Twitch’s Amazon CDN Transition Continues to Cause Problems
Twitch experienced another round of streaming issues this week, with elevated buffering rates affecting broadcasts to the US-EAST-2 server region. The platform confirmed the service recovered for new broadcasts, though existing affected streams needed to be restarted to resolve the issue.
This is the latest in an ongoing series of problems related to Twitch’s transition to Amazon’s Content Delivery Network. Back in September, we covered how Twitch silently removed dozens of ingest servers worldwide without any official announcement, leaving many creators with higher latency and fewer connection options.
The pattern is clear: Twitch is consolidating its infrastructure to reduce costs and prepare for new features like dual-format streaming and 2K broadcasts. Moving to Amazon’s CDN makes sense from a business perspective, but these transitions are creating instability for creators who depend on reliable streaming. When your income depends on going live consistently, even temporary buffering issues mean lost viewers and revenue.
Affinity Goes Free: Adobe’s Biggest Competitor Just Became Accessible
In potentially the most creator-friendly news of the week, Canva has merged all three Affinity apps (Photo, Designer, and Publisher) into a single free application for Mac and Windows, with an iPad version coming soon.
For years, Affinity has been the go-to Adobe alternative for creators who didn’t want to deal with subscription pricing. The apps offered professional-grade tools for photo editing, graphic design, and page layout at a one-time price. Now they’re completely free.
What’s Actually Free
Almost everything. The core professional tools are all included:
- Full photo editing capabilities (Affinity Photo)
- Vector design tools (Affinity Designer)
- Page layout and publishing (Affinity Publisher)
- All future feature updates
You toggle between Pixel, Vector, and Layout modes within a single app instead of managing three separate installations.
What Requires Payment
A few AI-powered features require a paid Canva membership ($15/month or $120/year):
- Generative fill
- Automatic background removal
- Super resolution upscaling
- Portrait blur and lighting effects
These are nice-to-have tools but not essential for most creator workflows. If you’re making stream overlays, thumbnail designs, emotes, or social media graphics, the free version has everything you need.
Adobe’s Creative Cloud starts at $54.99/month for individual apps or $89.99/month for the full suite. Affinity just became a genuinely viable alternative at $0.
Canva promises Affinity is “free, forever” and has explicitly stated they’re not selling your data, monetizing your creativity, or training AI models on your work.
Download Affinity: Visit affinity.studio to get started.
Luminosity Gaming’s Messy Ownership Change
Just two months after being acquired, Luminosity Gaming is being sold again – and it’s left creators in the middle of a chaotic transition.
The esports organization was recently purchased alongside other assets, but the new owners are now flipping it to settle outstanding debts owed to Luminosity players and creators. In the meantime, most creator contracts were terminated, with only a select group of high-profile talent transitioning to the new ownership.
The situation highlights important lessons about creator representation. The creator economy increasingly involves these kinds of acquisitions and asset shuffles. Understanding the business side helps you protect yourself when companies treat talent as commodities rather than partners.
Pete’s Content Corner
Delve into my weekly selection of content creation highlights – handpicked videos, podcasts, and tweets that promise to captivate, educate, and entertain.
- Twitch introduced the Moderation Analytics dashboard offering creators detailed insights into channel safety. It tracks moderated viewers, shows moderator actions, logs settings changes, and manages blocked and permitted terms in one place.
- Twitch streamlined the Front Page application process for Partners. You can now bookmark link.twitch.tv/frontpage and apply each month by simply selecting your content language.
- Blackmagic Camera for iOS now allows direct streaming to YouTube and Twitch from the app, offering creators a professional mobile streaming option with manual controls and high-quality encoding.
Thanks, as always, for taking the time to read Stream Report.
Pete ✌️
