Twitch from my point of view

Before I get into all of this I want to make a few things clear. Twitch, by no means, is a bad platform. I very much prefer twitch and most people will agree that is the better, if not, best video/livestreaming platform out there. However, I'm gonna go ahead and state my issues with it.

Let me paint the picture for you of where I stand as of writing this. My name is DJ Sylveon, I have been affiliate for about 3 months now. I have 149 followers and my channel has been viewed 1,882 times. I try to be a variety content streamer. I focus on both creative and first person shooter game play. I also do speedrunning of games not many people watch. I try to stream 4 times a week for between 2-4 hours. I also do what I call secret-streams. The difference between the two is I don't announce the secret-stream. I have no set time for when I do either just set days for when I do normal streams. My main goal for my channel is to grow a community, trying to make people happier, and have a good laugh every now and then. I'm very much happy to have affiliate but this is where things go down hill.

Since I've gotten affiliate I have seen the growth of my channel grind to a halt. It has become discouraging. I try to figure out why and I have no clue what it is. I still try to push through it. Twitch has all these options out there that are suppose to help streams grow but from all my time on Twitch the only people it seems to be helping is those who are established partners or are on the verge of becoming partnered. I see more people come into my stream based on the game I'm playing rather than the communities I'm in. Almost no one comes in from hosts other than those who host me, auto-host do next to nothing by the looks of it. Getting affiliate and looking back at my stats it seems like it scares people away more than it draws people in. I used to have an average of 5 people watching me during my streams and then when I got it I get 5 on a very good day. I don't actively look at the viewer count but when I see it after the fact it is devastating.

Those that do grow seem to be those who are well established on other platforms or have the backing of a partner. For the rest of us its an up hill battle. There really seems like there is nothing to help smaller channels. Worst of all, affiliate seems to also ruins some channels as well. I know earlier I said it looks like having a sub button seems to scare people away but this one in genuinely a good reason as to how I can see it being bad. Sometimes when a channel gets affiliate I seem them go into a state of mind I like to call "Krabs Thinking". I call it that because they start to become the kind of person Mr. Krabs is. If they don't see dollar signs it isn't worth it. They will push people into subbing or donating. They will even go as far as to open Patreons. That is what scares people away, when you put money before content. To put into relevant terms, they become EA and their stream becomes Battlefront 2. Its something I dont want to see in larger streams either. I only have one exception to this and its because of what they do.

I'm not trying to guilt trip people into watching my channel or subscribe to me but for channels like mine growth seems impossible. Its hard to find a way for people to stick around to watch your content. The issue is when you try to find advice for doing so the common response is "get lucky". How lucky? Do I need to roll two 20 sided dies and get a 20 on both lucky or what? Worst part is there is nothing telling me what is wrong. The only difference between me pre and post affiliate is I got a proper layout and got some emotes. Thats it. It gets fustrating when you bang your head against a wall trying to figure out what is wrong and all you get is nothing.