Skip to content
Amazon’s streaming platform Twitch is considering cutting streamers’ salaries to boost profits, Apple plans to hide unupdated apps, and Tesla’s stock is suffering after Twitter’s purchase.
That’s all the tech news that’s trending right now, welcome to Hashtag Trending. It’s Thursday April 28th and I’m your host, Samira Balsara.
Twitch, a gaming-focused streaming platform owned by Amazon, will reportedly cut streamers’ salaries. According to a Bloomberg article citing anonymous sources, Twitch wants streamers to place more ads on their programs and lower their share of the subscription fee. The reduction could be as much as 20 percent, dropping the share streamers get from 70 percent to 50 percent. There are also rumors of new tiered subscriptions with different prices, similar to sites like Patreon. With that in mind, the same sources mentioned that the platform may be relaxing its vice on exclusivity restrictions to allow creators to stream on other platforms.
Apple is expected to hide games and apps in its App Store if they haven’t been updated for a long time. The company has given developers 30 days to submit an update for approval. According to Ars Technica, Apple has been sending out emails notifying app developers if they are at risk of losing their spot on its Store. Aside from that, the email only asked for an update but didn’t list any criteria. If the update only includes a word change in the app, would that count? I’m doing a bit of speculation here, but Apple might just be doing a spring cleaning to reduce the number of abandoned projects in stock. In terms of the compensation structure, the company charges a developer account just $99 per year. It costs nothing to use the account to list an app in the Apple Store. Instead, the company takes a 30 percent commission on apps and in-app purchases.
Netflix and Tesla stocks are racing to see who can tank the hardest. Following Elon’s acquisition of Twitter, Tesla shareholders are concerned about how it would affect their stock prices. After the acquisition was announced, Tesla’s share price fell more than 12 percent, reducing the company’s market value by $125 billion. Since Musk borrowed nearly $45 billion from banks to complete the deal, it’s unclear how he’ll repay it. NPR reports that Musk could try to attract more investors or sell his Tesla shares. Complicating the issue is how Twitter will affect Tesla’s relationship with China, which is a key market for the company.
Brave, the privacy-centric browser, has announced a new feature that conflicts with one of Google’s big features. Brave’s de-AMP feature skips any page rendered using Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages framework and jumps straight to the original page. According to Brave, De-AMP will help improve privacy as it considers Google AMP harmful to the web. It is claimed that AMP provides Google with even more data about its users’ browsing habits and can sometimes be slower than regular pages. In addition, the company said that AMP 2.0, to be released soon, will be even worse for privacy.
That’s all the tech news that’s trending right now. Hashtag Trending is part of the ITWC Podcast Network. Add us to your Alexa Flash briefings or your daily Google Home briefing. Sign up for our Daily IT Wire newsletter to get all the important news straight to your inbox each day. Also watch the next episode of Hashtag Tendances, our weekly hashtag trending episode in French that comes out every Thursday morning. If you have a suggestion or tip, drop us a line in the comments or via email. Thanks for listening, I’m Samira Balsara.