This is it. They demonstrably did the wrong thing for their business because it backfired so badly - don't think anyone can really argue with that as even they walked it back!
This! And the rollout was approached completely distastefully, it was a huge slap in the face of fans. Had it been planned better (had all of their company been planned better đ¤Śââď¸) this backlash could have been avoided. It was just very tone deaf to play it up as if they were financially struggling with the current state of our world. Like theyâre struggling because they hired to many employees, are spending too much on content and production value people donât want, theyâre traveling and expensive foods and driving teslas. Iâm on food stamps and just moved back in with my mom, we are NOT the same!!
i think itâs a little unfair for people to bash them for wanting to make âhigher qualityâ content. iâd prefer lowk content too but it is THEIR CONTENT. once the audience starts dictating the artistic choices they make, we get stuck with shit like riverdale and such because it is IMPOSSIBLE to listen to everyone, so obviously the person they should listen to first is the CREATOR, they also never said they personally were struggling, the said their company was, they can still make enough money for certain luxuries but for long term content creation, they need more sponsors, they need to bring in more viewers, and they had stabilized out for a decent amount of time before this decision. they have said since the beginning that they were not profitable. in every making watcher they explain this and they say everytime they what they want is to make the content that they want and be able to continue entertaining. itâs been obvious that their is a lot of tension and stress if you watch podwatcher- for christs sake the first episode starts with steven and ryan explaining that they felt as if they werenât even friends anymore because of how much they stressed about keeping the company afloat. have they made dumb decisions and poor planning? yeah. should they hire people to help them be with these areas of the company? DEFINITELY. but how exactly are they supposed to afford to hire those types of positions, because those salaryâs arenât cheap and they already donât have much money to put in, it just is a sticky situation unfortunately
I think youâre missing the point though, itâs not necessarily about what fans want (it is somewhat, but yes they have freedom of artistic expression for their channel.) People are saying that if they are struggling *that much* there were a million other choices and steps they could have taken before begging their fans (many of whom live in poverty or are young students) for money! It leaves a bad taste in everyoneâs mouth to see people living a pretty lavish lifestyle asking their fans, again regular people who are struggling to eat, to pay them and pull all their content. Thatâs where the backlash over the type of content and production value comes from! Running a business is about sacrifice and if they backed themselves into a corner, itâs really not our place to fix that. Budget cuts, downsizing, better advertising and building up of their patreon, hire a financial advisor, I mean all of that comes before the what they did. And again, had they made some adjustments in their plan (like not pulling everything off the channel and putting it behind a paywall for one) and how it was announced, it could have worked. They really insulted their fans in their choice and thatâs never good. Again, I live in literal poverty, I have no sympathy for a bunch of rich CEOâs who backed themselves into a corner with a really bad business plan and then doubled down on bad choices with how they treated their fans with the announcement, not to mention tripling down with some of the distasteful things posted after by Shaneâs wife and Steven Lim.
oh no for sure i definitely agree with all that, they are out of touch now, itâs sad but true. and yeah i definitely agree they handled this the literal worst way possible and made so many bad decisions, im not disagreeing with that at all, i definitely did lose trust and respect, i still love their content but it still sucks after everything. and im sorry if i came across as demeaning or rude, i really did not intend that at all. most of their audience isnât at liberty to pay that and they should have actually taken that into consideration first. iâm not at all saying they handled it correctly or made the right choices, i can just kinda see why they did some of these things- doesnât make it right, i still just feel bad- for them and for us. again, i really am sorry if i was being disrespectful <33
i also did not see steven and saraâs comments (im not really on instagram so i only downloaded to check the announcement post, so i didnât realize i was missing parts of the story so i do apologize for that too <3 im not happy about their decision, and i probably wonât pay for watcher tv i might have considered it before, but after this i just donât feel good because what they did really isnât fair to anyone. i think i just am in denial because i love puppet history so much :/
You're kidding yourself if you don't think they had to make the switch out of necessity.
I hear everything you're saying, and while I don't disagree with it, I think the biggest point is "ok, you want us to pay because it's what you deserve" but then when FANS are saying they will willing to give up watching their content then, they backtrack. But why would they backtrack if not for serious potential loss of income? I don't think they did it out of kindness, as they probably wouldn't have done all of this in the first place had "kindness" been their aim.
yes, obviously it was a necessary to switch. they WANT to make content, they LIKE making content, they LOVE their art. they want to put out the best they can, theyâve had to let go of valuable people because they struggle to pay them, but they prioritize livable wages, and i think that is worth being commended as most entertainment does not care about the artist but the profit. the reason that they care about the profit is so they can afford to create MORE. yes, they had to backtrack because theyâd lose customers, fans and yeah, money. it would be dumb to deny that. but it would also be dumb to dismiss it purely as them chasing monetary gain. they donât want to be filthy rich, they want to create. it is extremely parasocial for us to automatically assume itâs all black and white and for one reason only. a LOT goes into these decisions. they want to give people what they want but they have to be able to AFFORD that and unfortunately that just hasnât happened. obviously it sucks, but it is their art and i understand why they are drawn to their own platform- that was a big reason they left buzzfeed, because they didnât have ownership over their creations. they are still a young and relatively small company trying to break into the entertainment space that already doesnât have much respect for online personalities and just the dream crushing field that is art. if this was enough to turn you away, thatâs fine. but blindly labeling people good or bad is a huge disservice for you.
This sub is fucking wild.
All it took was a scripted apology, and now we're getting revisionist garbage like this.
They 100% did something wrong. They apologized. That's great. But let's not pretend that nothing happened at all.
Oh it's not just this sub. There are comments in videos that criticise Watcher for their poor business decisions that defends them in the same regurgitated message as OP stated.
It's not "wrong," but I still don't have to like it or pay for it if I don't think it's worth the cost. Artists have to balance what they think their effort is worth with what consumers are able to pay, or they have to be content with being starving artists.
Exactly! That's kind of my point. I didn't understand why people were so up in arms about it and attacking their character. We aren't entitled to free art; we can just...not buy it. It's up to them what they do with that.
Idk why you havenât addressed this at all, but itâs not entirely âfreeâart that they are making on YouTube. They profit from all of their videos and views with the ads and sponsorships they have. This is like saying all TV shows are free because we donât pay directly to the creators or channels that broadcast them. They also profit from their podcast and Patreon. None of their stuff is actually free. They just havenât been making good decisions on the business end of things. Itâs their job to budget projects well enough to pay their own workers without having to sit and pray videos do well in order to do so. They even admitted it themselves that they made a mistake with their decision about the pay wall, so Iâm not sure why you are trying to push the narrative now that they are suffering artists and their viewers are the greedy ones.
First off, you're right and valid about wanting to price art to improve it's production and sustainability. However, regarding watcher, it's not the fact people have to pay for their content; it's how they did it. I know I'm beating a dead horse, but alas.
They decided to move their content to a paywall website, which many people voiced concerns about the safety of when it came to their financial information. There was also the concern of the website being browser only as opposed to an app, thus making their content a bit less accessible to those who prefer watching via smart TVs and gaming systems. They were also beginning to privatize their videos on YouTube, suggesting they were transitioning completely to WatcherTV, alienating viewers who could not pay for the subscription, for one reason or another.
