>Since these streams are purely unidirectional, users don't have a way to notice that they're not literally live.
Plenty of streamers show the chat on screen and talk with people in the chat. This is not true.
Good point. I didn't think of that, but that's right.
I have seen significant delays in that situation, so maybe a better way to say this is "using text rather than voice for feedback makes the delays introduced this way less psychologically noticeable" (because they are noticeable in the situation you mention).
It is still noticeable. When beam.pro rolled their low latency streaming (~100ms) streamers and chatters commented on how much more enjoyable and natural chatting was when things had less latency.
On the grasping hand, sometimes the feed is deliberately delayed, such as when the streamer is showcasing some kind of competitive activity wear their own information could be used against them.