Products · Product
Twitch
Raised as a usability problem by 75 people on Hacker News over 13 years (2013–2025), in 57 threads.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
Every issue, all time, most people first
Ads play at the worst times, even before streams startUnreviewed
20132026- Same ad repeats over and over within streams2024-01-14
- Ads play at worst times, including before the actual stream starts2024-01-10
- Ads interrupt live content at awkward moments and appear soon after joining a channel2023-11-19
Live streams can't be paused or rewound to catch upUnreviewed
20132026- Can't pause a live stream and catch up or jump back like on YouTube2023-03-16
- Paused video greys out, making it hard to review VODs2022-04-21
- No easy way to rewind a few seconds on live streams; clipping is awkward and breaks watching2020-09-24
Chat on big streams moves too fast to readUnreviewed
20132026- Chat on big streams moves too fast to read or hold a conversation2022-12-13
- Chat messages scroll too fast on small screens to read2021-03-20
- Stream is too small, making video harder to watch than chat2020-05-08
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 50 complaints
- Twitch's ad and dark-pattern design is annoying enough to make the commenter quit2025-07-13
- Exporting hundreds of past streams has to be done one at a time2025-02-22
- Logging in to escape ads takes many steps and the ad restarts anyway2024-04-15
- Same ad repeats over and over within streams2024-01-14
- Bombarded with tasks and things to click before watching videos2024-01-11
- Ads play at worst times, including before the actual stream starts2024-01-10
- Has to decline the cookie popup again every week in the iOS app2023-12-11
- Ads interrupt live content at awkward moments and appear soon after joining a channel2023-11-19
- Twitch client on AppleTV is so poor the user lost all enjoyment2023-11-01
- Twitch's UI is quirky and its search function is terrible2023-10-21
- Must pick a game category and scroll through many pages to find channels2023-10-21
- Videos labelled 'last month' make it hard to tell when they were recorded2023-06-25
- Overlays over the video can't be turned off and popups must be clicked closed2023-06-12
- Stream closes and demands disabling adblocker and proxy, even with ads still getting through2023-06-12
- Ads play uncontrollably for streamers and hide the stream, with no rewind2023-03-17
- Unskippable 30-second ad before seeing whether a stream is worth watching2023-03-16
- Ads are so repetitive and long that viewers switch streams or pay to avoid them2023-03-16
- Can't pause a live stream and catch up or jump back like on YouTube2023-03-16
- Checking out new streamers triggers an ad for each one, punishing browsing2023-03-16
- Twitch feels sluggish and laggy in Firefox, so the user switched browsers2023-02-03
- Gets 90+ seconds of unskippable ads every 10 minutes on mobile2023-01-15
- Chat on big streams moves too fast to read or hold a conversation2022-12-13
- Subathon design pushes streamers and viewers into endless streaming to chase hype and money2022-12-13
- Controls reset after load and menu items shift, causing wrong clicks2022-11-28
- Site loads so much bloat that it gives a poor experience on weaker machines2022-08-22
- Video takes about 3 seconds to start and delays every seek, making it frustrating to find content2022-06-07
- Seeking through recorded videos is very hard to use2022-05-31
- Paused video greys out, making it hard to review VODs2022-04-21
- Videos auto-play with sound, which was maddening to deal with2021-12-23
- Search fails to surface wanted streams, forcing guesswork with other keywords2021-12-11
- One accidental click on pre-filled birth date permanently marks account as minor with no undo2021-10-09
- Embedded player replaced by fullscreen picture pushing viewers to twitch.tv2021-06-28
- Must manually extract stream URLs and push them via a dev tool to watch2021-04-26
- Ban appeals are byzantine, often never considered or answered by staff2021-04-07
- Can't permanently filter out unwanted channels while browsing categories; only current recommendations can be filtered easily2021-04-04
- Chat messages scroll too fast on small screens to read2021-03-20
- Embedded video offers only tiny inline or full screen, no in-between size2021-02-25
- Preroll ads cut off the channel after 5-10 seconds mid-stream, unlike other services2020-11-19
- No tools to bulk mute or remove DMCA-flagged clips; users must crawl clips manually2020-11-15
- No easy way to rewind a few seconds on live streams; clipping is awkward and breaks watching2020-09-24
- Can't exclude categories, select multiple languages, or find streams by tag or viewer range2020-05-09
- Added UI, popups and notifications clutter the screen, shrinking the game view2020-05-09
- Video player renders tiny and commenting says not logged in despite login2020-05-08
- Stream is too small, making video harder to watch than chat2020-05-08
- Video freezes constantly in Firefox, forcing viewers to drop to 480p2019-10-12
- Video starts muted, so user must unmute it every time2019-09-04
- Twitch's user interface is poorly designed and needs better UX2019-07-24
- Android app freezes and stream buffers during ad display2019-05-04
- Scrolling far in the directory then opening a stream loses the scroll position on going back2018-09-26
- Managing choices keeps reshowing the banner; only accept-all removes it2018-06-27