Frictions and flows in Twitch’s platform economy: viewer spending, platform features and user behaviours

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this article we introduce ‘capital flow’ and ‘capital friction’ as terms that characterize features and user behaviours on internet platforms which encourage and discourage spending, respectively. We explore these via leading live streaming platform Twitch, where numerous platform features and normative behaviours both promote and downplay spending. This makes it an ideal site for understanding conflicting economic and social platform dynamics, and the meta-friction between flows and frictions of capital on a platform. We examine these phenomena through three case studies: Channel Points, a non-monetary ‘currency’ exchangeable for in-stream rewards; Bits, a real-money platform currency for donating to streamers; and streamers’ performative and verbal responses to financial support. Through capital flow and capital friction we present Twitch’s platform economy as an ongoing negotiation both among users and between users and platform features, and one where capital friction does not necessarily lead to a reduction of income, but generates new streamer-spectator-platform relations and more circuitous routes for the flow of capital. Our theorization of capital flow and capital friction thus provides new insights into platform features, their uptake or resistance, and the frictions within platform designs and platform cultures.