Twitch's subscription does, like being able to use certain emoji's in chat. Don't get me started about Twitch chat, on popular Streams with thousands of viewers its literally the worst spamfest you will ever see, making it impossible to be able to read anything. I kinda like the comment timer on Steem compared to that and I hope Dlive will think of a good way to further evolve the chat with certain restrictions not to make it turn out the same way.
On Dlive and Steem, compared to Twitch, the most popular form of supporting your favorite streamers is through upvotes which obviously no other streaming platform has so far. We Steemians know how upvotes work and that you only have a limited amount of them but either way it is so different from donations and changes things drastically. You are in a way getting rewarded for rewarding your favorite streamers through curation rewards. This will give actual donations to streamers on the Steem platform a higher sense of reward after the upvotes, it will also become one of the few platforms where both the viewers and streamers can earn alongside eachother. Viewers being incentivized to buy Steem and stay powered up longer to support their favorite streamers while the streamers themselves can reward their most favorite viewers and active chatters. No other platform has that.
Another major difference between Twitch and Steem is that in order to even make money from adrevenue or subscriptions you first need to make the quota of activity you have on your stream for them to offer you a partnership. Many streamers have been trying for a long time to make it up there but end up not receiving it and in the meantime only Twitch is earning rewards for the ads they are showing on your stream.
Here on Steem anyone can earn rewards depending on the audience and Dlive curation, no matter if its your first stream or not.
Interaction
As many who have been into watching streams on Twitch before might know that a big problem that plagues many streamers is the trolling and harassment from chatters to streamers. Even though they have added measures to make that harder, such as locking viewers from being able to chat unless you follow the streamer it is still quite easy due to how easy it is to create an account on Twitch, you just need an email.
On Steem on the other hand you might also be aware of how difficult it has been lately to get a free account, having a waiting list and your account actually having real monetary value will incentivize you not to be a bad actor when your reputation and earning is on the line. The fact that whatever you comment is and will always be on the blockchain is another reason you might not want to troll constantly. If you still have the need to do that the streamer can at any time mute you and viewers of the stream will most likely not give you an easy time after such actions.
There is of course also the added incentive to be nicer on the platform for the sake of receiving rewards, although many may call this "asskissing" I'd say its better than generally being in a bad mood and lashing out on anyone you interact with. Of course there are many like those too who "just want to see the world burn" but that's just life. With that being said if you overdo the niceness it can easy come off as annoying and you won't see much rewards for your efforts then.
Control
Something that has been really controversial lately is about the control and power that Twitch has over their streamers. Many are afraid while streaming that something NSFW or controversial might pop up during their streams accidentally or through donation images/videos that will lead to them getting banned. Many streamers have in fact gotten banned on many occasions for mild stuff that was out of the streamers control and over time it has seemed as if the people in charge of these decisions have been quite selective over who they punish and who gets away with warnings. Many have lately moved over to youtube but let's face it, streaming is quite new there but the way they demonetize videos lately it won't be much better in the long run than streaming on Twitch. Twitche's regulations are getting stricter and stricter over time, making it a PC environment where anyone not following their ideals will get banished from the platform.
This is another thing that is amazing about decentralized streaming platforms, you can say and do whatever you want and there is not an entity holding their finger above a button that might change your career drastically because they do not like you or make hasty decisions. Even if Dlive were to remove you from their services because of something (which hasn't happened yet as far as I know), I am sure there will be other platforms to quickly pop up filling that gap instead. Steem the blockchain is censorship resistant, but that doesn't mean that there are no consequences as stakeholders can then remove your chances at earning rewards if you do something that the majority find disturbing. The good thing about that is that if in turn you are being flagged unfairly there are many who are there to step up and counter that.
Last thoughts
I don't want this post to become too long as readers generally enjoy shorter reads more. I just want to remind everyone how different this platform is and the apps being built on top of them. I am confident that the leader of Dlive knows what he is doing and that it will flourish into something amazing that will drive everyone to want to use it instead.
Not only will they want to use it, but they will at the same time be introduced to Steem, blockchain technology and feel a sense of being vested with the platform and having so many different ways of interacting and building themselves over time than just as regular viewers. Steem will offer them all of the tools necessary as more and more developers are building things on Steem.
I also want to point out that I don't hate Twitch, it has paved the way for streaming and e-sports since the beginning. The centralized ways it operates on, which they can't be blamed for cause they don't know better, and the dependency on advertisers selling them ads has turned it into something I personally don't like as much anymore, especially not knowing there are better alternatives out there already.
Thank you for reading, please feel free to contribute discussion to the post in the comments!
There are probably many differences I haven't covered in the post that exist.
