At her size, unless she needs to take ~weeks off per month, and more importantly, at unpredictable intervals, she can afford to stream fewer days. Too many of them are incorrectly assuming that they need to stream daily, when (e.g.) MWF will suffice. What many viewers value over long streaming hours is predictable streaming hours[*].

I've observed many promising streamers stream daily and for too long, burn out, then unable to stick to even a reduced streaming schedule, thereby losing a substantial fraction of their viewers in the process. Then they became more demotivated, got sucked into a negative feedback cycle, and eventually quit streaming altogether. :-/

[*] Of course all else being equal, more time streaming ~ more income, but it's not sustainable, unless you're Amaranth & has an abusive spouse as her task master.

She doesn’t stream every day (and she has been doing it for 4 years by now), but the schedule is still hard when you are sick.

Sorry I was being imprecise when I said daily in my original reply, when my main point was that consistency's more important than duration. IMHO, once a viewer base is established, one can be sustainable streaming ~3 hours twice a week. If that's still too strenuous due to her illness, then I'm even more sorry for her, and perhaps she should instead -- if not already -- focus her energy on applying for disability benefits / grants, and only treat streaming as a hobby.

I mean, mostly it works out. Most days she loves streaming. It’s when her diseases flare up that it’s an issue.

The problem here is that no job will cover enough paid leave for a person's chronic health issues. We get 10 days of personal leave a year in Australia outside of our annual leave. I use almost all of my personal leave just to go to medical appointments for my chronic issue let alone take a day off because it's flaring up. It's safe to assume that being able to host a stream within your choice of working hours and in your own space is already making work far more comfortable than what most people with chronic health issues experience at work.

"...she’s also scared of taking days off, mainly because she knows it’s a job..."

At risk of sounding cold, why would anyone think YouTube/Twitch is a job?

Honestly confused. Is there money there? Like, for an average person, aside from the platform celebrities?

It pays for all their food expenses, plus some extra stuff. As I said, the stream has a higher amount of people who donate than usual.

Several years ago, I watched a gaming streamer, even smaller. She lived in Croatia, and just the subs and irregular donations were enough to pay for most of her daily expenses.

So, an average person can make a living wage on income from YouTube/Twitch royalties?

Neither of those mentioned is on YouTube, and neither of them could survive on that alone. The Croatian streamer didn’t have to pay rent (her parents owned the apartment), and the Australian one has a partner with a job (but his job alone would not be enough). The Australian one would be closer to make a living wage, though (again, unusually high donations).

A big part of streaming on Twitch or Youtube streams is donations from fans and subscribers/members (regular payments from fans). Royalties from advertising is a part of it, but a lot of the money comes in from donations. Another common approach is merchandise in the from of stickers and clothing, people love that stuff.

You can do well even as one of the smaller streamers if your community and other monetization is strong. I've never really gotten why people donate, especially to the bigger streamers since it's clear they already have money. But it's a big part of it. You can easily watch hundreds of dollars in an hour get donated to even to a smaller or mid level streamer.

The other stream I watch, most donations actually pay for the food of college students in Moscow, Idaho, USA, as the stream is a food truck in that town ;)

I don't know what you consider an average person vs royality, buy yes, there's quite many people I'd consider "average" that makes their living from Youtube - most seem to be starting at around 50k-100k subscribers before it becomes feasible.

Sweet Anita (streamer quoted) makes at least in the low 7 figures. She is a celeb, not a normal person.

That’s who the article is (partially) about, not this sub-thread of mine.

> I watch a streamer (cooking) with a bunch of autoimmune diseases.

Out of curiosity, as someone who never used Twitch, what is the discovery process here? As in how did you find this specific streamer in the first place? My (likely biased) impression was that the platform is mostly for gaming streams.

There are some other categories like Food & Drink [0], Just Chatting [1] (everything from talkshows and outdoor over scams (Elon Musk is apparently giving crypto away currently) and softcore porn), or Music [2].

Outside sometimes watching a new RPG, I stay away from gaming sections as the community tends to be toxic and turnbased RPGs are a smaller niche anyway.

[0]: https://www.twitch.tv/directory/game/Food%20%26%20Drink

[1]: https://www.twitch.tv/directory/game/Just%20Chatting

[2]: https://www.twitch.tv/directory/game/music

I hope they live somewhere with good healthcare, this is sad :(

AUS, care for her diseases is pretty much covered. But paid days off of twitch are not a thing.

What's her name? I'd be curious to check out her stream

Content Warning: Strong and offensive language ;)

https://www.twitch.tv/kattskitchen

Feels like YT is a better fit? Cooking seems better suited to VoDs than streams.

I don’t think you really get donations on YouTube? And her whole stream is very interaction based, there have even been multiple parties where local (= Australian) viewers were visiting and the whole event being livestreamed.

> I don’t think you really get donations on YouTube

Youtube recently introduced a membership function, I don't know how exactly it works but should be something along those lines

That’s subscription money, not donations. Those are mainly a live stream thing.