The
vast majority of indie vtubers are on Twitch, not Youtube, and while Twitch has a 20% higher revenue split (50/50 compared to 70/30) it also has a much higher average number of viewers compared to Youtube; thus, a much higher potential audience. In the past month, unless I've missed something in the data, only eight members of NijiEN broke the top 100 viewed Vtubers across both platforms. Which is still an impressive number... Until you start to notice one big discrepancy.
These are the top five most viewed of NijiEN, with the number noted being their peak concurrent viewers.
This is a case of "Well, we already knew that" considering who it is, sure. However, the next highest viewed NijiEN member...
Is Selen, arguably the biggest female NijiEN streamer.. Who had less than 1/3rd of the viewers. The next highest two are Kotoka and Fulger.
Please pay close attention to the pointed out figure, because it's important to note; The peak viewership of Twenty-Two out of Thirty of NijiEN's members is below 11k, which means that the average peak viewership is likely MUCH lower.
Now, keep in mind... This was measuring
peak viewer count, not
average viewer count. In reality, the average viewer count would likely be a fraction of that number. So a fraction of a fraction of 11k. For the sake of simplicity, we'll treat these fractions as cutting in half each time. So we'd have an average viewer count of 2,750 for the average Nijisanji EN member.
So by the metric of sheer viewer numbers, you're almost surely going to go up. However, viewer numbers is not directly proportional to income. This is due to multiple factors, including;
- You're actually likely getting LESS than a 50% cut off of Youtube no matter how you negotiate your split due to the addition of Nijisanji's split. The seeming accepted figure is 30%, which depending on how the contract is structured is either 30% off the top (making the revenue 40$ for every 100$ made at essentially a 40/60 cut) or 30% off the 70% in revenue you made after Youtube takes its cut (making the revenue 49$ out of every 100$ made, as 30% of 70$ is 21$).
- Twitch's system for gifting subs takes into account ALL followers rather than just all people in chat, so you're actually more likely to make a higher passive income off of subs on Twitch compared to membership on Youtube by sheer virtue of the fact that you're more likely to make passive income off of non-viewers who follow but don't watch. Which is compounded by the fact that...
- In my experience, both in practice and through all observations, a MUCH higher proportion of viewers will donate or sub to an Indie compared to a Corpo Vtuber. Generally speaking, a 2-3 view chuba will have a community with a higher percentage of dedicated viewers willing to open their wallets compared to the percent of viewers that a 4+ view chuba will have, and in many cases more willing to spend more in comparison. You can account this to the simplicity of donating/subbing on Twitch compared to Youtube, the idea of supporting a smaller viewer giving people their own little moral asspat, or even the concept of Twitch Prime allowing people to essentially give their favorite chuba 5$ without even SPENDING the 5$, but it doesn't change the numbers.
This not even getting into the fact that making money as a streamer is completely dependent on, you know...
streaming. So a two week suspension over potentially arbitrary reasons from a corporation means two full weeks with
absolutely no income. Especially in a company like Nijisanji which does a dramatic degree less of merchandise on a dramatically smaller scale, meaning you aren't even making enough off merch to properly off-set this two weeks.
Just speaking generally... Being an Indie Vtuber is actually a
LOT more stable than being a Nijisanji streamer overall. Its just that as a Nijisanji streamer you have a CHANCE to potentially make more.
