What Do YOU Want From Streaming Platforms? Let's Talk About It

Hey everyone! Just finished recording another episode of the Independent Creator Podcast and wanted to bring this discussion here too. We spend so much time talking about what platforms can do for us, but here's the thing: most platforms don't actually care about us. We're just the product being sold to advertisers. It's a one-way street where we give everything and get almost nothing back except content to consume. The Algorithm Problem Places like YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook force-feed us content they think we want based on our data. You can't tell them "I want THIS, not THAT" and actually get what you asked for. Meanwhile, you're constantly bombarded with ads that interrupt the experience. Decentralized Platforms Are Different This is why I'm so excited about places like Mastodon, PeerTube, and PixelFed. No algorithms! YOU are the algorithm. You tell these platforms exactly what you want to see by choosing who to follow and what hashtags to track. It's actually a two-way street. The Twitch Ad Nightmare Don't get me started on Twitch ads during live streams. Nothing ruins the flow like being mid-conversation with a streamer, asking a question, then getting hit with 3 minutes of ads and missing their answer. YouTube at least lets creators control when ads run. What I Want to Know As creators and viewers, what do YOU actually want from platforms? Better discovery? Less intrusive ads? More creator control? Different monetization options? I've been experimenting with alternatives like Owncast (completely ad-free) and multi-streaming to give people options. The majority of us creators are doing this for free anyway, often losing money on production costs. The Real Question Should we keep accepting the status quo, or is it time to seriously explore platforms that actually serve creators and communities instead of just advertisers? What features would your ideal platform have? Drop your thoughts below! PS: If you want to check out more of these discussions, we've got a newsletter and community at indiecreator.community