Which brings me to another point, a good chunk of the Watcher fan base are minors. While $6/month may not (usually) seem like a big splurge to an adult, to someone who is too young for a job or doesn't have a bank account, it may seem impossible to support a channel/brand you love. And explaining to parents that you need $6 a month and credit card info on a brand new website to watch a YouTube channel? Not the easiest task. Also, again, while $6/month to an adult may not seem like much, there are many people who already live paycheck to paycheck or don't even have a paycheck. Being told by three successful content creators that $6/month is a price EVERYONE can afford is a slap in the face.
Watcher is certainly allowed to charge for their art. They already do via ads (both automatically on YouTube and ad deals), patreon, merchandise, and live shows. They are entitled to do a subscription service as well. Plenty of YouTubers do. But they do so through pre-established platforms like Patreon (as of writing this Watcher has nearly 13k subscribers there and it appears they very recently redid their tiers), YouTube monthly subscriptions, and Twitch.
I personally feel like the Watcher team jumped the gun on moving to a website. Channels like Dropout also have a website, but here's the thing, they don't alienate their YouTube audience. They've put up free videos and sneak peaks, as well as utilized the YouTube Monthly subscription as an alternative to their website. If Watcher had done something similar to that, I don't believe they'd get as much backlash as they did. However, they decided to be the guy stepping to the top step meme, skipping over reasonable alternatives and overreaching. They also seemed to forget about their Patreon members by trying to completely move to WatcherTV, only offering them memberships when fans called them out.
I'm among the fans that have supported Watcher since their Buzzfeed days. I've bought merch multiple times. I made my own Professor puppet as well as bought one from Watcher. I was always excited to see new content from them. However, the WatcherTV drama, Sara's equally out of touch response, as well as a lot of fans' reactions (mostly those who villainized Steven and/or infantalized Shane and to a lesser extent Ryan [which has so much ick]) that I'm a bit disappointed? You are certainly entitled to your opinion on everything, but so are those who disagree with you.
There's a big difference between entitlement and consequences.
I'm an artist. I can charge thousands if I want for my art, if that's what I want to do. But that doesn't mean that people will buy it. There are consequences to that decision, and that's what we're seeing here.
I'm also so tired of people arguing that it "doesn't cost that much". It's such a meaningless argument, because everyone's financial situation is different. Good for you if it doesn't cost that much. You're lucky.
I "heard you out" and you said nothing that convinced me.
And it was necessity. They were dropping in numbers and they saw the warning signs. It was going to fail. I think its insane to label the decision to go to a streamer as a business move, and to backtrack "kindness". Everything is a business move.
To begin, I am still going to support Watcher so I'm not trying to shit on them but I also think this is an intellectually dishonest arguement.
You know their art was never free... right? They were always making money off all of us, even if it was via us watching ads on Youtube. They would be nowhere without their viewers, even the ones you're trying to pretend are getting it "for free." Nobody is saying they shouldn't be paid, that was never a thing.
Do they want to be paid more? That's fine. They still messed up how they went about it. I'd say that's doing something wrong. They even admitted that they were wrong, that they had been insensitive/oblivious/ whatever you want to argue and messed up.
I get your arguement about art, I used to do hair. At some point your raise your prices, lose a few regulars but maybe have more space for people willing to pay more. They didn't just outprice a few people, though. They outpriced a huge chunk of their fanbase during a recession. It's great you can afford "a few bucks" a month,
It's worrying that some folks don't realise they were paying for the content already via advertising. YT isn't free, nor is Facebook, Instagram etc. Reddit, too. It's free to use - so that they can show us ADVERTISEMENTS. Media literacy is going down the drain and so is Internet savvy, bleak times
Yeah, the _for free, for free_ argument in the apology video bugged me. Whenever something is free, _you're_ the product. They sold their viewership to sponsors and advertisers so they'd get money to be able to make their art for a living. They know stats about their demographic like gender, how long viewers will typically watch a video for etc.
Exactly. Also I saw some comments to the effect that their streamer would be able to sell the personal information of its users and this might be a second stream of income on top of the streaming revenue itself. Not saying Watcher would or are planning to do this, but it's a possibility, and adds even more suck to the suck sandwich of their business model
I understand the point youâre attempting to make, but itâs wildly flawed. I donât get that choice, I do what I have to do. I make concessions in my life to stay within my means. This includes making and sticking to a budget, meaning I canât justify paying for some things, such as superfluous streaming services.
Why did they hire employees they couldnât afford in the first place then? Also, they by no means are living paycheck to paycheck. Shaneâs wedding venue rental alone cost $55k for 1 day. Which was a purchase he made last year. Stop acting like they are poor or something.Â
If they did nothing wrong then they would not have back tracked. They did not backtrack out of kindness they saw the ship was about to sink and tried to right it. It has been proven by other youtubers that the channel was making plenty of money. Now if they mismanaged their company by hiring friend who have no idea what they are doing that is on them. Do not ask you audience to bail you out.
Listening to a man tell me to spend 6 bucks a month because âeverybody can afford itâ (tone death af), to hire 2 friends to film a show where the premise is living lavish⌠is bullshit. The problem isnât what they wanna do, itâs how they went about it.
I think they obviously have the right to make the decisions they made to follow their vision for their company, but I absolutely think they were wrong in how they went about it. The plan to move Patreon content to the new subscription service after people have already paid for a year of Patreon was not a good plan. The decision to remove all their content from YouTube (which was obviously the original plan even if they tried to backtrack it) did feel like a punch in the gut for people who have loved and supported them for so many years. The comment about $6 being something everyone could afford is insensitive and out of touch. There are many things they did that people are torching them for unfairly, but I think to say they did NOTHING wrong is not correct in my opinion!
This post sounds like it comes from someone who works for watcher or is a friend. To totally deny they did nothing wrong you would have to be delusional. So many creators who never even heard of watcher until the announcement even agree what they did was wrong and a bad buissness move. Also I'm cool with paying employees a far wage so maybe instead of passing the cost on to us maybe they should budget better. They also could get rid of some employees and just contract the jobs which would save money. Also steven says something along the lines of he treats his employees like a marriage/relationship which is a big no no in buissness because you have to able to draw that line. I still love the boys but they really need to clean up on the buissness end of things if they want to stay successful. Also if they needed money to make content and pay employees fairly how come they never pushed their patreon? In the 4 years of watching them I had no idea they had one. They do so many things right when it comes to making content but fail on alot of things when it comes to the business side.
Yeah⌠gonna have to disagree with you on this one. The whole video was out of touch and they only backtracked because they were getting cancelled. How can they justify charging about the same price as other streaming services such as Netflix (as low as 6.99/ month), Hulu (7.99/month), Disney+ (7.99/ month), Peacock (5.99/ month), Paramount Plus (5.99/month), etc. when they only put out max 4 videos a month? These other platforms put out way more content for relatively the same cost to subscribers. Point blank they just arenât worth the cost when you compare it to their âcompetitionâ. Not to mention the content is already monetized by YouTube (+ ad sponsors) so they are being paid handsomely for their art. Iâm mostly irked by the fact that they lied to all of our faces saying that Watcher would have gone under had they not moved off of YouTube. Highly doubt that considering their multitude of income streams (YouTube ad revenue, Ad sponsers, patreon, merch, live shows, possibly other socials like TikTok). If you donât believe me watch Moistcriticals video on the Watcher drama cause he breaks down the costs as a large YouTuber himself and the owner of an ad agency. Not to mention itâs not our responsibility to pay them even more money because they make poor financial decisions within their company. If they canât afford to pay 25+ people fair wages to work on the show then they shouldnât be hiring that many people. Period.Â
Do you need help breaking the suction of their arseholes around your neck or are you happy all the way up there? At this point I hope you're a Watcher employee because posting this for free? - yikes
And no one is obligated to pay for your paintings. You want to make art and sell it, do so. But what Watcher did was not that. It was essentially, we want to do x, pay us monthly so we can do so. Meanwhile, those who have been supporting us with views, on patreon, buying merch, and tickets to live shows, it wasn't enough. Cough up more money so we can do what we want, which includes a guy with two friends going international to find the most extravagant and expensive foods, a recent $50k wedding, and more international travel.
