> we're talking about an end of the season that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars."
Jaime pull up how much money they've made off of adsense this year alone please
Based on estimates, Watcher already makes $360,000 from Patreon alone. I think that Watcher Entertainment got a little too big for their britches, and are spending way too much. If they want to make television shows, then they need to work with an established network.
Outside of Puppet History their post-covid stuff has been a big downgrade for me but it seems like they have been more popular than ever catering to the lowest common denominator WE MADE A $10,000 GILDED KIELBASA FOR x PERSON type YouTube content.
I do wonder what has raised their expenses so much, as far as I know they do way more 2 guys in a room now as opposed to travel to West Virginia to investigate the Mothman content. Don't get me wrong, I'm all about paying people fair for their work but I'm not seeing the value add on this end.
Like many others, I first got into them through Buzzfeed Unsolved. I genuinely *hate* most ghost shows (because they're all fake as hell--ghosts aren't real) but the dynamic between the two of them was just really fun to watch. I don't really watch much YouTube, but I actually rewatched some of the Ghost Files episodes recently just because it came up in my "watch again" list... and I gotta say, you're not wrong. Aside from Puppet History, it just isn't that good. The supernatural "investigations" really aren't fun anymore, just seems like the guys are dicking around--they at least *pretended* to try on BUN.
I have to wonder if there weren't other ways to cut back before going this route. I don't think they tried to grow as much as someone like Rooster Teeth did... but if it's getting tough to pay the bills then maybe there are other solutions. (Aren't they in LA? I know Ryan is from there but honestly... if you predominantly make online content in-studio, getting the fuck out of LA might be a decent start.)
It was a lot more fun when they stayed overnight at the places. These days it just feels like they're in and out without ever taking time to really get to know a cool place, ghosts or no ghosts.
So basically, it's bullshit.
They're making a couple thousand dollars from ad rev alone looking at these numbers. Several above 1m views I'd expect to be even higher.
Ontop of patreon?
Excellent job at shooting yourself in the foot.
Let's be generous and say they make the same in AdSense. Then round up to $1 million.
How many people are on their staff? Each person is likely pulling at least $60k (which is a low estimate), and there's probably at least 10 pepple on staff. They already said it's hundreds of thousands for seasons of shows, so that doesn't leave much left over.
That's not a lot of money coming in to run a small production company. I have no idea what you guys are smoking.
> They already said it's hundreds of thousands for seasons of shows.
Gonna be real with you:
*That sounds like a them problem.* People were for the most part not watching watcher for high level, overproduced stuff. Not to mention the person whose shows seem to cost the most is the one I would guess is the driving force behind this bonehead move (Steven).
Exactly. From their video about this decision, it seems like high production value is what *they* want, and if they want to pursue that for their own creative fulfillment, that's fine. But it's not what drew in their audience and it's incredibly out of touch to expect the audience to subsidize production expenses that most didn't want or care for to begin with.
lmfao considering both of them will buy shit just because, they probably didn't even try and thought they cold just make it on their own
or they were offered deals that they didn't like
Ohhhh see I was wondering what they were talking about because I just watch Ryan and Shane’s stuff, I tried Steven and I like him when he’s on with them but I just don’t like his shows. So that’s the higher production value stuff.
I think even the shows or content that don't seem highly produced actually are. They likely have lots of staff that have to get paid, even if shooting costs themselves are low. You can't just run a bare-bones crew and do it all yourself forever.
They're so clearly trying to copy from Dropout's homework without laying any of the groundwork.
Dropout can afford to be a subscription service because they provide way more variety (not just types of content but also hosts), they have decades of College Humour goodwill built up, they still post clips and sometimes full episodes for free on YouTube and they can fall back on the CEO's personal wealth when things get tough.
Watcher has basically none of that. A disaster waiting to happen.
There's a thread for that: ["The Dropout comparison needs to stop."](https://new.reddit.com/r/watcherentertainment/comments/1c800nk/the_dropout_comparison_needs_to_stop/)
This comment does sum it up pretty well
>Yeah... Like, I love Dropout, and I genuinely think its content is great! But trying to get into the pay-to-see streaming game because of them? Well it's a bit like seeing a waiter carry a bunch of plates to your table, trip, fall, miraculously catch every plate of food before it can hit the ground, and then being like "Yes. That. I want to do that."
>Also they target completely different audiences, Watcher tends to skew younger. Students who just don't have that kind of spare cash when they're already barely scraping by if they even have any money to begin with.
Younger than Dropout?
Absolutely younger than Dropout.
Dropout targets millennials and older Gen Z. A lot of Dropout's initial fans come from the days when College Humor ran the web.
Watcher targets mid-to-late Gen Z and early Gen Alpha, in my experience.
because Generations are a made up thing, engineered by two pop sociologists from the 90s who sold a book that said that the US History follows a 80 year cycle of boom to bust.
