Hello all, I’m the Product Manager on this project and would like to help explain some of the decision making process that went into this update.
I can share with you that we spent considerable time looking into each of the problems and suggested solutions outlined above (and many more) to find a path forward that satisfies the needs of all three of the customers of Extensions - developers, streamers and viewers. It is critical that the Extensions framework provides not just power and capabilities to developers but also creates reliably and consistently good user experience for streamers and viewers because we know that if we do not, the quality Extensions built by everyone here will not end up getting used.
The current framework is not solving for the needs of streamers and viewers wanting access to multiple Extensions in the video - only 11% of streamers using a video Extension are using more than one and no single third-party developed component Extension is active on greater than 1% of HW on Twitch.
This update is the result of months of research to understand how streamers and viewers understand and interact with Extensions and how we can make components Extensions something both groups are more eager to utilize. The feedback we received was clear - components needed to significantly change to really enable streamers to utilize video Extensions in an effective way. Having multiple video Extensions all presenting visual content or calls to action was one of the major themes that repeatedly came up as a negative in our research.
The solution we’ve outlined here reflects the research mentioned above and we believe the end result of this update will be more streamer adoption and usage of components which ultimately results in more of your creations getting used on Twitch. While this update does change what a component can do to be different from an overlay Extension, our ultimate goal is (and always will be!) to empower our community to create new experiences on Twitch that get adoption and change the experience of watching.
I will be on the May dev update stream next Wednesday talking through some of this research and the feedback that went into crafting this update - I hope as many of you as possible can make it as I think it will help answer some of your questions. And for any questions the update doesn’t answer, I am always happy to take time to do Q&A and address your concerns directly.