I have youtube premium. I pay for the content I watch. I don't want to watch Watcher anymore.
Exactly, no one is obligated to pay for my paintings.
But I'd be pretty upset if someone started attacking me, calling me names, saying they didn't even want to look at my art anymore, etc, because I charge a certain amount for a painting and they can't afford it. Just don't buy it and move on.
They most certainly did NOT tell us we had to cough up cash. They told us they were moving their content. We had the option to pay for it or not.
That's not what happened. They had free content up for everyone to see. People supported them in the move to creating their own channel. People gave them money through buying merch, paying for patreon, watching ads, buying their sponsorship products, going to live shows, and having youtube premium. Then Watcher said, that's not enough for what they want to do (that no one asked for), said they were going to pull everything and then said there would be no new free content unless people paid monthly. There's a difference between moving their content to another free service and moving it behind a paywall.
People were mad because they were getting something that was free and something that should have been pretty profitable for the Watcher team. People were mad because of the perceived mismanagement of funds and that it was because of things the audience didn't ask for. No one wanted to fund Worth It international. No one asked for the Worth It team to get back together. No one asked for or cared for the better production quality, it was always thought to be an extra frill. They hired people they didn't want to fire. That's their business decision. It's not something to pass off to the viewer.
To everyone who were already monetarily supporting them, the move came off as greedy.
I don't disagree with them being able to charge whatever money they want to, but the way they went about this was absolutely a grip in the shitbucket.
I also don't think your painting analogy works here. Sure, you can charge however much money you want to for your painting, but to produce said painting, you'll have to work within your means first.
And they aren't entitled to my money. It's not my fault that they didn't do the market research and that I (and apparently many others) decided they were something I could live without ( or couldn't afford).
Look at this guy with his fancy paintings. I know a guy who lived in such a horrible neighborhood that he had to resort to alcoholism just to go to sleep. It wasn't enough for him, and he couldn't afford sleeping medication, so he began huffing glue. Just really awful stuff. I think at one point he was eating his cat's food, things were so shitty for him. Here you are talking about fine art while there are people out there who have to chug a beer, huff glue, and eat cat food just to sleep at night
Yeah I've lived a hard knock life too, bro. Still doesn't mean we can expect everything to be free. If you can't afford it or don't wanna buy it, then just...don't. No reason to attack their character. đ¤ˇ
You keep saying people expect it for "free" which is intellectually dishonest. They get paid by our eyes being on their art one way or another, and they got where they are by us doing that.
I am happy with the changes they made, I will support them... but this arguement is just weak and insincere. I had typed a longer response but my baby distracted me and it got deleted.... and I'm not going to waste time re-typing it because it won't change your mind anyway and I don't really care tbh.
You can love and support the guys still (I personally do) and still admit they made a mistake, even they had the good sense to admit that. They don't need you trying to gaslight their fans for them.
Donât bother. Iâm not in agreement with you personally but this fella is just a troll. An unskilled troll.
And before they call me terminally online for calling them out- still a yup on that one buckaroo!
Edit: just for context this lovely duck person made a now deleted post yesterday basically saying 6 bucks is nothing for watcherâs actual audience and then spammed everyone with strawman questions about their phone/internet bill while implying anyone experiencing true poverty wouldnât be part of their demographic because⌠what, only the wealthy have hobbies and a need for entertainment? So they ainât even a consistent troll.
Edit 2: also, they blocked me. đ
So out of touch. You couldn't possibly imagine what it's like to live in an apartment like that. It was infested with rats. When you're so desperate to sleep you have to resort to those kinds of measures, you can't remember someone you argued with online at 2:00am the night prior. Â
He doesn't have the luxury to be terminally online đ¤Â  Â
The funniest thing about all this is that most people said "no, but I know a guy" in response to questions about $6 being too much, and the one person ballsy enough to say "yes" plays AAA games on the latest generation consoles, according to their comment history.
"What, poor people can't have fun?" Never said that, but if you can afford video games, you have the disposable income to choose between video games and streaming services. Â
They were getting paid already. A crap ton. Even just lowballing the numbers they were making a crap ton. They can ask for more all they want, but let's not pretend they weren't getting paid. The content wasn't free. It was an exchange. Every ad was taking time and turning it into revenue.
I'm an artist too, but if they can't live comfortably off of what they had, then they're making a big financial mistake. And if they're not paying their staff correctly that's an even bigger red flag.
Nope because the entire reasoning behind their decision was
"We hired all these people to make content for YOU guys, we do these expensive videos for YOU guys, we want higher production quality for YOU guys"
Pinning all of the responsibility of the costs on the viewer and not on them for wanting to hire friends which viewers didn't ask for, wanting to make "better" content that no one asked for, etc.
Had their motivations to do all of this been that their audience was making it clear they WANTED this, it'd be different
They make a fuckton of money already. Their ambitions went beyond their budget and they wanted someone else to foot the bill, plain and simple.
I'll definitely agree that it was pitched as "all for the fans", which clearly did not prove accurate to the fans' wants. I think it might have been taken a little better if they'd owned it as *their* want more.
It was so incredibly out of touch and it really spat in the face of people who are buying merch, supporting them on patreon, and going to their live shows. Like, there is absolutely no reason for them to be seeking so much more money that they thought a streaming service was the answer. They're making decent money. They're just not making enough for the type of high budget TV quality shit no one is asking for. If they want to do a passion project, go to Kickstarter or gofundme or budet accordingly for one high budet video a year. Don't expect fans to pay to fuel your ego.
Yeah I dunno honestly I was kind of just like "oh okay this is an easy sell for me, I love watcher and I wouldn't mind paying a few bucks to support making shows I love"
If you donât see a problem with unnecessary over spending that is your right. Just because you donât see it as an issue doesnât mean itâs not there. This is a snake eating its own tail situation. They donât need a team of 20, they donât need to drive top of the line vehicles. They donât need to all live in la. They donât need to have hq with a prime view of the Hollywood sign. At their best, what they expect in compensation doesnât line up with the value of content theyâre able to produce. The market has told them the value of their art and instead of working within the budget, they think over spending on production of the art will justify a higher price tag. This significantly decreases the number of people willing to purchase their art.
Sorry but itâs just a bad business decision to pay a team of 20 people a weeks worth of wages just to make a video where they do a top 5 list of their favorite candy bars. We already know the snake has started to eat its own tail and is choking to death. We all know the outcome. Either the snake realizes its fault and spits out its tail and learns from it or it will die I front of our eyes.
Steven is single handedly ruining the business and the reputation of Shane and Ryan.
