In a controversial move, Twitch has launched a paid boost feature for streams. Viewers shell out cash so their chosen channels get promoted to other users, supposedly to help streamers “grow” their audience. Twitch went ahead with the addition even after receiving a ton of backlash from the community when the feature was first announced in end-September.

Twitch's paid boost feature: how it works and costs

For 10 minutes during a stream, viewers will be notified that the boost option is available and they can choose various numbers of recommendations at corresponding price points. The lowest available option costs $0.99 for 1,000 recommendations. The highest, meanwhile, offers 5,000 recommendations for $4.95. Plus, it caps out at a maximum of $500 cumulative total for that boost purchase window.

At first, paid boost may seem like a sweet deal—but it's best to note that Twitch doesn't promise views at all. It just promotes the stream to other users, similar to sponsored posts on other social platforms, without guaranteeing engagement. And that's another catch: the boost is per broadcast, not per channel. So whenever a creator goes live on Twitch, viewers would have to pay every time for those recommendations.

Twitch community criticizes paid boost addition

The moment Twitch unveiled the paid boost feature, streamers and viewers alike did not take kindly to it. Not in the slightest. Many popular figures around the scene, like Felix ‘xQc' Lengyel, immediately rallied against the idea. The community tagged the the new feature as a “pay to win” scheme.

Twitch boost actually puts most—if not all—of the legwork on the users, relying on their funds to potentially garner more views for the streamers they want to support. Moreover, it might not even really help these creators' viewership numbers, accruing more funds for the Amazon-owned platform instead. None of the money paid directly goes to the streamers, either.

Given the near-unanimous hatred for the feature, the community had hoped that Twitch would listen to the criticism and ditch the idea completely. Alas, it proceeded to add paid boost, now available to selected streamers based in the US for testing.

It remains to be seen whether the feature ends up being effective in helping channel growth. But at large the community sees paid boost as an extremely poor—misleading and capitalistic—move on Twitch's part. Many are urging Twitch to decide against a full implementation, though current indications seem to suggest that the boost feature will continue rolling out to more streamers soon.