alt.hn

3/27/2026 at 10:22:20 PM

Show HN: Twitch Roulette – Find live streamers who need views the most

 https://twitchroulette.net/

by ellg

3/28/2026 at 1:41:53 AM

Great idea. One of my saddest projects was making a site to help Twitch streamers get sponsorship for playing games. You automatically got picked if your view count was high enough. I saw thousands of people streaming on Twitch by themselves for weeks with no viewers whatsoever. Surely many of them had families and partners, but I'm also sure many did not.

by flowgrammer

3/28/2026 at 3:39:10 AM

Maybe I'm naive, but my sense is not everyone streaming on Twitch is trying to make a career out of it. Even for those that are -- everyone starts somewhere. Hopefully those that aren't successful on first brush notice and realize that it takes more than simply starting a stream to build a sticky audience.

Also, there are many people out there who lead fulfilling lives without families and partners. Either way, I don't think you should pity people so readily. At best it's somewhat condescending and missing much of the complexity and nuance of what it is to be a human person

by vector_spaces

3/28/2026 at 10:31:20 AM

why would you stream on Twitch then? just because it‘s „fun“? come on

by mmarvin

3/28/2026 at 11:17:47 AM

You think everyone on instagram/tiktok with a public profiles tries to become an influencer?

by victorbjorklund

3/28/2026 at 12:04:01 PM

I think that way more of them than would ever admit to it - even to themselves - want that, yes.

But aside from that, nearly everyone on Instagram has followers, at least their families and friends.

by esperent

3/28/2026 at 3:10:24 PM

Your comment (along with mmarvin's) really just shows you are making grand assumptions about Twitch and streaming on Twitch that are not based on any level of real information. That you would equate viewers to followser is silly at best. (And don't pretend you did, either, as there is NO reason to bring up IG follower counts otherwise)

> I think that way more of them than would ever admit to it - even to themselves - want that, yes.

For many reasons, they aren't what many would consider to be influencers. The ignorant might sugget that streamers are influencers, but that's, well, ignorance. Secondly, most people do it for fun. Not as a full time job. This is a hobby. And it's a fun one.

It's okay to just not comment on things you are ignorant about. It's okay.

by jasonlotito

3/30/2026 at 7:56:01 AM

> It's okay to just not comment on things you are ignorant about. It's okay.

It's ok not to be a condescending twat as well, and yet here we both are.

by esperent

3/28/2026 at 8:36:36 PM

Tbf to them, most people equate streamers with individuals having thousands of viewers.. From that perspective, their statements kinda make sense.

While I personally wouldn't be able to perform under such a setting, I'd be lying if the idea isn't kinda charming - it's like wanting to be a rock star, a small part thinks it'd be cool, even if most don't actually want to live the life of a rockstar.

Though the wealth it comes with would be neat to have (I mean most streamers with thousands of non-botted viewers are millionaires at this point, right?)

by ffsm8

3/28/2026 at 6:34:22 AM

I used to live code on Twitch regularly with zero viewers and it didn't really bother me. It forced me to actively talk through my decision making processes just by streaming which slowed me down but was often useful. I'm not sure what the family/partners part is about, I certainly had both while streaming.

by sanswork

3/28/2026 at 3:36:13 PM

Last year I would larp as a Spanish-speaking gaming streamer on Youtube to practice Spanish, talking out loud while trying some new game to force myself to speak it.

If I were trying to do that in private, I would stop after two minutes.

But the mere threat of someone watching me forced me to take it seriously even though I knew nobody would.

It was so effective that I would default to Spanish for the rest of the day, or I'd listen to Spanish and then realize how I could have communicated certain things better instead of just passively ingest it.

Though the same reason it was so effective also created a mental toll that I started avoiding by not doing it at all. Need to start it back up.

That said, I reckon the vast majority of streamers are gamers who do want viewership and aren't using it as some productivity hack.

by hombre_fatal

3/28/2026 at 11:56:08 AM

Yeah, the snark by some commenters is unwarranted.

There is this programmer and he is just chilling, programming and listening to music. Just 2-3 viewers. On occasion I say hi, make a chitchat. It’s harmless and a bit of fun/socializing.