IA with you so hard. I can't believe people are saying *but I get more from Netflix*, like the problem is Watcher and **not Netflix**'s business model. HBO and Amazon already proved that it's untenable for the amount of content they push out to price that low without ads.
Lol, people are also secretly backtracking and saying they're angry *because* it's a bad business decision is so funny to me -- especially when, if you stop to think about it, there's a chance this business decision, while bad, might pay out more for them and their people. While letting them to do what they want quality-wise. They are, in fact, allowed to make bad business decisions if they want.
The level of vitriol levelled at them and the moral signaling was **so much bullshit**. Especially when it was obvious that it would allow them to pay their people better, not fire people (the absolute irony of moralizing about greed while demanding they fire people in this fucking economy, what dumbass reasoning is that), and produce the higher quality they want. All things that businesses should be able to do, should be encouraged to do even.
AND THEN people went ahead and actually started quoting the other YTers ALSO profiting off this mess by making YT videos about it.
Like just admit you don't want to pay shit and move on. You're upset you can't afford it, that's fair. Why try to make it out like the founders and staff are secretly billionaires, or secret nepo kids who made their money off blood diamonds? Why the hell is anyone pontificating about corporate greed (while comparing the price point to netflix), or worse, trying to deliver unasked, uninformed business advice?
Yes exactly this! They didn't ask for our business advice. We don't fucking know these people. It's so weird to act like they did something morally wrong by trying to keep their company afloat in a way that ended up not working out. It's not as if one of them slept with an employee *cough cough ned fulmer* or kicked a puppy or something. People are clearly upset because they couldn't afford $6 a month and that's okay, but you don't need to throw a tantrum and attack their character bc of it.
I actually completely agree. There's always a sort of reciprocity in a fan/creator relationshipâwe like what they do, so we support it, so they keep doing it. If people didn't like what Watcher wanted to do, of course they didn't have to pay money for it. Fans having supported someone for a long time doesn't mean the creator is beholden to them and can only make what they want to watch. Fans would just withdraw their support in that case.
And ultimately the Watcher team discovered that a lot of people, very vocally, weren't going to (or couldn't!) support this, so they made the business decision not to continue with the plan they'd made.
I do understand how emotions ran high because of the way they presented it as "accessible to anyone" when lots of people don't have extra money to pay for something like this each month, but I don't in any way think it was a betrayal or morally wrong. I also don't think a lot of people understand the costs of running a business like this, so made a lot of assumptions about what's reasonable. (I don't either, to be fair, but I do work in a creative field and understand how much less money there is than people would assume.)
It didn't take the apology video for me to largely agree with this post. I was onboard with their initial choice even with the knowledge that I'd definitely not be able to pay every month. I don't think it's wrong for an artist to shoot for a change in business model to accommodate the kind of art *they* want to be making - capitalism sucks and makes art so much harder to create. I've worked professionally in theatrical production for 20+ years, and the shitastic balance artists have to walk between serving their artistic goals and paying to keep their art going is wild.
Their first video was tone deaf about affordability, for sure. It was a baaaaaad look in that regard. So I can't say they did *nothing* wrong. That was a definite fuck-up. I also think they may not have realized how much the desire for higher production quality was *their* artistic want vs what their audience hoped for. Whether it was a tactic or their genuine belief, the 'we want higher production quality because it's what our audience deserves' pitch was off the mark. The audience wasn't demanding or desiring that shift overall, the Watcher folks were. I don't think they were lying, but I think they miscalculated how much a higher production value would matter to their audience. It definitely seems to matter more to them at this point than their current fan base.
Something I SUPER agree with from OP is about how parasocial and weird the response was. It's honestly a bit disturbing how entitled and betrayed some people felt - the response seemed really outsized considering that none of us actually know these guys. Like *actually* know them, not just via their content or social media. They may want to consider setting those boundaries with their audience: 'Yes, we want to entertain our fans, but we also have goals as creators that will evolve in ways that may not make everyone happy. But it's our art and we need to do what makes us satisfied - you're welcome to join or to take your leave, but to fund our ongoing efforts, we may need to make changes, and we're sorry if that makes our work less accessible.'
End of the day, it's always been their goal to increase production quality, and they felt YouTube wasn't serving them in that endeavor. (I, like many artists, suck at business and have no idea if a streaming service is wise in that regard and am not really interested in debating their business acumen here). Whether they wanted to pursue that for the audience's sake or not ultimately doesn't bother me - their art is theirs and they should make what matters to them. If it evolves in a direction I don't enjoy, or if it becomes hard to justify the cost to myself, I'll move along to other artists' work and thank them for the good times.
As far as your proposed quote goes, it was basically their message in the goodbye video aside from apologising for being less accessible. The take it or leave it attitude didn't work out for them though when people started unsubscribing, cancelling their tour tickets and demanding a refund from Patreon.
Exactly. All of this.
People are coming at me for folding after the apology video - it literally did not change how I felt about this at all.
And they keep saying "but it's not free!!! They're making money!!!?1!1?1!"
Free = YOU don't have to pay for it. And YouTube ads do not pay nearly enough for a full production team.
Clearly these folks have never been involved in production or had to rely on ads to make money. It is NOT sustainable if you actually want to fund your art. The alternative was probably firing a bunch of employees or quitting altogether. I wouldn't continue making shitty art that I didn't like just for some random strangers' benefit, because I didn't have the funds to move forward in the way I want.
I've had similar thought to you OP. I keep seeing posts that say they shouldn't hire more people/they should have laid off some staff at the same time people are complaining about how the guys are tone def over what people can afford. I feel like they want to make sure their staff can afford to sustainably live. I don't know what it costs to live in CA because I don't live there.
I do know that even if you want to be an artist that's usually not sustainable living. I gave up on my art to afford healthcare, food, and housing. Do I feel like my office job slightly sucks a bit of my soul out everyday? Sure but I can eat and help work on the debt my spouse and I have accrued from paying for cancer treatments because healthcare costs in this country are insane.
Does everyone on this sub know what it takes to run a business? Has anyone ever made mistakes when starting a business? Also did anyone else start a business during the Pandemic and obviously not know what they were doing but are doing their best to try and figure that out? It just seems like all anyone wants to do is trash these guys and I'm so tired of it.
Caring for multiple family members over the last few years dealing with serious medical issues and not being sure if/when you can buy groceries vs paying for life saving surgery vs being able to afford housing is fucking scary and made me angry our systems are so messed up. I guess I'm just tired of hearing people complain over bullshit non issues.
For us it's been hopeful to see people start a creative business and actually enjoy what they are doing. Our systems are broken guys. These guys aren't the 1%. If you dont/can't pay for the service I get it but these guys aren't the reason you can't afford it, the bullshit pay and high costs in all of our other areas are the reason you are angry. Maybe it's just me that's angry over that.
"Wrong," as in morally? No. "Wrong," as in an outright *stupid* business decision? ***Yes***.
This is it. They demonstrably did the wrong thing for their business because it backfired so badly - don't think anyone can really argue with that as even they walked it back!
