Many streaming services focus on maximizing profits, while in the process creating an unhealthy environment for both streamers and viewers. An upcoming streaming service by the name of Altair aims to offer a more empathetic take on streaming, and the plans in place for the platform to distance itself from the standard are promising.
Streaming as a concept provides new and innovative ways to tell stories and find community, but the current environment of services like Twitch can be taxing on streamers' mental health. Altair's model supposedly prioritizes mental health in ways that no other service has previously provided by changing several standard aspects involving analytics, creator structure, and offering a commitment to an empathetically-driven approach.
OPT-IN ANALYTICS AND DATA COLLECTION
Altair's website stresses that the service not only provides an option to turn off viewer analytical data, but leaves the setting off as a default. Common sources of anxiety among many streamers, especially those who rely on income from streaming, include viewer growth and retention. This stressful focus leads many to obsess over catering to a specific audience whose wants may conflict with the streamer's intention, style, or plans. The opt-in analytics system mirrors recent shifts in gaming toward mental health awareness.
Many profit-focused platforms force streamers to view analytics by making them difficult to avoid and impossible to opt out of, even for small streamers who may not initially care as much about building a following. Data can be a useful tool, but it can be unhealthy to obsess over it. YouTube, for example, sends email reports to content creators with breakdowns of the content that performed best, creating pressure to keep pushing the content for unending growth. The Altair team, by making analytics opt-in, will be breaking away from a mentally taxing service standard. If the option is as simple as they say, streamers on Altair will have to make a conscious, calculated choice to view the analytics. This decision helps affirm that the streamer's health is more important than viewership statistics.
Alongside this, the company claims the Altair platform will not unnecessarily track or sell the data of users. In the age of rampant data collection and countless advertising emails from unscrupulous companies, to see Altair commit to keeping data collection to a minimum will be refreshing if that standard is upheld. Data collection can also be a source of stress for users as a breach on sensitive data could be devastating, so this is in line with the mental health commitment as well.
CREATOR STRUCTURE, EMPATHY, AND VIEWERS
Platforms like Twitch have certain requirements that must be met to monetize, with Twitch Affiliate requiring difficult to achieve goals. Starting from nothing, building up fifty followers and three or more average concurrent daily viewers is difficult and takes a large time commitment. Partner status is even more difficult to achieve, with the status offering a variety of extended features, many of which would be very useful to a large number of unpartnered streamers.
Alongside the monetization structure changes, plans for Altair also include an in-depth system to help copyright holders make informed decisions on what content is worth filing takedowns on, hopefully reducing the number of overbearing claims.
Altair's website and blog make clear points of asserting the platform's design commitment to empathy-focused streaming, and as an independent public benefit company can hold much closer to that promise than large, profit-centric platforms like Twitch or YouTube. The team that created Altair is formed primarily of streamers who understand the problems with the current platforms and appear to legitimately care about making a viable alternative.
Altair's Twitter page showcases a commitment to prioritizing the mental health of viewers in a similar way to streamers. Cancelling a monthly subscription on a competing service may be a source of guilt for some viewers, as it often results in filling out a form to explain the cancellation and makes the process far too personal. Altair claims to replace the overbearing survey forms with a simple on/off toggle, making the process simple and removing extra sources of guilt. Additionally, Altair aims to focus on moderation and keeping communities safe by minimizing toxic participants.
Overall, Altair appears to be a great platform for streamers who want to focus on mental health above all else. The wait to find out whether it can live up to the promises will not be long, as the initial launch is set for November.
Source: Altair