Streamers & viewer acknowledgement, how important is it?

When it comes to streaming, acknowledgement of your viewers in chat is important to keep those viewers, gain followers & eventually income through tips, subscriptions or cheers (otherwise known as bits); if you aren't willing to acknowledge your viewers, then there's really no reason in being in your own chat.  I for one have a habit of throwing hosts to the channels I am viewing, but that doesn't last long when it's pretty clear that everything you are saying in chat is being ignored & there's literally no acknowledgement you're even there, so these aren't channels I tend to stick around in & will eventually unfollow & never go back to them with enough repetition.

Am I saying that everything you say needs to responded to?  No.  I personally am too talkative & don't expect everything to be responded to, but I don't appreciate being fully ignored either, it's one of the things that drives me off from being a viewer, if not a supporter of a channel in one way or another.  Yesterday I threw a host to somebody & noticed they weren't even acknowledging the host or any of the comments in chat, I eventually decided to throw a host on somebody else (later just turning off auto-hosting until after my own stream).  Today it was the same situation with that chat, however I waited to see if I would get a response to what was being said in chat before throwing the host, I didn't start getting responses until I stated something to see if anybody could actually see what I was saying.  Of course things got tense after that, not only from the streamer, but also from the other viewers; I debated whether I would just leave & come back at another time to see if anything had changed, ultimately it was decided that because another viewer decided to jump in on the hostility, that I wasn't going to be going back to that channel & removed my follow of over 8 months.

The particular streamer has been AFK-streaming Stream Raiders anyways (something I'm pretty certain he's going to get his Twitch channel penalized over sooner or later), one of the reasons I removed him from my auto-host list some time ago, but I still kept going back if only to support by giving them viewers & the occasional host when they actually were on, but I didn't particularly feel like giving that support when it turned into a full deadzone on replies (not even acknowledgement of promotion of their channels through hosts), so I eventually just decided I was done with it & I'm not currently intending on going back to their channel.

As far as I'm concerned, I will continue following channels for the individual streaming, not specifically what they are streaming (however I will restrict hosts if they are playing games from companies that I am boycotting for various reasons) & a lot of the channels I've been following have changed games & don't have the viewers or revenue coming in that they used to have, so loyalty to a channel based on the streamer (not the game) is a rarity that a lot of streamers don't have.  In my particular situation, I've been streaming primarily Fortnite (Save the World) lately, but I always notice follower drops when I choose to stream another game, that's a pretty clear indication of people that only follow for the game, not the streamer (which is one of the reasons I don't cry about the loss of those viewers/followers).  One of the main things that gets me to follow a channel & eventually host or auto-host them is based on how I am treated when I start viewing a channel (of course past situations have made me more cautious in how quickly I will do so, so it may take a few visits before I'll take that additional step), so it shouldn't be any surprise I'll unfollow a channel if things are getting ugly while I'm in there.

Long story short, a streamer may be still be able to be successful if not replying to their viewers, but those that choose not to are cutting out a good portion of supporters (by hosting, auto-hosting, following, tipping, cheering, subscribing or simply viewing while not being in invisible mode) that would at least like some acknowledgement that they are there, rather than being completely ignored when they may have something that is relevant to a question the streamer may have asked their viewers.