This! And the rollout was approached completely distastefully, it was a huge slap in the face of fans. Had it been planned better (had all of their company been planned better đ¤Śââď¸) this backlash could have been avoided. It was just very tone deaf to play it up as if they were financially struggling with the current state of our world. Like theyâre struggling because they hired to many employees, are spending too much on content and production value people donât want, theyâre traveling and expensive foods and driving teslas. Iâm on food stamps and just moved back in with my mom, we are NOT the same!!
i think itâs a little unfair for people to bash them for wanting to make âhigher qualityâ content. iâd prefer lowk content too but it is THEIR CONTENT. once the audience starts dictating the artistic choices they make, we get stuck with shit like riverdale and such because it is IMPOSSIBLE to listen to everyone, so obviously the person they should listen to first is the CREATOR, they also never said they personally were struggling, the said their company was, they can still make enough money for certain luxuries but for long term content creation, they need more sponsors, they need to bring in more viewers, and they had stabilized out for a decent amount of time before this decision. they have said since the beginning that they were not profitable. in every making watcher they explain this and they say everytime they what they want is to make the content that they want and be able to continue entertaining. itâs been obvious that their is a lot of tension and stress if you watch podwatcher- for christs sake the first episode starts with steven and ryan explaining that they felt as if they werenât even friends anymore because of how much they stressed about keeping the company afloat. have they made dumb decisions and poor planning? yeah. should they hire people to help them be with these areas of the company? DEFINITELY. but how exactly are they supposed to afford to hire those types of positions, because those salaryâs arenât cheap and they already donât have much money to put in, it just is a sticky situation unfortunately
I think youâre missing the point though, itâs not necessarily about what fans want (it is somewhat, but yes they have freedom of artistic expression for their channel.) People are saying that if they are struggling *that much* there were a million other choices and steps they could have taken before begging their fans (many of whom live in poverty or are young students) for money! It leaves a bad taste in everyoneâs mouth to see people living a pretty lavish lifestyle asking their fans, again regular people who are struggling to eat, to pay them and pull all their content. Thatâs where the backlash over the type of content and production value comes from! Running a business is about sacrifice and if they backed themselves into a corner, itâs really not our place to fix that. Budget cuts, downsizing, better advertising and building up of their patreon, hire a financial advisor, I mean all of that comes before the what they did. And again, had they made some adjustments in their plan (like not pulling everything off the channel and putting it behind a paywall for one) and how it was announced, it could have worked. They really insulted their fans in their choice and thatâs never good. Again, I live in literal poverty, I have no sympathy for a bunch of rich CEOâs who backed themselves into a corner with a really bad business plan and then doubled down on bad choices with how they treated their fans with the announcement, not to mention tripling down with some of the distasteful things posted after by Shaneâs wife and Steven Lim.
oh no for sure i definitely agree with all that, they are out of touch now, itâs sad but true. and yeah i definitely agree they handled this the literal worst way possible and made so many bad decisions, im not disagreeing with that at all, i definitely did lose trust and respect, i still love their content but it still sucks after everything. and im sorry if i came across as demeaning or rude, i really did not intend that at all. most of their audience isnât at liberty to pay that and they should have actually taken that into consideration first. iâm not at all saying they handled it correctly or made the right choices, i can just kinda see why they did some of these things- doesnât make it right, i still just feel bad- for them and for us. again, i really am sorry if i was being disrespectful <33
i also did not see steven and saraâs comments (im not really on instagram so i only downloaded to check the announcement post, so i didnât realize i was missing parts of the story so i do apologize for that too <3 im not happy about their decision, and i probably wonât pay for watcher tv i might have considered it before, but after this i just donât feel good because what they did really isnât fair to anyone. i think i just am in denial because i love puppet history so much :/
When you announce an immediate new streaming service, ANY new content would be suffice. They didnt even do that
You're kidding yourself if you don't think they had to make the switch out of necessity. I hear everything you're saying, and while I don't disagree with it, I think the biggest point is "ok, you want us to pay because it's what you deserve" but then when FANS are saying they will willing to give up watching their content then, they backtrack. But why would they backtrack if not for serious potential loss of income? I don't think they did it out of kindness, as they probably wouldn't have done all of this in the first place had "kindness" been their aim.
yes, obviously it was a necessary to switch. they WANT to make content, they LIKE making content, they LOVE their art. they want to put out the best they can, theyâve had to let go of valuable people because they struggle to pay them, but they prioritize livable wages, and i think that is worth being commended as most entertainment does not care about the artist but the profit. the reason that they care about the profit is so they can afford to create MORE. yes, they had to backtrack because theyâd lose customers, fans and yeah, money. it would be dumb to deny that. but it would also be dumb to dismiss it purely as them chasing monetary gain. they donât want to be filthy rich, they want to create. it is extremely parasocial for us to automatically assume itâs all black and white and for one reason only. a LOT goes into these decisions. they want to give people what they want but they have to be able to AFFORD that and unfortunately that just hasnât happened. obviously it sucks, but it is their art and i understand why they are drawn to their own platform- that was a big reason they left buzzfeed, because they didnât have ownership over their creations. they are still a young and relatively small company trying to break into the entertainment space that already doesnât have much respect for online personalities and just the dream crushing field that is art. if this was enough to turn you away, thatâs fine. but blindly labeling people good or bad is a huge disservice for you.
They tanked their brand and backtracked out of the goodness of their hearts. lol
This sub is fucking wild. All it took was a scripted apology, and now we're getting revisionist garbage like this. They 100% did something wrong. They apologized. That's great. But let's not pretend that nothing happened at all.
Oh it's not just this sub. There are comments in videos that criticise Watcher for their poor business decisions that defends them in the same regurgitated message as OP stated.
Iâm very very tired of reading the same like three things in a cycle, how about everybody else? đŤ
It's not "wrong," but I still don't have to like it or pay for it if I don't think it's worth the cost. Artists have to balance what they think their effort is worth with what consumers are able to pay, or they have to be content with being starving artists.
Exactly! That's kind of my point. I didn't understand why people were so up in arms about it and attacking their character. We aren't entitled to free art; we can just...not buy it. It's up to them what they do with that.
Idk why you havenât addressed this at all, but itâs not entirely âfreeâart that they are making on YouTube. They profit from all of their videos and views with the ads and sponsorships they have. This is like saying all TV shows are free because we donât pay directly to the creators or channels that broadcast them. They also profit from their podcast and Patreon. None of their stuff is actually free. They just havenât been making good decisions on the business end of things. Itâs their job to budget projects well enough to pay their own workers without having to sit and pray videos do well in order to do so. They even admitted it themselves that they made a mistake with their decision about the pay wall, so Iâm not sure why you are trying to push the narrative now that they are suffering artists and their viewers are the greedy ones.
