Exactly same issue here encountered for us weeks ago and in fact I wanna elaborate how huge the issue is.
Speaking with a feedback of hundred of streamers I’ve literally talked to. As we all know historically streamers’ default workflow is chat. And I’d say 90% of streamers use 3rd party streaming software like Streamlabs and others for that as part of their bigger setup. Streamers rely on chat for all types of events coming from viewers and now those expectations extend to extensions events. But extensions don’t deiver that by now.
To put this into a bigger picture. Streamers window-shop for extensions (as extensions are not mission-critical by term which is a partly to category branding thing but is out of current topic). So most of them browse Discovery Store, pick one or two, install, some of those would hopefully activate (roughly half of installs won’t but anyway), some activated might configure and customize (most of them won’t). Now those who managed to get through these steps don’t have behavioral pattern to keep extension’s own feed/dashboard open all the time. They simply activate and expect software to do its magic and get notified about it in a way they used to. As any regular user would do.
So now it comes to actual on stream usage. Despite viewers pour bits into an extension the issue of not showing such notifications within 3rd party software ultimately results into content focused streamer missing the extension events. They simply don’t have an opportunity to see if anything happened within the extension. And thus don’t react. Which doesn’t activate network effect from other viewers and on a broader scale leads into bits-enabled extensions perceived by streamers as not delivering any value. Which in turn naturally leads into uninstalls. Which in turn makes no sense for developer to broaden marketing efforts. Which in turn makes the whole thing to develop bits-enabled extensions for broad streamers audience not worth it.
Think of it as if some mobile apps were in fact having their notifications built in but in order to see them user would need to open a separate system default screen buried deep down inside system settings and not on your historical lock screen. Even if there were actual events behind those notifications you would simply not know about those unless you would really wanted to check for them regularly and manually. And why would you if you have your default pattern to rely on lock screen.
I’m not saying devs should not develop their feeds of events, I’m saying most of streamers don’t have a clue on any events due to the issue. And as we’ve discovered it is most likely related to extensions messages not being broadcasted to IRC protocol used by many 3rd party softwares. And before we jump to conclusion it’s their job to support that. 3rd party software devs (sl and others) don’t have any need for our extensions. It’s us and hopefully Twitch who do.
That’s why the issue really needs to be fixed to benefit all of bits extensions. I sincerely hope it will be prioritized as it’s really critical for the whole bits-with-extensions interaction to work.