I think most streamers know what they are doing.

by prox

3/28/2026 at 1:52:14 PM

Does knowing that someone could be watching change your performance? I wonder if the "Live" status acts as a mental catalyst that you can't get by just talking to yourself offline.

by afferi300rina

3/28/2026 at 5:28:47 PM

I wouldn't watch a live coder so recording for myself wouldn't do it. With Twitch you will often have viewers pop into chat even when the viewer number is zero so you have to always great it as if you are being watched because you might be.

by sanswork

3/28/2026 at 12:16:19 PM

I’ve thought about doing this at work. Schedule an hour of programming once a day or once a week where others are free to join and watch, and comment or otherwise engage, or not.

by neonroku

3/28/2026 at 11:47:34 AM

Actively doing this. It indeed forces me to think things through, organize thoughts and speak them out. I open paint/miro to draw. It's good practice.

by meehai

3/28/2026 at 5:03:40 AM

What does having a family have to do with anything? I see many people with different hobbies that aren't "successful", do you also think if they have families or not?

I don't even get the implications, presumably it'd be worse to stream all day if you have a family you're neglecting, but even that is making wild assumptions.

by vasco

3/28/2026 at 5:54:42 AM

>What does having a family have to do with anything?

Presumably that at least one of their family members would be pity watching.

by bobsmooth

3/28/2026 at 9:32:41 AM

If you have a family, why would you be screaming into the void while playing video games? Go spend time with your family, where there's endless company and good to be done.

by carlosjobim

3/28/2026 at 11:10:06 AM

One needn’t spend every single waking hour with their family. Everyone needs some time to themselves.

by nkrisc

3/28/2026 at 11:20:43 AM

So why live stream your alone time?

by carlosjobim

3/28/2026 at 11:35:57 AM

Ask them, not me.

by nkrisc

3/28/2026 at 9:28:55 AM

It can also be a way yo practise or find like minded

by monssooon

3/28/2026 at 3:23:06 PM

[dead]

by novachen

3/28/2026 at 12:31:21 AM

What about https://nobody.live/?

by chundicus

3/28/2026 at 5:22:57 AM

Leads me to discover: https://www.twitch.tv/chat_loadtest_01 ... neat!

by ucarion

3/28/2026 at 7:51:13 AM

Theres a lot of weird channels on twitch, I run into ones with "ingest" in their name quite often.

by nubinetwork

3/28/2026 at 12:33:23 AM

also neat! never heard of it, seems like we have a bit different ways about browsing similar data. very cool site

by ellg

3/28/2026 at 10:36:37 AM

I'm not sure about the framing from the title, it's like "find businesses which need your money the most" - not a great advertisement

by Lorean1

3/28/2026 at 2:12:07 PM

Yeah, it makes it sound like your attention is given as an act of charity. A lot of online discourse tends to be very "creator-first" framed, rather than "audience-first".

by realharo

3/28/2026 at 3:01:45 PM

Am I crazy or is this just social/financial charity roulette for streamers. Also is there not inherently an issue building the foundations of a friendship on the predicate of one person being watched and the other having to watch and potentially pay the other? If one side doesn’t like or subscribe are they friends.

The idea that people turn to streaming to either support themselves or make friends and people feel the need to help them do so is everything right and wrong with society. It’s nice people are willing to support someone else and wrong that the most supported are often the worst and really we should just support people socially and financially outside of the streaming charity system we have created. I find it all a bit mind boggling.

by drunkan

3/28/2026 at 1:46:37 AM

really fun! already found an MLB stream, someone streaming Age of Empires 1 no talking and chat in emote mode, someone going absolutely crazy on a racing game I think multi-streaming with their audience primarily on YT. and now I'm on a BG3 playthrough I'm pretty sure.

by lovehashbrowns

3/28/2026 at 1:24:30 PM

Was it Wirtual? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C98AjMOklB4

by Gracana

3/28/2026 at 5:18:34 PM

No it was someone playing a street car drifting game idk which. They were doing car reviews of people’s designs

by lovehashbrowns

3/28/2026 at 1:52:28 AM

Great concept! Brought me to a girl playing COD. She only has me as a viewer.

She thanked me so I stayed for a while lol

by JohannesCortez

3/28/2026 at 5:17:16 AM

Very nice. Currently on mobile where it mostly works in landscape. (Unusable in portrait). Will check it out on desktop later.