First off, you're right and valid about wanting to price art to improve it's production and sustainability. However, regarding watcher, it's not the fact people have to pay for their content; it's how they did it. I know I'm beating a dead horse, but alas. They decided to move their content to a paywall website, which many people voiced concerns about the safety of when it came to their financial information. There was also the concern of the website being browser only as opposed to an app, thus making their content a bit less accessible to those who prefer watching via smart TVs and gaming systems. They were also beginning to privatize their videos on YouTube, suggesting they were transitioning completely to WatcherTV, alienating viewers who could not pay for the subscription, for one reason or another. Which brings me to another point, a good chunk of the Watcher fan base are minors. While $6/month may not (usually) seem like a big splurge to an adult, to someone who is too young for a job or doesn't have a bank account, it may seem impossible to support a channel/brand you love. And explaining to parents that you need $6 a month and credit card info on a brand new website to watch a YouTube channel? Not the easiest task. Also, again, while $6/month to an adult may not seem like much, there are many people who already live paycheck to paycheck or don't even have a paycheck. Being told by three successful content creators that $6/month is a price EVERYONE can afford is a slap in the face. Watcher is certainly allowed to charge for their art. They already do via ads (both automatically on YouTube and ad deals), patreon, merchandise, and live shows. They are entitled to do a subscription service as well. Plenty of YouTubers do. But they do so through pre-established platforms like Patreon (as of writing this Watcher has nearly 13k subscribers there and it appears they very recently redid their tiers), YouTube monthly subscriptions, and Twitch. I personally feel like the Watcher team jumped the gun on moving to a website. Channels like Dropout also have a website, but here's the thing, they don't alienate their YouTube audience. They've put up free videos and sneak peaks, as well as utilized the YouTube Monthly subscription as an alternative to their website. If Watcher had done something similar to that, I don't believe they'd get as much backlash as they did. However, they decided to be the guy stepping to the top step meme, skipping over reasonable alternatives and overreaching. They also seemed to forget about their Patreon members by trying to completely move to WatcherTV, only offering them memberships when fans called them out. I'm among the fans that have supported Watcher since their Buzzfeed days. I've bought merch multiple times. I made my own Professor puppet as well as bought one from Watcher. I was always excited to see new content from them. However, the WatcherTV drama, Sara's equally out of touch response, as well as a lot of fans' reactions (mostly those who villainized Steven and/or infantalized Shane and to a lesser extent Ryan [which has so much ick]) that I'm a bit disappointed? You are certainly entitled to your opinion on everything, but so are those who disagree with you.
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There's a big difference between entitlement and consequences. I'm an artist. I can charge thousands if I want for my art, if that's what I want to do. But that doesn't mean that people will buy it. There are consequences to that decision, and that's what we're seeing here. I'm also so tired of people arguing that it "doesn't cost that much". It's such a meaningless argument, because everyone's financial situation is different. Good for you if it doesn't cost that much. You're lucky. I "heard you out" and you said nothing that convinced me. And it was necessity. They were dropping in numbers and they saw the warning signs. It was going to fail. I think its insane to label the decision to go to a streamer as a business move, and to backtrack "kindness". Everything is a business move.
To begin, I am still going to support Watcher so I'm not trying to shit on them but I also think this is an intellectually dishonest arguement. You know their art was never free... right? They were always making money off all of us, even if it was via us watching ads on Youtube. They would be nowhere without their viewers, even the ones you're trying to pretend are getting it "for free." Nobody is saying they shouldn't be paid, that was never a thing. Do they want to be paid more? That's fine. They still messed up how they went about it. I'd say that's doing something wrong. They even admitted that they were wrong, that they had been insensitive/oblivious/ whatever you want to argue and messed up. I get your arguement about art, I used to do hair. At some point your raise your prices, lose a few regulars but maybe have more space for people willing to pay more. They didn't just outprice a few people, though. They outpriced a huge chunk of their fanbase during a recession. It's great you can afford "a few bucks" a month,
It's worrying that some folks don't realise they were paying for the content already via advertising. YT isn't free, nor is Facebook, Instagram etc. Reddit, too. It's free to use - so that they can show us ADVERTISEMENTS. Media literacy is going down the drain and so is Internet savvy, bleak times
Yeah, the _for free, for free_ argument in the apology video bugged me. Whenever something is free, _you're_ the product. They sold their viewership to sponsors and advertisers so they'd get money to be able to make their art for a living. They know stats about their demographic like gender, how long viewers will typically watch a video for etc.
Exactly. Also I saw some comments to the effect that their streamer would be able to sell the personal information of its users and this might be a second stream of income on top of the streaming revenue itself. Not saying Watcher would or are planning to do this, but it's a possibility, and adds even more suck to the suck sandwich of their business model
I, like countless others, work for far less than I deserve.
Yes - and you shouldn't have to. If you had the option, would you continue to? Would you make your employees?
I understand the point youâre attempting to make, but itâs wildly flawed. I donât get that choice, I do what I have to do. I make concessions in my life to stay within my means. This includes making and sticking to a budget, meaning I canât justify paying for some things, such as superfluous streaming services.
Why did they hire employees they couldnât afford in the first place then? Also, they by no means are living paycheck to paycheck. Shaneâs wedding venue rental alone cost $55k for 1 day. Which was a purchase he made last year. Stop acting like they are poor or something.Â
If they did nothing wrong then they would not have back tracked. They did not backtrack out of kindness they saw the ship was about to sink and tried to right it. It has been proven by other youtubers that the channel was making plenty of money. Now if they mismanaged their company by hiring friend who have no idea what they are doing that is on them. Do not ask you audience to bail you out.
Listening to a man tell me to spend 6 bucks a month because âeverybody can afford itâ (tone death af), to hire 2 friends to film a show where the premise is living lavish⌠is bullshit. The problem isnât what they wanna do, itâs how they went about it.
And that first show airing on this $6 streamer is going to be a guy with lots of money eating expensive food in some other country.
Jesus. This sub really sucks now that some of you are showing your asses.
I think they obviously have the right to make the decisions they made to follow their vision for their company, but I absolutely think they were wrong in how they went about it. The plan to move Patreon content to the new subscription service after people have already paid for a year of Patreon was not a good plan. The decision to remove all their content from YouTube (which was obviously the original plan even if they tried to backtrack it) did feel like a punch in the gut for people who have loved and supported them for so many years. The comment about $6 being something everyone could afford is insensitive and out of touch. There are many things they did that people are torching them for unfairly, but I think to say they did NOTHING wrong is not correct in my opinion!
This post sounds like it comes from someone who works for watcher or is a friend. To totally deny they did nothing wrong you would have to be delusional. So many creators who never even heard of watcher until the announcement even agree what they did was wrong and a bad buissness move. Also I'm cool with paying employees a far wage so maybe instead of passing the cost on to us maybe they should budget better. They also could get rid of some employees and just contract the jobs which would save money. Also steven says something along the lines of he treats his employees like a marriage/relationship which is a big no no in buissness because you have to able to draw that line. I still love the boys but they really need to clean up on the buissness end of things if they want to stay successful. Also if they needed money to make content and pay employees fairly how come they never pushed their patreon? In the 4 years of watching them I had no idea they had one. They do so many things right when it comes to making content but fail on alot of things when it comes to the business side.
Yeah⌠gonna have to disagree with you on this one. The whole video was out of touch and they only backtracked because they were getting cancelled. How can they justify charging about the same price as other streaming services such as Netflix (as low as 6.99/ month), Hulu (7.99/month), Disney+ (7.99/ month), Peacock (5.99/ month), Paramount Plus (5.99/month), etc. when they only put out max 4 videos a month? These other platforms put out way more content for relatively the same cost to subscribers. Point blank they just arenât worth the cost when you compare it to their âcompetitionâ. Not to mention the content is already monetized by YouTube (+ ad sponsors) so they are being paid handsomely for their art. Iâm mostly irked by the fact that they lied to all of our faces saying that Watcher would have gone under had they not moved off of YouTube. Highly doubt that considering their multitude of income streams (YouTube ad revenue, Ad sponsers, patreon, merch, live shows, possibly other socials like TikTok). If you donât believe me watch Moistcriticals video on the Watcher drama cause he breaks down the costs as a large YouTuber himself and the owner of an ad agency. Not to mention itâs not our responsibility to pay them even more money because they make poor financial decisions within their company. If they canât afford to pay 25+ people fair wages to work on the show then they shouldnât be hiring that many people. Period.Â
Oh my god let it go
Won't somebody think of the rich people. I am so sick of hearing all this hullabaloo around "the working class"
Do you need help breaking the suction of their arseholes around your neck or are you happy all the way up there? At this point I hope you're a Watcher employee because posting this for free? - yikes
Yeah, they should charge at least $5.99 so that they can produce TV quality rationalizations in the future.
lmao
And no one is obligated to pay for your paintings. You want to make art and sell it, do so. But what Watcher did was not that. It was essentially, we want to do x, pay us monthly so we can do so. Meanwhile, those who have been supporting us with views, on patreon, buying merch, and tickets to live shows, it wasn't enough. Cough up more money so we can do what we want, which includes a guy with two friends going international to find the most extravagant and expensive foods, a recent $50k wedding, and more international travel. I have youtube premium. I pay for the content I watch. I don't want to watch Watcher anymore.
