Twitch sets a 100-hour limit for streamers' highlights and uploads.
It seems that expensive storage is not worth it.
The streaming platform Twitch has decided to restrict the storage of content generated by streamers as a cost-cutting measure. Starting April 19, a storage limit of 100 hours will be implemented for the Highlights and Uploads sections. Users will have to automatically delete their content until it fits this new limit.
The reason behind this decision is that Twitch believes Highlights have not been effective in promoting discovery or audience engagement, and the cost of storing thousands of hours of such content is not justified. Although Twitch is owned by Amazon, a leader in the cloud storage market, this has drawn criticism from streamers regarding the logic of the decision.
This change only affects Highlights, which are selected clips from live streams edited using the Highlighter tool to showcase streamers' best moments. It also includes videos uploaded to the platform through third-party services. However, other types of on-demand content, such as Clips and VODs, will not be affected, as these are already automatically deleted.
Users who already exceed this new limit will be able to download their Highlights and Uploads before the restrictions come into effect. Subsequently, the deletion process will start with those Highlights that have the fewest views. To facilitate content management, Twitch will introduce a new storage tracker on the Video Producer page, allowing users to filter their Highlights and Uploads by duration, view count, and creation date. Once all users are under the limit, no more than 100 hours of these videos will be able to be stored.
The implementation of this limit will significantly affect Twitch's speedrunning community, which has been archiving its history through Highlights. While these videos can be exported and uploaded to other platforms, the process may be cumbersome and complicate the documentation of speedrunning records on the web. A user on a Twitch forum expressed concern, noting that much of the history of speedrunning records is based on Highlights stored on speedrun.com. “Limiting the Highlights feature will be a total disaster for the history of speedrunning,” they warned.