Amazon’s Twitch streaming platform is considering cutting streamer’s pay to increase profits, Apple wants to hide apps that have not been updated, and Tesla stocks suffer after the Twitter purchase.
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That’s all the tech news that’s trending right now, welcome to Hashtag Trending. It’s Thursday, April 28, and I’m your host, Samira Balsara.
Twitch, a gaming-oriented streaming platform owned by Amazon, will reportedly be cutting streamers’ pay. According to a Bloomberg article citing anonymous sources, Twitch wants to have streamers run more ads in their programs, as well as to decrease their cut of the subscription fee. The reduction could be as much as 20 per cent, dropping the share streamers get from 70 to 50 per cent. There are also rumours of new multi-tier subscriptions with different prices, similar to sites like Patreon. With that said, the same sources mentioned that the platform may loosen its vice on exclusivity restrictions to allow creators to stream on other platforms.
Apple is expected to hide games and apps on its app store if they haven’t been updated in a long time. The company has given the developers 30 days to submit an update for approval. According to Ars Technica, Apple has sent out emails notifying app developers if they’re at risk of losing their place on its store. With that said, the email has only demanded an update but did not list its criteria. If the update only includes a word change in the app, would that count? Doing a bit of speculation here, but Apple may simply be doing some spring cleaning to reduce the number of abandoned projects in store. In terms of pay structure, the company only charges a developer account $99 per year. It doesn’t cost anything to list an app on the Apple Store with the account. Instead, the company takes 30 per cent commission on apps and in-app purchases.
Netflix and Tesla stocks are racing to see who can tank the hardest. After Elon’s acquisition of Twitter, Tesla shareholders are worried how it would affect their stock prices. Upon announcing the buyout, Tesla stock price dropped by more than 12 per cent, slashing the company’s market value by $125 billion. Because Musk had borrowed almost 45 billion from banks to finalize the deal, it’s unclear how he’ll repay it. The NPR reports that Musk could try to attract more investors, or sell his Tesla shares. The problem is further complicated by how Twitter will affect Tesla’s relationship with China, which is a key market for the company.
Brave, the privacy-centric browser, announced a new feature that’s at odds against one of Google’s big features. Brave’s De-AMP feature will skip any page rendered with Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages framework, and jump directly to the original page. Brave said De-AMP will help increase privacy as it considers Google AMP to be harmful to the web. It claims that AMP gives Google even more data about its users’ browsing habits, and can sometimes be slower than normal pages. Further, the company said that AMP 2.0, which is set to release soon, will be even worse for privacy.
That’s all the tech news that’s trending right now. Hashtag Trending is a part of the ITWC Podcast network. Add us to your Alexa Flash briefings or your Google Home daily briefing. Make sure to sign up for our Daily IT Wire newsletter to get all the news that matters directly in your inbox every day. Also, catch the next episode of Hashtag Tendances, our weekly Hashtag Trending episode in French, which drops every Thursday morning. If you have a suggestion or a tip, drop us a line in the comments or via email. Thank you for listening, I’m Samira Balsara.