Quoted By:
Ahem.
[Blogfaggotry warning]
I... I think I just realized something, this might be one of the main reasons I prefer YT over Twitch:
The lack of chat delay.
Now hear me out. Obviously, to most people that's a feature and not a problem, but once I took a second to really think about it, it occurred to me that it's more of a difference than a straight up improvement.
The thing about streaming on Youtube (particularly as a vtuber) as opposed to Twitch is that, on YT, due to the chat delay you simply CANNOT have a proper, flowing conversation with your audience. If you tried, you'd just look silly, with most of the stream being dead air, so streamers have to work around this and this sole factor has a very large ripple effect on the nature of content and content delivery on the platform as a whole.
For example, entertainment vs engagement: On YT, because you can't have that instant back and forth with the viewers, a streamer has to present themselves more like a lets player than on Twitch. They rely less on audience commentary and more on their own natural charisma. This is further amplified by the great level of distance between both parties due to the lack of natural feeling interaction.
Not to say that this is a negative, it actually suits my tastes just fine. It hinders grooming, forces talents to actually BE entertaining and, because of this format, VODs feel so much better to watch because the streamer is already half-speaking like it was supposed to be a VOD anyways. When they do interact with chat, since they are so used to handling the stream independently, they more easily are able to pick and choose what to respond to, or just go long periods without responding at all, and on the chat's side, since you aren't always racing to type at the cadence of a conversation, YT chat is often less gay and spammy.
I think this explains why things like schedules are done the way they are on YT, and why content feels more... episodic and less like you absolutely HAD to be there, like on Twitch. It also explains why Japanese streamers and audiences like and thrive on YT so much, they barely talk in chat anyways, and it's closer to their entertainment and social cultural norms.
I've always wondered why Twitch streams, even for the same streamer, just felt... different to me. This might be why. It suddenly makes sense why so many specific types of streamers do well on one platform vs the other.