Recently, YouTube has begun enabling its users to watch and conduct livestreams. While being a fun and interesting new feature, tragically, it’s not original.

When a popular YouTuber uploads a video, people watch it whenever they want. When a popular livestreamer goes online, people tune in. But what happens when these two worlds are combined under one roof?

After rejecting YouTube’s bid to gain rights to Twitch TV, YouTube plans to take on Twitch in the contest for the crown of livestreaming; which happens to become a growing internet fad. While some may see this as a friendly competition, I see it as one huge industry attempting to swallow up a growing company; and for the wrong reasons.

Both YouTube and Twitch have a large consumer population and of varying demographics, and the members of each cater to their own audiences. YouTube has a huge demographic range varying from people seeking makeup techniques to people looking for a scene from a video game; and they have YouTubers to take care of each niche. On the other end, Twitch has their own little zone where streamers can do what they like to please their audience, such as share their art process in digital drawing or play online games. With such a small niche(which Twitch covers very well), why should YouTube try to budge in on the livestreaming territory?

The reason that YouTube is so popular is because it’s its own thing. YouTube is YouTube, where anyone can record and share their own creativity with anyone who views their videos. Likewise, Twitch is popular because it’s Twitch. YouTube has held center stage on the internet for years by being its own entity, but when Twitch’s spotlight finally begins to grow, YouTube migrates to the livestream audience to try to snatch them away by flashing a shiny, brand new “Livestream” sign on the website.

Can’t YouTube stick to their own style of things, and leave the livestreaming to the guys who made it popular? We don’t see Twitch making any advances towards becoming a YouTube clone, so why should YouTube?