One of the controversies this year surrounding Twitch has been the platform's revenue sharing; Twitch is taking 50% of the subscription revenue streamers earn on the platform, while competitors like Youtube are offering a more generous 70/ The fact that Twitch has historically offered better deals to big-name streamers has led to an obligatory Internet petition.

Twitch responded by issuing a statement in September stating that it was moving away from sweetheart deals (although, of course, it could still do so) and would not increase revenue sharing in favor of streamers. Now, at Twitchcon, the company's chief monetization officer has again mentioned revenue sharing, and has expressed some of what the company has already said in more succinct terms.

Minton was asked about the topic during the "Patch Notes" stage segment (thanks, Eurogamer (open in new tab)), and his response began with a rough time stamp of 02:20:15 on this stream. After listening to the responses and introducing Twitch's "100% focus on improving [streamers'] income," Minton directly addressed the sub-lib split.

"The question here is," says Minton, "why not?" "We looked at every possible option.

The word "unfeasible" may confirm what many have suspected: there is a huge amount of money flowing into the Twitch ecosystem, but no one knows yet whether it is profitable. Says Minton:

"Now, the general immediate reaction is, 'Wait a minute, you're part of Amazon,' but Amazon expects Twitch to survive and thrive as a sustainable business," says Minton. And he talks about the upside of Prime subscriptions, claiming that "when you add in the rev share of paid subscriptions, it amounts to about 65%." How many streamers would buy that?

There was also a digression about "the expensive effort Twitch provides," which reiterated a point made in the company's initial statement. Minton at least gave everyone a cheap laugh with his figure of speech while addressing the "sub-rev shit."

Minton concluded by stating that the revshare split is part of a larger problem, and that the company's stance is to list all Twitch tools that allow streamers to "make more money with the audience they already have."

He concluded by claiming: "If you look at the last five years, we've generated 27% more revenue per viewer hour than the previous year."

In other words, we are generating three times as much revenue from the same community as we did five years ago.

Yes, that's the audience discussing in frank accounting terms, but that's Minton's job, and he was asked the question. While by no means putting a lid on the issue, it seems clear that Twitch has so far held firm to its position. The widespread dissatisfaction has led Twitch to at least be more transparent in its claims than it has been in the past. For example, the idea that Amazon would willingly subsidize Twitch, a loss-making platform, seems like fairy tale stuff.

Elsewhere at Twitchcon, the topic of high-profile and upsetting mishaps was all over the news. A streamer jumped into a foam pit and broke his back in two places.