What are the pros and cons of Kick?

Kick is the talk of the town as it’s the first promising streaming platform in a long time that shows the potential to seriously challenge Twitch. But what makes the new platform so unique? And what are its pros and cons?

Kick, which is still in beta, has been around since late last year and has made no secret that it aims to compete with the established king of streaming platforms, Twitch. Co-founded by former Twitch streamer Tyler Faraz “Trainwrecks” Niknam, Kick has garnered a lot of attention.

Loose rules

Kick aims to be a more streamer-friendly platform than Twitch, and has far fewer regulations for content creators to comply with compared to Twitch, especially when it comes to gambling. 

Advertising

Kick has not yet established a policy for advertising on its platform. Twitch, on the other hand, has established rules for how streamers can promote products and services in their broadcasts, in the form of well-defined advertising.

Gambling

Probably the biggest difference between Twitch and Kick is gambling. Twitch has very strict rules for everything related to gambling, prohibiting streamers from broadcasting gambling sites without a license in the US or elsewhere. However, streaming of online poker, sports betting, and fantasy sports is allowed, which has led to a lot of criticism due to the confusion about which sites are allowed and which are not. 

Moreover, in the fall of 2022, Twitch established new gambling policies, prohibiting its creators from posting promotional links, discount codes, or other relevant links to gambling sites.

Kick is a little different. When it comes to gambling with other Kick users, the platform’s policy is similar to the one of Twitch and includes “any form of ‘buy-in’ by Kick users, sweepstakes, and lotteries.” 

However, when it comes to broadcasting, Kick creators are allowed to stream a wider range of online gambling sites, depending on specific laws and regulations of the country where the creator is located. 

Content

As for the type of content that’s allowed to be broadcast, both platforms enforce usual restrictions, which are outlined in Terms of Service and Community Guidelines. This includes rules against sexually explicit content, harassment, hate speech, copyrighted material, and defamation. Kick also prohibits broadcasting and promoting of harmful, offensive, deceptive, or illegal activities.

Rules still need to be refined

Kick has endeavored to present the rules as clearly as possible and without introducing ambiguous prohibitions. Trainwreck has also made a public statement on the issue of gambling and has established specific rules on ethical gambling.

Kick is still at the beginning and needs to refine some rules. Adin Ross recently viewed PornHub on Kick and has not faced any repercussions for doing so, although the adult site certainly falls under “explicit sexual depictions”. Kick has not yet commented on this.

Pay

Probably the most important point for the streamers is the payment and therefore a huge plus for Kick. Since Twitch takes half of streamers’ profits from them, they get significantly more of their money on Kick. 

Popularity

Twitch is a household name and still the king of streaming platforms. It’s not easy to compete with a streaming site this big and established, but Kick is growing fast in popularity, and it certainly seemingly has the potential to outperform Twitch. The platform is definitely being discussed in the community and it may well be that more and more streamers are fed up with Twitch and give Kick a chance.

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