Twitch announces new "boost" feature, but there's a catch

Tons of social media platforms have boosting methods, and Twitch has finally joined them. Many social media apps give their creators the chance to artificially inflate their success.

Social media personalities, influencers and content creators need to have success to profit and to continue building their brand, and they occasionally need a little help. Twitch was different and is still more dependent on good numbers for creators to be successful, but it is now giving them a little help.

The boost feature has been met with a wide variety of responses and many of them aren't happy. Regardless, Twitch is moving forward and has released the feature for testing with a handful of streamers so far. The catch? It's not going to be remotely cheap.

---

Twitch is adding a boost feature that will be pricey

All social media platforms have come to this crossroad, and almost all of them have added a boost option. So far, a few Twitch streamers have had the opportunity to boost their streams in the testing phase, but it's highly unlikely that Twitch won't implement this as a full-time feature in the near future.

The cost for boosting seems low, at $0.99 USD for 1,000 recommendations. The word "recommendations" is key here, because it's not even a dollar for 1,000 views, just the recommendation.

It may end up being 1,000 views, but it also might not. In order to get more views, more and more recommendations will need to be purchased, and for streamers who go live regularly, it's going to add up quickly.

The feature isn't going to be restricted to just streamers, though. Viewers can pay for the stream they're enjoying to be boosted, and can go up to $500 USD. Popular creators will benefit from this more than the smaller accounts.

Several popular Twitch streamers have come out against the idea, including xQC, who said it was "the worst idea he's ever seen." Many Twitch streamers have decried this new boost feature as "pay to win", which isn't a popular idea. It'll likely make Twitch a ton of money, so it's unlikely that anything streamers do will stop this from being implemented.

For now, it's restricted to US-based streams, but if it continues to grow and Twitch continues to make money off of it, it'll be worldwide soon enough.