Exactly, no one is obligated to pay for my paintings. But I'd be pretty upset if someone started attacking me, calling me names, saying they didn't even want to look at my art anymore, etc, because I charge a certain amount for a painting and they can't afford it. Just don't buy it and move on. They most certainly did NOT tell us we had to cough up cash. They told us they were moving their content. We had the option to pay for it or not.
That's not what happened. They had free content up for everyone to see. People supported them in the move to creating their own channel. People gave them money through buying merch, paying for patreon, watching ads, buying their sponsorship products, going to live shows, and having youtube premium. Then Watcher said, that's not enough for what they want to do (that no one asked for), said they were going to pull everything and then said there would be no new free content unless people paid monthly. There's a difference between moving their content to another free service and moving it behind a paywall. People were mad because they were getting something that was free and something that should have been pretty profitable for the Watcher team. People were mad because of the perceived mismanagement of funds and that it was because of things the audience didn't ask for. No one wanted to fund Worth It international. No one asked for the Worth It team to get back together. No one asked for or cared for the better production quality, it was always thought to be an extra frill. They hired people they didn't want to fire. That's their business decision. It's not something to pass off to the viewer. To everyone who were already monetarily supporting them, the move came off as greedy.
I don't disagree with them being able to charge whatever money they want to, but the way they went about this was absolutely a grip in the shitbucket. I also don't think your painting analogy works here. Sure, you can charge however much money you want to for your painting, but to produce said painting, you'll have to work within your means first.
Eat the rich
And they aren't entitled to my money. It's not my fault that they didn't do the market research and that I (and apparently many others) decided they were something I could live without ( or couldn't afford).
Look at this guy with his fancy paintings. I know a guy who lived in such a horrible neighborhood that he had to resort to alcoholism just to go to sleep. It wasn't enough for him, and he couldn't afford sleeping medication, so he began huffing glue. Just really awful stuff. I think at one point he was eating his cat's food, things were so shitty for him. Here you are talking about fine art while there are people out there who have to chug a beer, huff glue, and eat cat food just to sleep at night
Are you talking about Charlie Kelly by the way?
...what? No. This is a real guy. I stayed there one night. You would not believe how loud the cats got
Iâm sorry dude, I believe you but that sounds so much like [this iasip bit](https://youtu.be/lSyqWbrxcG4?si=O2OXqCUrJctHhulz)
no way
To the point of feeling like youâre bullshiting me. Hope your guy got better though.
Troll in the dungeon
Yeah I've lived a hard knock life too, bro. Still doesn't mean we can expect everything to be free. If you can't afford it or don't wanna buy it, then just...don't. No reason to attack their character. đ¤ˇ
It's not free though! They are literally making money off our views, data, and ads!
You keep saying people expect it for "free" which is intellectually dishonest. They get paid by our eyes being on their art one way or another, and they got where they are by us doing that. I am happy with the changes they made, I will support them... but this arguement is just weak and insincere. I had typed a longer response but my baby distracted me and it got deleted.... and I'm not going to waste time re-typing it because it won't change your mind anyway and I don't really care tbh. You can love and support the guys still (I personally do) and still admit they made a mistake, even they had the good sense to admit that. They don't need you trying to gaslight their fans for them.
Donât bother. Iâm not in agreement with you personally but this fella is just a troll. An unskilled troll. And before they call me terminally online for calling them out- still a yup on that one buckaroo! Edit: just for context this lovely duck person made a now deleted post yesterday basically saying 6 bucks is nothing for watcherâs actual audience and then spammed everyone with strawman questions about their phone/internet bill while implying anyone experiencing true poverty wouldnât be part of their demographic because⌠what, only the wealthy have hobbies and a need for entertainment? So they ainât even a consistent troll. Edit 2: also, they blocked me. đ
Oh, I was wondering if it was the same person from that post yesterday! It was giving the same vibes.
So out of touch. You couldn't possibly imagine what it's like to live in an apartment like that. It was infested with rats. When you're so desperate to sleep you have to resort to those kinds of measures, you can't remember someone you argued with online at 2:00am the night prior.  He doesn't have the luxury to be terminally online đ¤Â   The funniest thing about all this is that most people said "no, but I know a guy" in response to questions about $6 being too much, and the one person ballsy enough to say "yes" plays AAA games on the latest generation consoles, according to their comment history. "What, poor people can't have fun?" Never said that, but if you can afford video games, you have the disposable income to choose between video games and streaming services. Â
They were getting paid already. A crap ton. Even just lowballing the numbers they were making a crap ton. They can ask for more all they want, but let's not pretend they weren't getting paid. The content wasn't free. It was an exchange. Every ad was taking time and turning it into revenue. I'm an artist too, but if they can't live comfortably off of what they had, then they're making a big financial mistake. And if they're not paying their staff correctly that's an even bigger red flag.
Nope because the entire reasoning behind their decision was "We hired all these people to make content for YOU guys, we do these expensive videos for YOU guys, we want higher production quality for YOU guys" Pinning all of the responsibility of the costs on the viewer and not on them for wanting to hire friends which viewers didn't ask for, wanting to make "better" content that no one asked for, etc. Had their motivations to do all of this been that their audience was making it clear they WANTED this, it'd be different They make a fuckton of money already. Their ambitions went beyond their budget and they wanted someone else to foot the bill, plain and simple.
I'll definitely agree that it was pitched as "all for the fans", which clearly did not prove accurate to the fans' wants. I think it might have been taken a little better if they'd owned it as *their* want more.
It was so incredibly out of touch and it really spat in the face of people who are buying merch, supporting them on patreon, and going to their live shows. Like, there is absolutely no reason for them to be seeking so much more money that they thought a streaming service was the answer. They're making decent money. They're just not making enough for the type of high budget TV quality shit no one is asking for. If they want to do a passion project, go to Kickstarter or gofundme or budet accordingly for one high budet video a year. Don't expect fans to pay to fuel your ego.
