Ludwig threatens to leave YouTube for Twitch if changes aren’t made

After streaming with YouTube Gaming for over two years, Ludwig Ahgren has reflected on his experience with them and threatens to go back to Twitch unless changes are made.

It’s been two years since Ludwig Ahgren shocked his viewers as he revealed he was leaving his Twitch to continue his livestreaming career on YouTube after getting an exclusive two-year deal with YouTube Gaming.

The deal came to an end in November 2023, and fans have been wondering what’s next for the popular streamer. In a video published on December 4, Ludwig said he’d enjoyed working with YouTube Gaming.

“I felt more appreciated by YouTube than I did by Twitch,” he said in a video. “They made me feel like a person. They made me feel seen. It felt like our goals were aligned. In Twitch, I felt like another cog in the machine. And it didn’t hurt that YouTube was also offering me more money.”

Ludwig explains that in the process of moving over to YouTube, he realized that his goal from livestreaming isn’t to make the most money; it’s to get the most viewership, he said, which he gets from his YouTube streams.

However, despite this, Ludwig focused the video on the possibility of him leaving YouTube and going back to Twitch.

Ludwig threatens to leave YouTube to go back to Twitch

Despite this, Ludwig revealed he’s not completely satisfied with YouTube, and is considering moving back to Twitch.

“I have to admit there are some problems, and those problems, in the two years that I’ve been here, haven’t been addressed at the speed that I or other livestreamers would like,” he explained in his video.

The main reasons he wants to leave, he said, are the time caps YouTube imposes on live streams and VODs. He explained that, at the moment, streams cannot run longer than 12 hours, and VODs over six hours can’t be edited.

That means if something gets copyright struck in the middle of a video, they can’t edit the VOD to take that part out; they just have to delete the VOD altogether.

“My concern is that YouTube doesn’t care about livestreaming,” he continued. “They care about something else that you’ll probably see on the home screen if you open up YouTube right now: YouTube Shorts.”

Ludwig argues YouTube is focusing on TikTok as its biggest threat

Ludwig went on to argue that TikTok is on its way to kill YouTube, which is why the platform is focusing on its Shorts features.

Ludwig explained: “What isn’t a concern of theirs is the title ‘Twitch has killed YouTube,’ because that’ll never happen. I don’t think Twitch is entering the VOD space. I don’t think they’re trying to compete there. I think they’re just chilling in the livestream space […] and so they have almost like this handshake agreement, where Twitch is the massive shareholder. They have the majority viewership for all livestreaming.

“And YouTube has been floating around, just doing their thing. They haven’t gone up too much, they haven’t gone down too much. Facebook’s on the down and down, Kick’s nowhere to be seen. And there’s no real need to rush into being a better product than Twitch. Or to beating Twitch. Because Twitch will never kill YouTube. TikTok will. That’s how it feels.”

Some other things he wanted YouTube Gaming to change were: adding an offline chat, the ability to preview thumbnails, and the ability to reply to comments in the hat.

He continued to say that he plans to give YouTube one more year. If he’s not happy with how YouTube is supporting its streamers at that point, he’ll look at going back to do streams on Twitch.