PewDiePie Says Bye to YouTube and Hello to Blockchain Streaming Platform

YouTube phenomenon PewDiePie, has decided to switch to a blockchain streaming platform called DLive. This move might have been prompted by YouTube’s high fees and unsatisfactory incentive system.

World’s Most Popular Streamer Ditching YouTube

Felix Kjellberg, aka PewDiePie, is one of the most recognized and popular streamers to date. His channel has amassed 93 million subscribers and 21 billion views, which is the equivalent of Earth’s entire population watching three of his video per person.

He is the second most viewed content creator on YouTube, which also has the most subscriptions. It is estimated that he produces an annual income of $10 million from his activities on the platform, with YouTube raking in just as much profit from the streamer.

PewDiePie and DLive Partnership Announced

PewDiePie announced on April 9^th that he will be collaborating with DLive, a streaming platform based on blockchain which runs on the Lino test network, a “decentralized autonomous content ecosystem.” Kjellberg revealed that the will be streaming exclusively on the platform starting with April 14th.

“Personally, I think it’s really cool to have a creator based website actually putting creators first. I’m really excited about DLive and I’m excited to finally be live streaming again,” said the famous streamer.

Kjellberg also gave hints in his announcement as to why he decided to move from YouTube, citing high fees and a limited incentivization model. On the other hand, he expressed his enthusiasm regarding DLive’s “revolutionary” reward system.

Unlike YouTube and Twitch, DLive does not take a percentage of fees if a viewer donates or subscribes to a stream.  Centralized streaming platforms can take up to 30-50 % of what a content creator makes, but that is not the case with DLive, as according to PewDiePie “it all goes to the creator”.

PewDiePie will donate up to $50,000 from his first stream to other content creators by distributing the sum trough Lino, which will be generated by the views he receives on that platform.

Cryptocurrency Incentivization Model

DLive is a project that was created to prevent disagreeable monetization requirements and “unfair” practices of media platforms.

“Most of us started creating or watching content on YouTube or Twitch… We’ve contributed for years and witnessed traditional platforms grow from their infancies into billion-dollar companies. However, what have we received in return? Higher monetization bars, unfair content promotion, and fewer earnings because of increased platform fees.” -said DLive founder and CEO Charles Wayn.

DLive makes use of a cryptocurrency called LINO to make payments and engage with the audience of the platform. Users are able to cash out their crypto earnings either to PayPal or Bitcoin.

The platform’s content creators get 90.1 percent of each donation and subscription while 9.9 is allocated to a pool for users that maintain the platform.

“Unlike traditional platforms, DLive takes absolutely zero platform cuts from users’ donations and subscriptions. Instead, the economic system has been designed to revolutionize revenue distribution by rewarding the community for their contributions rather than a corporation,” said Wayn.

Also, viewers are rewarded just for engaging on the platform, according to PewDiePie:

“Viewers as well can earn LINO points, which is a currency simply by engaging with the streamers. Pretty epic.”

There is a high chance that this could be a publicity stunt to promote DLive, but it would be refreshing to see a decentralized media platform taking the cake from media giants such as YouTube.