Love the idea of making someone's day.

by jmpavlec

3/28/2026 at 2:07:43 AM

Perhaps you can add a check to see if the stream is behind a login/agegate? I pushed the random button and got a stream that I was locked out of.

by mister_mort

3/28/2026 at 2:11:08 AM

ill check, I honestly didnt even know that was a thing, thanks for letting me know

by ellg

3/28/2026 at 6:52:18 AM

these types of projects are always fun, whether it is the old youtube videos with no views, or the few other twitch ones like this i have seen. thanks for sharing it.

it would be great to be able to filter by language, but i have no idea if twitch exposes that information or if it would have to be some hack with the title/game/etc data.

and, probably not your fault, but, probably 1/2 of the spins give me a 10-second pre-roll. weirdly, it isnt an advert, but some twitch-related thing i have never seen that says stuff like "preparing the stream" and "an intern stepped on a wire while your stream was setting up". i am signed in, so not sure what is going on there.

anyways, spun the wheel for awhile and had fun talking with a few people. crazy amount of people still playing call of duty, i had no idea.

by john_strinlai

3/28/2026 at 2:23:41 PM

> it isnt an advert, but some twitch-related thing i have never seen that says stuff like "preparing the stream" and "an intern stepped on a wire while your stream was setting up"

Twitch pre-roll played an ad for me on mobile in the web browser. Maybe you have an ad blocker in the browser you are using so it’s not loading the ads themselves and instead falling back to some twitch-related message?

Also I only got preroll on the first one not on the second or third. Maybe if you have an ad blocker it keeps trying prerolls more often?

by QuantumNomad_

3/28/2026 at 9:49:34 PM

i do have an adblocker, but i use the same browser to regularly watch twitch and have never seen those specific pre-rolls before. only when using the roulette. which is why i thought it was a bit weird. might have something to do with it being embedded instead of directly watching twitch or something.

by john_strinlai

3/28/2026 at 8:47:47 AM

those preroll "ads" are the alternative to mid stream ads.

by Akronymus

3/28/2026 at 3:55:46 PM

Appreciate it. I don’t use Twitch or watch popular streamers, but sometimes when I’m bored I look up small streamers with 1–3 viewers and chat with them. It’s usually pretty wholesome.

by jpcrs

3/29/2026 at 3:58:06 AM

I ended up with someone as their only viewer and we bonded quickly, he was happy to have someone there because he was in a really tense situation in Arma - he said he'd never been more frightened. I can vouch - it was a sticky situation - was riveting to watch but he managed to beat all odds and come out on top. He was stoked! Friend for life. ;-)

by djmips

3/28/2026 at 3:16:53 PM

Egalitarianism for Twitch, nice project.

A friend of mine who has streamed for years, maybe garners 3 viewers at the most, but he's absolutely terrible at viewer engagement. Despite having a dual monitor setup, it often takes him 5 minutes to recognize a single line in his chat and respond.

Growing a base followership on Twitch seems like it'd be an interesting challenge considering how saturated the market is.

by tyjen

3/28/2026 at 3:42:48 PM

This was an interesting site and was the first time I tried Twitch. It seems like video-based social interaction is an interesting field in general, since it's easier and cheaper than going someplace for an event (which is naturally limited by space, as well). How does Twitch work in general? Can you tell me a little bit more about it?

by logicallee

3/27/2026 at 11:30:42 PM

Check out a cool real time feed of people discovering new streamers here: https://twitchroulette.net/discover

And some neat global stats around twitch streams here: https://twitchroulette.net/stats

by ellg

3/28/2026 at 2:12:35 PM

whats the other end of some of these? you showed which categories tend to have 0-1 viewers, what categories have the least? what categories have lowest average age of accounts with 10+ viewers etc. What should you do to stand out?

by RugnirViking

3/28/2026 at 12:20:49 AM

For anyone who is curious btw: twitch will count you as your own viewer. So anyone with their own chat open in a browser (almost everyone so they can read it) will have that 1 viewer. Which is why the bottom of the distribution is so weird looking.

by recursivecaveat

3/28/2026 at 3:20:34 PM

You could just open your twitch chat via an IRC client, then you (might?) not count as your own viewer.

by tmtvl

3/28/2026 at 12:24:36 AM

ya it's why I have the default set to 0-5, theres weirdness in what twitch counts as a viewer

by ellg

3/28/2026 at 2:41:45 PM

Mhm, I clicked the thing and got shown World of Warcraft. I'm not sure the streamer needs the views the most. Perhaps it's a single mother desperately trying to raise money through streaming to feed her ten children?

by tasuki

3/28/2026 at 4:16:20 PM

These are really just chatboxes?

