some more on twitch

src/script.org

@@ -37,11 +37,6 @@ at some point, nightbot switched to an authorization model that demands way, *wa
 the discord bot ecosystem actually grew to a pretty good state, before stagnating. there's a slew of do-everything bots, naturally. but there's a lot of narrow-purpose bots, which is great. most twitchists have a discord guild as a given, so you'll see streamcord around a lot. I find streamcord is frustratingly slow so i just use a webhook and a python script.
 one bot i genuinely really like is timezone buddy. users tell it their timezone, and when the bot sees a time mentioned, it reacts with a clock. if you react with a clock, it dms you the time translated for you. very cool! naturally that's a direct contradiction of discord's insistence on bots being less bot-like.
 ** predecessor - magnificent charamote
-remember TwitchPlaysPokemon? quick tangent if you don't: in 2014, an anonymous Australian programmer hooked up an emulator playing pokemon red to a twitch stream, and a bot that listened to chat to translate that into input. it was incredible. unprecedented, and only possible with that level of realtime interaction and livestreaming.
-twitch, the company, didn't do shit to make that happen. But they /desparately/ want to recapture that good fortune. So how can they differentiate themselves from all the other services that could be summarized as "internet panhandling, but it's a hot girl"? (...sometimes)?
-interactivity! twitch introduced a channel point system, and loyalty rewards that users would get by redeeming channel points. then they introduced bits, which are similar to channel points only instead of collecting them over time while watching, you pay 1 to 2 cents per bit, and the streamer gets paid out 1 cent per bit.
-twitch /streamers/ - well, the bad ones - are constantly trying to give themselves credit for the interactive nature of livestreaming. most of the time, this is nothing more than "give me money (via bits) and one of a short list of memes will show up on screen".
-doesn't affect anything. just a slightly more convoluted way to ask for donations.
 for a while i streamed with a then-friend, on a channel called Silver Meddlists. might be fun to do a post-mortem of all that tech, but for now.. mostly we played Magic: The Gathering. sometimes we had a gimmick version - users could spend channel points to cause a game effect to happen. as well as all the traditional, put some crap in the way on the screen, play a sound.
 however.
 we also streamed other things. so we wanted to turn those channel point redeems on and off. so i found that the easiest way to prep for one of those episodes was to turn them on, and then turn them off afterward. it's a little better now, but in those days, the twitch api was a labyrinth of madness, so i was seeing a new ID for each of those redeems every time i reactivated them. Also, trying to subscribe to "all the stuff that happens on this channel" was not considered an acceptable concept.
@@ -174,11 +169,39 @@ and they sweeten the deal; by forcing /adults/ to verify "to protect the childre
 after all, not selling data this way would be less profitable, so obviously they will do the more profitable thing.
 ...just remember all of that the next time someone says that for some arbitrary reason we can't deem corporations either evil or good.
 *** twitch
-i talked about the madness of the twitch API. Fortunately, GLORIOUSLY, the chat part has been mostly compliant with RFC1459 and IRCv3 - so for shtikbot, intending to be /its own bot/, rather than /a twitch bot/, theoretically everything could be done through that.
+**** user experience
-Great. That was all that was ever needed. /however/, that was the E2 phase. Twitch is moving forward to [[https://discuss.dev.twitch.com/t/deprecation-of-chat-commands-through-irc/40486][Extinguish]]. Now ok, fine, they had to wrangle their several different APIs into one, and as long as they're on a roll with that, might as well finish what you started. so that's tolerable. what's inexcusable is how brazenly they abuse a stupidly conception of security.
+as a viewer, the experience of watching twitch has also been enshittifying.
-for a long long time, twitch has been plagued by bots trying to sell viewers. Honestly, the fact that twitch *cannot* seem to fix that problem makes me think maybe bot viewers /would/ fool twitch's system. presumably you'd still lose money.
+
-twitch's solution is to tell streamers to just demand that all your chatters surrender their cellphone number. it's for security, so if anyone utters an objection, they're suspicious.
