I’d have left Twitch if I didn’t find it more entertaining than current YouTube. No one should be surprised they’re at pre-covid profit levels again because they tried to shovel way too many ads down people’s throats.

Imagine tuning into a random stream and getting greeted by 3 ads before you can understand if you want to stay or check a different one. I’ve been frustrated enough that I just turn to something else altogether for entertainment.

There are some decent adblockers like TTV.LOL, which is a simple proxy to a country that doesn’t allow ads. But sometimes those solutions don’t work either. Ironically I just use Turbo while not paying for YouTube premium, but just as people don’t pay for YouTube Premium, I understand not wanting to support Twitch for a variety of reasons.

I’d say in a good bit of cases better than Google now. Each time I’ve resorted to Google because I think I’m getting lackluster results, it’s got the same results but also a bunch of SEO dogshit I have to sort through. Kagi’s personal site ranking and filters make it worth it too.

It’s a paid service that in return respects privacy, and has results as good as Google’s.

Google doesn’t say “Fuck you, Pay me” because you are the product.