Edit: it's a bit different now. Instead of loading one from the homepage, it always loads a stream. And it has a play button on every one of them. Nothing happens when I press it. Anyone else has this?

by tosti

3/28/2026 at 1:38:21 PM

I once scrolled all the way to the bottom of the streamers and it was a little kid trying to stream Fortnite using a phone camera and it kept falling down and he was happy to have one viewer. It was adorable

by 2OEH8eoCRo0

3/28/2026 at 12:03:46 AM

There are some soundcloud and mixcloud versions that might need inventing ...cool concept!

by nosmokewhereiam

3/28/2026 at 2:49:22 AM

Great idea for when you bored and want to discover new twitch channels. Just a suggestion: it would be better if you can ask the user what their preference is and then suggest accordingly.

by AlphaTheGoat

3/28/2026 at 3:00:56 AM

check out the +filter button on the homepage!

by ellg

3/28/2026 at 3:55:20 AM

Cool concept! Discovery is the hardest part for small streamers — most viewers only see the top channels and never scroll down. The real-time stats breakdown sounds interesting.

by kimchelgi03

3/28/2026 at 3:43:44 AM

Awesome haha, they look so shocked when you send a message, and then I get embarrassed and spin again

by munro

3/28/2026 at 1:34:41 AM

my first one was junk essentially. I don't even think the host was there. They said they were streaming music videos, which is already questionable. Instead they were streaming an interview with a music artist.

by twentyfiveoh1

3/28/2026 at 3:43:49 AM

Kind reminder that Twitch is owned by Amazon, which is a monster of a company. Check out Owncast and Peertube for alternatives.

by QuiDortDine

3/28/2026 at 9:21:04 AM

monster yes, but also very powerful

by sudo_cowsay

3/28/2026 at 9:27:24 AM

Is there something like this for YouTube?

by monssooon

3/27/2026 at 11:56:36 PM

i am actually even more impressed that you got this to front page

by jaequery

3/27/2026 at 11:57:25 PM

did I do something wrong or something

by ellg

3/28/2026 at 12:33:15 AM

Not that I can see. I think most on HN root for the underdog.

by password4321

3/28/2026 at 1:57:47 AM

Next up: HackernewsRoulette

by R_D_Olivaw

3/28/2026 at 9:24:24 AM

Roulette to find all those vibe coded apps with zero users, sounds great!

by dezgeg

3/28/2026 at 10:52:28 AM

what? no, i love projects like these. but re-reading my comment, it does sound a little messed =p. what i meant was it gave me old HN vibes, back when weird, fun projects popped off instead of everything being AI-wrapped.

by jaequery

3/28/2026 at 12:00:08 AM

this is pretty dope !!

was the only viewer to some guy playing far cry

by dzonga

3/28/2026 at 9:24:41 AM

Good job

by xyrox1

3/28/2026 at 3:22:23 PM

On the other hand, this might be like buying someone's overpriced mediocre product at the artisanal weekend market: probably better not to encourage them so they drop the delusion and do something else.

Like that time I spent $9 on some guy's 8oz "turmeric milk" and he said I was the first sale all day, so thanks for the support. Felt bad for making him think this thing has a shot.

by hombre_fatal

3/28/2026 at 3:01:14 AM

Can we make a version for YouTube as well? I'd love to be discovered haha

by saadn92

3/28/2026 at 9:18:24 AM

Oh my god I love this. I tell every one I load up how terrible they are and to give up now.

I think I’ve discouraged about 250 so far!!