+twitch wants viewers to think of watching twitch as a game.
-//TODO: more on twitch, the platform. where's the article woolie mentioned a while ago where twitch describes their streamers as sharecroppers? he has been known to horribly misremember things in the past this way.
+So there's badges that twitch wants them to view as a rank in the social hierarchy. They recently stratified moderators to now have "lead moderators".
+[note] to be fair, the stated purpose makes sense - the most significant difference is that lead mods can add/remove other mods, and this way twitch doesn't have to ask the average streamer to learn access control lists.
+
+remember TwitchPlaysPokemon? quick tangent if you don't: in 2014, an anonymous Australian programmer hooked up an emulator playing pokemon red to a twitch stream, and a bot that listened to chat to translate that into input. it was incredible. unprecedented, and only possible with that level of realtime interaction.
+twitch, the company, didn't do shit to make that happen. But they /desparately/ want to recapture that good fortune. So how can they differentiate themselves from all the other services that could be summarized as "internet panhandling, but it's a hot girl"? (...sometimes)?
+interactivity! so twitch introduced a channel point system - by just watching, viewers earn channel points. they can redeem rewards with these points.
+They suggest a few rewards for streamers to make available - hydrate, so a viewer feels like a streamer is their tomagotchi. Stretch, which should be self-explanatory. my favorite, wherever it's offered: First.
+So now there's a menu where people frequently point their eyes, to spend their fake money.
+so twitch introduced bits, which are like channel points except real money. now when you try to scroll down to camp First!, you have to get past the real-money store first.
+that menu is enshittified, rip. how will this pattern continue?
+
+twitch encourages developers to enable Drops. watch someone play a game for an amount of time, and give them some reward.
+as a viewer, this means you will *constantly* have a deluge of notifications to claim some horse armor for whatever game you fell asleep not watching.
+
+**** developer perspective
+#+begin_comment
+TODO: where's the article woolie mentioned a while ago where twitch describes their streamers as sharecroppers? he has been known to horribly misremember things in the past this way. ...i can't find it.
+#+end_comment
+as a developer, the experience is equivalent.
+Fortunately, GLORIOUSLY, the chat part has been mostly compliant with RFC1459 and IRCv3 - so for shtikbot, intending to be /its own bot/, rather than /a twitch bot/, theoretically everything could be done as though it was an irc bot!
+I talked about the madness of the twitch API. Twitch did admirable work wrangling that all of that into just one, but an unfortunate casualty along the way was [[https://discuss.dev.twitch.com/t/deprecation-of-chat-commands-through-irc/40486?page=5][chat commands through irc]].
+that's tolerable. what's inexcusable is how brazenly they abuse a stupid conception of security.
+for a long long time, twitch has been plagued by bots trying to sell viewers. The fact that twitch cannot seem to fix that problem makes me think maybe bot viewers /would/ fool twitch's system.
+and if i can speculate further: i think twitch loves viewbots. they can tell advertisers they're putting ads on a stream with a higher view count, and charge more. It's more useful to *them* for you to viewbot than it is for you.
+twitch's solution is to tell streamers to demand that all your chatters surrender their cellphone number. "it's for security", so if anyone utters an objection, consider them suspicious.
+and they are not subtle about it. they directly tell you that you are "less secure" if you deign to associate with rebellious individuals who object to surrendering personal information to an untrustworthy third party.
+And if that's not annoying enough for you, nowadays they involve an even less trustworthy 4th party.
+I could, theoretically, affiliate. but that would require surrendering my identity to [[https://stateofsurveillance.org/news/persona-age-verification-surveillance-biometrics-government-reporting-2026/][a brazen data-harvesting company]].
+
 *** people
 //TODO: above talk about platforms, down here talk about "well i'm not going off platform"
 Now, us twitch viewers aren't /quite/ as dumb as imgurians, but i'm pretty sure 95% of twitchists actually believe that giving more data to twitch does in fact increase their security.