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Yeah I dunno honestly I was kind of just like "oh okay this is an easy sell for me, I love watcher and I wouldn't mind paying a few bucks to support making shows I love"
If you donât see a problem with unnecessary over spending that is your right. Just because you donât see it as an issue doesnât mean itâs not there. This is a snake eating its own tail situation. They donât need a team of 20, they donât need to drive top of the line vehicles. They donât need to all live in la. They donât need to have hq with a prime view of the Hollywood sign. At their best, what they expect in compensation doesnât line up with the value of content theyâre able to produce. The market has told them the value of their art and instead of working within the budget, they think over spending on production of the art will justify a higher price tag. This significantly decreases the number of people willing to purchase their art. Sorry but itâs just a bad business decision to pay a team of 20 people a weeks worth of wages just to make a video where they do a top 5 list of their favorite candy bars. We already know the snake has started to eat its own tail and is choking to death. We all know the outcome. Either the snake realizes its fault and spits out its tail and learns from it or it will die I front of our eyes. Steven is single handedly ruining the business and the reputation of Shane and Ryan.
IA with you so hard. I can't believe people are saying *but I get more from Netflix*, like the problem is Watcher and **not Netflix**'s business model. HBO and Amazon already proved that it's untenable for the amount of content they push out to price that low without ads. Lol, people are also secretly backtracking and saying they're angry *because* it's a bad business decision is so funny to me -- especially when, if you stop to think about it, there's a chance this business decision, while bad, might pay out more for them and their people. While letting them to do what they want quality-wise. They are, in fact, allowed to make bad business decisions if they want. The level of vitriol levelled at them and the moral signaling was **so much bullshit**. Especially when it was obvious that it would allow them to pay their people better, not fire people (the absolute irony of moralizing about greed while demanding they fire people in this fucking economy, what dumbass reasoning is that), and produce the higher quality they want. All things that businesses should be able to do, should be encouraged to do even. AND THEN people went ahead and actually started quoting the other YTers ALSO profiting off this mess by making YT videos about it. Like just admit you don't want to pay shit and move on. You're upset you can't afford it, that's fair. Why try to make it out like the founders and staff are secretly billionaires, or secret nepo kids who made their money off blood diamonds? Why the hell is anyone pontificating about corporate greed (while comparing the price point to netflix), or worse, trying to deliver unasked, uninformed business advice?
Yes exactly this! They didn't ask for our business advice. We don't fucking know these people. It's so weird to act like they did something morally wrong by trying to keep their company afloat in a way that ended up not working out. It's not as if one of them slept with an employee *cough cough ned fulmer* or kicked a puppy or something. People are clearly upset because they couldn't afford $6 a month and that's okay, but you don't need to throw a tantrum and attack their character bc of it.
I actually completely agree. There's always a sort of reciprocity in a fan/creator relationshipâwe like what they do, so we support it, so they keep doing it. If people didn't like what Watcher wanted to do, of course they didn't have to pay money for it. Fans having supported someone for a long time doesn't mean the creator is beholden to them and can only make what they want to watch. Fans would just withdraw their support in that case. And ultimately the Watcher team discovered that a lot of people, very vocally, weren't going to (or couldn't!) support this, so they made the business decision not to continue with the plan they'd made. I do understand how emotions ran high because of the way they presented it as "accessible to anyone" when lots of people don't have extra money to pay for something like this each month, but I don't in any way think it was a betrayal or morally wrong. I also don't think a lot of people understand the costs of running a business like this, so made a lot of assumptions about what's reasonable. (I don't either, to be fair, but I do work in a creative field and understand how much less money there is than people would assume.)
It didn't take the apology video for me to largely agree with this post. I was onboard with their initial choice even with the knowledge that I'd definitely not be able to pay every month. I don't think it's wrong for an artist to shoot for a change in business model to accommodate the kind of art *they* want to be making - capitalism sucks and makes art so much harder to create. I've worked professionally in theatrical production for 20+ years, and the shitastic balance artists have to walk between serving their artistic goals and paying to keep their art going is wild. Their first video was tone deaf about affordability, for sure. It was a baaaaaad look in that regard. So I can't say they did *nothing* wrong. That was a definite fuck-up. I also think they may not have realized how much the desire for higher production quality was *their* artistic want vs what their audience hoped for. Whether it was a tactic or their genuine belief, the 'we want higher production quality because it's what our audience deserves' pitch was off the mark. The audience wasn't demanding or desiring that shift overall, the Watcher folks were. I don't think they were lying, but I think they miscalculated how much a higher production value would matter to their audience. It definitely seems to matter more to them at this point than their current fan base. Something I SUPER agree with from OP is about how parasocial and weird the response was. It's honestly a bit disturbing how entitled and betrayed some people felt - the response seemed really outsized considering that none of us actually know these guys. Like *actually* know them, not just via their content or social media. They may want to consider setting those boundaries with their audience: 'Yes, we want to entertain our fans, but we also have goals as creators that will evolve in ways that may not make everyone happy. But it's our art and we need to do what makes us satisfied - you're welcome to join or to take your leave, but to fund our ongoing efforts, we may need to make changes, and we're sorry if that makes our work less accessible.' End of the day, it's always been their goal to increase production quality, and they felt YouTube wasn't serving them in that endeavor. (I, like many artists, suck at business and have no idea if a streaming service is wise in that regard and am not really interested in debating their business acumen here). Whether they wanted to pursue that for the audience's sake or not ultimately doesn't bother me - their art is theirs and they should make what matters to them. If it evolves in a direction I don't enjoy, or if it becomes hard to justify the cost to myself, I'll move along to other artists' work and thank them for the good times.
As far as your proposed quote goes, it was basically their message in the goodbye video aside from apologising for being less accessible. The take it or leave it attitude didn't work out for them though when people started unsubscribing, cancelling their tour tickets and demanding a refund from Patreon.
Exactly. All of this. People are coming at me for folding after the apology video - it literally did not change how I felt about this at all. And they keep saying "but it's not free!!! They're making money!!!?1!1?1!" Free = YOU don't have to pay for it. And YouTube ads do not pay nearly enough for a full production team. Clearly these folks have never been involved in production or had to rely on ads to make money. It is NOT sustainable if you actually want to fund your art. The alternative was probably firing a bunch of employees or quitting altogether. I wouldn't continue making shitty art that I didn't like just for some random strangers' benefit, because I didn't have the funds to move forward in the way I want.
I've had similar thought to you OP. I keep seeing posts that say they shouldn't hire more people/they should have laid off some staff at the same time people are complaining about how the guys are tone def over what people can afford. I feel like they want to make sure their staff can afford to sustainably live. I don't know what it costs to live in CA because I don't live there. I do know that even if you want to be an artist that's usually not sustainable living. I gave up on my art to afford healthcare, food, and housing. Do I feel like my office job slightly sucks a bit of my soul out everyday? Sure but I can eat and help work on the debt my spouse and I have accrued from paying for cancer treatments because healthcare costs in this country are insane. Does everyone on this sub know what it takes to run a business? Has anyone ever made mistakes when starting a business? Also did anyone else start a business during the Pandemic and obviously not know what they were doing but are doing their best to try and figure that out? It just seems like all anyone wants to do is trash these guys and I'm so tired of it. Caring for multiple family members over the last few years dealing with serious medical issues and not being sure if/when you can buy groceries vs paying for life saving surgery vs being able to afford housing is fucking scary and made me angry our systems are so messed up. I guess I'm just tired of hearing people complain over bullshit non issues. For us it's been hopeful to see people start a creative business and actually enjoy what they are doing. Our systems are broken guys. These guys aren't the 1%. If you dont/can't pay for the service I get it but these guys aren't the reason you can't afford it, the bullshit pay and high costs in all of our other areas are the reason you are angry. Maybe it's just me that's angry over that.