What a wonderful project.

by muppetman

3/28/2026 at 10:03:17 AM

No, stop, you're misusing it. The purpose of this site is to build parasocial relationships with strangers online.

by torlok

3/28/2026 at 12:27:19 PM

The danger with small streamers is you might accidentally develop a social relationship since they have nobody else to talk to!

by bombcar

3/28/2026 at 12:31:53 PM

FYI: muppetman’s profile says “don’t take me seriously”, so I think this is a joke?

by schaefer

3/28/2026 at 1:28:45 PM

While tone often portrays poorly over text, I think this is an example where the sarcasm is very overt. I don’t think anyone would think the comment is serious.

by KMnO4

3/28/2026 at 9:21:34 AM

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by deringeorge2

3/28/2026 at 6:11:54 AM

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by newgrit1004

3/28/2026 at 7:32:35 AM

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by hikaru_ai

3/28/2026 at 3:28:28 PM

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by zephyrwhimsy

3/28/2026 at 3:29:46 PM

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by zephyrwhimsy

3/28/2026 at 3:29:07 PM

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by zephyrwhimsy

3/28/2026 at 8:31:24 AM

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by genie3io

3/28/2026 at 11:27:47 AM

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by ferreyadinarta

3/28/2026 at 12:51:25 AM

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by sulplisetalk

3/28/2026 at 12:00:55 PM

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by 56745742597

3/28/2026 at 12:30:35 PM

MST3K is completely incomprehensible!

by bombcar

3/28/2026 at 12:44:13 AM

[flagged]

by reddozen

3/28/2026 at 6:16:06 AM

>Dan Clancy is totally ok with his contracted streamers constantly live streaming terrorist training videos

who is streaming terrorist videos?

you say it like everyone is, but i have never seen one myself. not that i watch all of the big streamers, but i definitely watch some of the biggest streamers on the platform and have no idea what you are referencing.

by john_strinlai

3/28/2026 at 12:45:50 AM

no comment on the political bits, but the fact that 80% of twitch is streaming to themselves cant be cheap to run

I do wish they would revamp their discoverability process

by ellg

3/28/2026 at 6:56:25 AM

I think there's a big "control premium" attached to these things. Not necessarily even that they will manipulate and censor rampantly, but that they could, I think the market prices highly.

by vintermann

3/28/2026 at 2:04:44 AM

Twitch gets a big cut of individual creators’ subs, and I’d bet most people that stream also sub to other channels. Keeping people in the ecosystem is probably worth it, even if there’s some amount of “freeloading”.

by tuveson

3/28/2026 at 1:15:28 AM

do you think they get a blank check for AWS resources?

by nefarious_ends

3/28/2026 at 2:25:41 AM

It's important that they have a proper budget and pay near the sticker price that way they can play accounting games to make Twitch look unprofitable.

by charcircuit

3/28/2026 at 1:19:12 AM

honestly not sure, but it would explain how they can keep it running

by ellg

3/28/2026 at 1:42:24 AM

Well, I know a year (or 3?) Back they changed their retention of long videos, my guess is to lower storage spend.

by whaleofatw2022

3/28/2026 at 1:18:45 AM

I mean if they are streaming to no clients, is there actually video being transmitted?

by operatingthetan

3/28/2026 at 1:19:55 AM

youre still encoding to like, 4 different formats and pushing bytes to a cdn for 80k+ streams in real time. I think the actual serving of hls chunks is the cheap part

by ellg

3/28/2026 at 2:15:55 AM

Transcoding is only guaranteed for twitch partners, and the cdn doesn't actually distribute the video to a given datacenter until at least one viewer using that datacenter requests it.

by cwillu

3/28/2026 at 2:32:31 AM

ya but 99% of streamers have their stream up in their dashboard or on a side monitor, so its always going to be sending and transcoding something

by ellg

3/28/2026 at 6:52:29 AM

Twitch can forward the stream as is without transcoding it. That's what transcoding not being guaranteed means. It will be a worse experience for viewers but it can work. Few years ago they even announced working with OBS on feature where streamers themselves can transcode and send multiple streams further reducing need for twitch to spend their compute resources on unprofitable streamers.

by Karliss

3/28/2026 at 8:08:48 AM

That feature exists by now, called "Enhanced Broadcasting".

by saltmate

3/28/2026 at 7:48:53 AM

In addition to the other reply, forwarding to one region in the cdn is not the same as forwarding to every region.

by cwillu

3/28/2026 at 4:04:27 AM

[dead]

by vscode-rest

3/28/2026 at 5:02:24 AM

Maybe they just don’t do that if you don’t have any streamers.

by cortesoft