YouTube opens up Twitch-style subscriptions to more creators

YouTube is expanding Sponsorships, its relatively new service that lets viewers pay

creators a monthly subscription fee in exchange for exclusive perks. The program, which existed only in beta prior to today, will now be available to any channel in the YouTube Gaming mobile app, a Twitch competitor that encourages gaming personalities to live-stream their play sessions and post edited recordings of gameplay footage. Sponsorships will also be available for non-gaming channels across all of YouTube in a limited beta testing phase starting today. YouTube says Sponsorships will replace the rarely used paid channels feature the company launched all the way back in 2013. “This service offered monthly subscriptions for some channels, but with less than 1 percent of creators using it today, it never achieved popularity with creators or users,” Barbara Macdonald, a YouTube product manager, wrote in a blog post.                                                                                                https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/19/16331028/youtube-gaming-sponsorships-expansion-paid-channel-subscriptions