Creator Economy
The streaming giant attributed its departure to high network fees.
In the weeks before Twitch pulled out of South Korea — an agonizing death rattle marked by tanking viewership among Korean-speaking users — Korean streamers held virtual services in memory of the platform on Animal Crossing, VRChat, and Minecraft. Others jokingly paid their respects in person, donning black traditional outfits and bowing to framed printouts of the Twitch logo. The Korean phrase for “Twitch funeral” trended on X, as streamers dispersed across the various alternative platforms vying to take Twitch’s place.
The Amazon-owned platform officially shut down business in South Korea on February 27, leaving streamers scrambling to migrate their viewers to alternative livestreaming platforms. In a December blog post announcing the shutdown, Twitch CEO Dan Clancy placed the blame on the country’s high network fees, saying operating in South Korea had become “prohibitively expensive.”
Twitch gets 300,000 daily viewers from South Korea, with the country’s top streamers attracting millions of followers. For Korean streamers who rely on the platform to make money, the situation has become a painful lesson in how helpless creators are in the face of changing platform rules. Although Twitch said it would “work to help” streamers move their communities, creators told Rest of World the company has offered little support with the transition. While Twitch alternatives exist, relocating to another platform is a complex, laborious process that involves learning the ropes of a new online space, without losing existing followers along the way.
Even in the short term, many details of Twitch’s nationwide shutdown remain uncertain. Monetization has been disabled in the country and streamers based in South Korea will receive their final payouts in mid-March, but the site is still accessible for Korean users. Korean Twitch Partners and Affiliates will be off-boarded by June 4, according to the company’s timeline overview. It’s unclear if Korean creators will be able to continue streaming until then, or if Korean viewers can still watch content from streamers based in other countries.
Elise Jang, a translator who streams her cello performances, told Rest of World that local Korean platforms have helped streamers onboard onto new platforms, but Twitch has largely stayed silent.
“Even though they did not shut down immediately after the announcement, the whole process still feels very rushed,” said Jang. “It seems very irresponsible and unprofessional of them not giving technical solutions or any other support for transitioning.”
The problem stems from a “sender pays” rule instituted by South Korea’s Ministry of Science and ICT in 2016, to address the growing interconnection demands of video streaming and other bandwidth-intensive services. The rule requires companies to compensate the receiving networks for the traffic they send. It’s meant to tax heavy senders like Netflix and YouTube. Livestreaming sites like Twitch face particularly steep fees, as low latency is critical for live content.
The “sender pays” model has been widely criticized by net neutrality advocates: In a recent statement calling for the repeal of the rule in the wake of Twitch’s exit, Open Net Korea warned that it “devastates the domestic content ecosystem” and “fragments the internet.”
For some, it’s a violation of the open-connection principles on which the internet was built. “The beauty of the internet is that, through the interconnection of many different networks from all over the world, you create one network for everyone,” Carl Gahnberg, director of policy development and research at the Internet Society, told Rest of World. “The problem with the regulatory framework in South Korea is that it creates an artificial barrier that prevents certain services — in this case, Twitch — from being fully accessible to Korean users.”
“Even for big streamers, moving platform[s] is difficult … For smaller streamers, it can be the nail in the coffin if they aren’t lucky.”
The Korean Twitch community is splintering across several livestreaming platforms. Many creators are moving to the already popular Korean platform AfreecaTV, which allows users to integrate their accounts with Twitch, transferring their existing subscriptions to the new platform. To qualify for monetization features, AfreecaTV creators must stream for at least 500 hours, but the site also accepts up to 400 hours of Twitch content toward the minimum. Others are moving to Chzzk, a newly launched platform backed by the Korean search engine giant Naver.
Non-Korean language features are limited on both sites, which is unhelpful for streamers with largely foreign audiences. Tyongeee, a Korean streamer with over 82,000 Twitch followers, announced her partnership with Kick, the controversial platform backed by the founder of the crypto gambling site Stake. Jang said that many of her viewers pushed her to try Kick, but monetization does not appear to be enabled for all Korean users. Instead, she’s moving to LiveSpace, a U.S.-based livestreaming platform that launched last year.
Kay, a cosplayer and streamer known as atomicmunchkin, told Rest of World that Twitch only helped streamers move to local Korean platforms, which are inaccessible to those who don’t speak Korean.
“This has left many streamers here confused about what is happening and unable to inform their communities properly,” Kay said. “Even for big streamers, moving platform[s] is difficult and doesn’t come without loss. For smaller streamers, it can be the nail in the coffin if they aren’t lucky.”
Kay prioritized moving to YouTube because her viewers were already familiar with the site, and said she was able to enroll in the YouTube Partner Program ahead of Twitch’s impending shutdown.
But many creators are rightfully wary of migrating to another foreign-owned platform that may eventually pull out of South Korea over exorbitant operating costs.
“Twitch is one of the largest — if not the largest — livestreaming platforms and a subsidiary of one of the largest corporations in the world,” Gahnberg said. “If they are struggling to find profitability in the Korean market due to high costs, it is hard to see how other smaller platforms will not face the same issues.”
₩435,000,000 The fine levied against Twitch by the Korea Communications Commission this month.
The Korea Times
Some foreign companies like Meta have pulled their servers from South Korea and now operate out of neighboring countries, decreasing the quality of service for Korean users. In 2020, South Korean lawmakers passed an amendment, dubbed the “Netflix law,” after local network providers complained about foreign content providers evading regulatory fees, while still profiting off of Korean networks. The law requires both domestic and foreign tech companies to provide a certain quality of service and mitigate traffic spikes by maintaining adequate server capacity. Content providers have faced penalties for limiting access or services to Korean users: In 2018, the Korea Communications Commission (KCC) fined Facebook 396 million won (then roughly $369,705) for slowing user connections in 2016 and 2017. This month, the KCC hit Twitch with a 435 million won fine ($327,067) for suspending its video-on-demand service in South Korea, and reducing video quality from 1080p to 720p.
NashVGC, a streamer and competitive Pokémon player, only streams as a hobby, so his income won’t be affected by Twitch’s exit. As an active participant in the online Pokémon community, though, he told Rest of World it means he’ll likely be excluded from the interactive Twitch features — like custom emotes — that are often exclusive to paying subscribers.
“I think it would cause cultural isolation of Korean gamers in general … as streaming has become a huge part of how people enjoy [the] game,” NashVGC said. “I think not being able to share that part anymore with other parts of the world would be impactful.”
