Absolutely. Like you say, it just doesn’t happen in large streams, and the threshold is probably a lot larger than you think, since on average maybe 10% of viewers actually participate in chat. The dynamic starts shifting at around 1,000 simultaneous viewers, in my experience, between chat being readable and interactable, and being just spam. That’s still plenty big enough to qualify for partner, and even make a living off of streaming alone.
If they get friends, I get friends.
Fuck every last person who gatekeeps the way someone uses intentional game mechanics.