Twitch’s new Boost function has been criticized by Felix “xQc” Lengyel, who argues it’s no different than view botting, calling it “quite possibly the dumbest sh*t” he’s ever seen.
Felix Lengyel aka xQc, a well-known variety streamer, has slammed Twitch for testing a new “pay to win” Boost function, in which viewers can pay actual money to have performers featured on the platform. xQc expressed his dissatisfaction with the feature during a live stream on September 30th, explaining how it will harm Twitch’s organic content and comparing the new planned feature to view botting.
xQc explained, “It’s almost like a hype train and everybody can help give the rocket ship more fuel by paying real-life money and after some amount of time, the boost gets them more viewers.” He then went on to remark that he believed it was “the worst idea” he’s ever seen in his life stating; “Quite possibly the dumbest sh*t I have ever had the displeasure of putting my eyes on.”
Several additional content creators, including YouTuber ProHenis, have also slammed the feature, claiming that none of the income generated by Boosts goes to the streamers being promoted.
xQc continued to explain his reasoning, where he said: “The problem with this is that if a lot of people start doing it and it buries organic content with manufactured dog sh*t. The problem with that is users will leave the platform and won’t come back. The reason why is that they’re experiencing less content that they want to consume because of how far down the content that they would normally watch is [buried] by garbage.”
xQc makes a great point, believing that this isn’t just a “cash grab,” but rather a “dumb f***ing idea” that should never have made it this far down the product chain. xQc wrapped up his tirade by saying: “I don’t want to be rude but whoever had this idea, I don’t know how they didn’t get laughed out of the room. This is a disaster. End of story.”