The rumor all summer was YouTube buying Twitch, but this week the whispers flipped to Amazon. Amazon? The books-and-AWS company buying the watch-people-play-games company? Except, think about it for one minute and it’s obvious: Twitch is one of the biggest bandwidth consumers in America and AWS sells bandwidth. It’s a customer acquisition and an infrastructure flex. If it closes, filing under “the boring infrastructure company wins again.”
I watch Twitch most nights now, Dota tournaments while I code my side project. Watching games is a bigger business than my parents will ever believe. The International’s prize pool hit $10 million this year, crowdfunded by players buying an in-game battle pass. Gamers funded a sports league by accident.
YC Summer Demo Day is this week too. Recaps mention a batch heavy on B2B and biotech, which the thinkpieces say is YC “growing up.”
TIL: HLS video streaming, how Twitch chops live video into little chunks and why the delay exists. Explained it at the meetup and someone thought I worked there. Peak résumé moment of my life so far.