Twitch may be considering a new wave of layoffs.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the streaming giant is seeing a slowdown in user growth, suggesting more cuts could be on the way.
If true, these cuts will add to the layoffs in March 2023, October 2023 and January 2024, during which at least 900 people were laid off.
According to the WSJ, parent company Amazon remains concerned about the live-streaming company's profitability. While its revenue is not public, the WSJ has seen internal documents suggesting it earned around $2 billion in advertising and revenue in 2023. Yet despite that, Amazon “continues to lose money.”
“Amazon Chief Executive Andy Jassy, who took over in 2021, has led a review of the company's profitability and shown little tolerance for unprofitable businesses,” the WSJ said.
As a result, Twitch staff fear the service could become another Amazon “zombie brand,” similar to Goodreads, which Amazon acquired in 2013.
An Amazon spokesperson told the WSJ that “the company has always taken a long-term view of Twitch and highlighted its ability to attract harder-to-reach audiences. The company said it remains confident in Twitch's potential.” It also highlighted its lack of competition in the livestreaming space.
In January, Twitch CEO Dan Clancy said: “Like many other companies in the technology sector, we are now sizing our organization based on the current scale of our business and conservative predictions of how we expect to grow in the future.”
Twitch recently confirmed that it was updating its policies on sexual harassment, “making some clarifications to our sexual harassment policy and sharing more about a new AutoMod category designed to flag chat messages that may contain sexual harassment.”
The changes follow allegations that prolific streamer Dr Disrespect had “inappropriate” conversations with a minor via the Twitch platform.
Guy “Dr Disrespect” Beahm recently addressed allegations surrounding his 2020 Twitch ban, confirming that he was banned when Twitch learned he had messaged a minor in 2017.