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Amazon just served me a livestream after checkout. The woman looks like she just rolled out of bed. Zero production value, but she’s 10X-ing the polished ads. Livestream shopping is converting at 30% versus traditional e-commerce’s 3%. Amazon Live has a 17x higher purchase rates than standard product pages. This is the fastest-growing segment of digital retail: 47% annual US growth projected through 2030.
Gaming platforms peaked while shopping exploded. Twitch revenue dropped 12.2% from 2021 as YouTube Live captured 10 points of market share in one year. Pump.fun creators were making $2 million daily before content controversies (I hear they have plans to fix this).
But commerce is just one vector. Livestreaming became the medium for cultural production. Sam Hyde’s Million Dollar Extreme made $1 million on Fishtank — the livestreamed avant-reality show. Indie comedians like William Blake are using the medium as performance art. Harmony Korine called iShowSpeed “the new Tarkovsky.” All signs point to livestreaming.
Real life is more interesting than TV now. I’d rather catch up on Twitter discourse drama than a Netflix show. My wife watches Reels instead of prestige television. The world is becoming stranger, and people want to watch others navigate and warp it in real-time. Immediacy won. The future is live.
In Other News
Want to help somebody with their Seed Round? PreSeed, a fertility startup needs your seed. Competition is stiff, so if you’re a man in finance, trust fund, 6’5, blue eyes this is your moment.
Friend—the spiritually devoid AI “companion”—should’ve found 1,000 true friends to flood streets wearing the pendant around their necks, letting curiosity do the work. Instead they burned nearly $2M of their $2.5M funds on ads everyone hates.
If you have interesting stories to share or have advice to make this newsletter better, DM me or email me at t@chevezmathe.ws.