“This is pretty big news” - Streaming community reacts to Twitch’s plans of removing Host Mode

Twitch has announced that it plans to remove one of its oldest features called Host Mode.

The announcement was made earlier today on the platform's help and support page, which explained how to use the feature.

The article's FAQ section revealed that Host Mode will be discontinued on October 3, 2022. It also stated that the command (/host) for activating it will no longer be available.

The update was shared on the r/LivestreamFail subreddit, and the conversation thread gained a lot of traction. Redditor u/finecherrypie's comment, in particular, was upvoted by hundreds of community members. It read:

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Why is Twitch removing the Host Mode?

In a section of its FAQ page, Twitch provided a reason behind its decision to discontinue Host Mode.

Twitch stated that it introduced the feature in 2014 to make it easier for offline streamers to provide their audience with an alternative stream. However, since its inception, content providers have voiced a desire to share their audiences with other broadcasters.

The platform's statement read:

"We introduced host mode in 2014 to make it easy for streamers to give their viewers another stream to watch when they went offline. Since its launch, we’ve learned that streamers want to share their viewers with other streamers to help them grow and have introduced features that help you do that."

The decision to remove Host Mode came because the experience it delivered failed to match expectations:

"We made the decision to deprecate this feature because the experience it delivers to viewers doesn’t match their expectations when they come to Twitch. Viewers want to interact with a streamer when they’re live and host mode blocks this from happening.

"Preventing viewers from interacting with the streamer they’re watching also limits a streamer’s growth potential because they’re not able to build meaningful connections with those new viewers."

The platform also offered a comparison between Host Mode and channel Raiding. When a streamer raids another channel, all concurrent viewers are redirected to the target channel.

However, when one uses the Host Mode feature, the command directly embeds the target channel's livestream or video on the streamer's channel:

"When you raid a channel, all of the viewers currently watching on your channel page are redirected to the target channel page. This is different from Host Mode, which embeds the target channel's video directly on your channel page. Host Mode does not redirect anyone currently on the page at the time of the host, keeping them on your page and in your chat."

The platform suggested that channel raiding has a better use case as compared to the Host Mode feature:

"In terms of use cases, raiding is a great thing to do at the end of your broadcast to send all of your viewers over to another channel to spread the love and hype, while Host Mode is better used as a showcase tool for content you wish to share with your viewers while your stream is offline."

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Streaming community reacts to Host Mode's removal

The news was shared on different social media platforms like Reddit and Twitter. Some Redditors pointed out that Twitch has recently removed more features than it has added:

One Redditor expressed dissatisfaction with the announcement. They said removing Host Mode would make watching a channel with a different chat room more difficult:

Here are some more fan reactions from Reddit:

Esports personality Jake Lucky shared the announcement on his Twitter handle earlier today:

Here's how the streaming community on Twitter reacted:

Last month, Twitch hosted a patch_notes stream, during which they announced a bunch of new upcoming features.

Twitch's Product Manager Jacca "Merry Kish" talked about a feature called "native shout outs." This feature will enhance and evolve the way streamers build and create their community on the livestreaming platform.