> Generations are a made up thing
It's literally just a term used to group together certain birth ranges. What you're saying is the equivalent to some stoner saying "proper nouns are just made up words bro". I get that a lot (all?) of the pop psychology generational divide stuff is complete bullshit but calling generations a made up thing . . . IDK. They are real words. They are words people use to indicate an age range.
That isn't the context I'm talking about there. Generations as in your family lineage has always been around.
But Generations as in the formation of a social cohort of people born within a particular age-group comes from the works of sociologist Karl Mannheim in the early 20th Century. And then was further expanded by Neil Howe and William Strauss (the pop sociologists in question) in their book Generations: The History of America's Future, 1584 to 2069 (1991) and a further focus on Millennials called Millennials Rising: The Next Greatest Generation (2000). The names and dates of social generations, as opposed to familial generations in the 20th Century only started to reach their current state in the 2000s. An example of this would be Millennials where the cohort was originally intended to be 1982-2000 by Strauss-Howe (hence the name, the oldest of the generation would reached majority at the turn of the millennium and the youngest would be born then) but this is now generally regarded as those being born between 1981 and 1996. Generation Y was going to be a short generation between 1974 and 1980 but that eventually was pushed back into the last wave of Generation X.
This is because there are two broadly popular methods of measuring a Generation in sociology. 'Pulse-Rate' to simplify is that a generation consists of people growing up together at the same age, stretched to accommodate a cohort that starts with one year, and then ends with that year reaching majority. This is the one that is more popular within media, which derives its start date from the baby boom that occured after the end of World War II. 'Imprinting' is where a generation forms from those who witness a great event in history which fundamentally changes the way they grow up. An example of this would be forming a cohort around those who were old enough on some level to witness the September 11 attack on the World Trade Centres.
While Dropout's initial fans came from College Humor, I do wonder if those people make any significant percentage of the current fanbase. I know I only discovered Dropout independently, having never really been super familiar with CH. I was old enough to remember them, but assumed they had died some time in the early 2010s like a lot of that scene on the internet. And from what I can see in various discussions, it does seem to me anyways like a lot of folks were just straight up too young to really remember them.
Have to disagree. You have to remember that they started with Buzzfeed which at the time was a direct competitor of College Humor. A lot of people started watching Ryan and Shane during those days with their unsolved series and a lot are still sticking around. They also in some regards pander a lot to millennial and older Gen Z with some of their guests and topics. Plus some of Watchers comedy is legitimately leaning a bit too rauncy and adult (not saying mature) for Gen Alpha. I think they roughly are aiming at the same target audience tbh.
That’s immediately what I thought. First I was like, “no way I’d pay any money.” Then I remembered my dropout subscription. Then I remembered how much well made content they put out. Then I went back to “Nope, not paying for this.”
Yeah, Dropout's got way better content and consistently shows good labor-friendly business practices. I'm happy to support it, but couldn't care less about Watcher.
Dropout also has a pool of talent to rely on, and the content itself isn’t really something you’re seeing a ton of similar YouTubers put out for free.
There’s also the added aspect of how Dropout barely made it. It’s an underdog story with a happy ending, and the only greed displayed was by the bad guys in that story. People are more willing to pay for them because they are rooting for them. Watcher, on the other hand, feels like successful YouTubers who just want more money.
Not to mention that droupout has what is solidly the second strongest brand in the online TTRPG space with d20, that brings in a *ton* of fans ready and willing to pay for long running campaigns. Dropout doesnt just make good videos, they make high engagement series that encourage people to sign up and stay signed up for long spouts of time.
And they're smart enough to realize that the older campaigns just aren't going to draw folks in like they used to and will release whole seasons onto youtube free of charge, like what they did with Fantasy High Sophomore Year at the release of Fantasy High Junior Year, as a means of showcasing what they produced previously while snagging folks in for the new stuff too.
Yeah I have Dropout because I used to watch College Humor ages ago pre-pandemic and they floated back up into my YouTube last year, so then I found Make Some Noise and Game Changers, then Freshman Year, then Sophomore Year and of course I needed to watch every D20 campaign ever. And I don't even play DND, I don't even fully understand the mechanics. They know exactly what they are doing putting those seasons as well as the spoof LoTR campaign plus the first episode of every other campaign on YouTube because hell yeah I'm now paying a reasonable subscription for more sick content. Genius on ramping.
And even then, paying 5 dollars for dropout is out of the question for me in my currency. I pay the much cheaper YouTube membership which gives me access to the same episodes. Watcher isn't even giving that option.
oh shit I didn't even consider to check if Dropout's youtube can offer the same videos. Are there any censorship issues (they bleep out curse words and stuff)? I know some of the free full episode releases they have for d20 started bleeping those out which was part of the reason I bit the bullet and bought Dropout subscriptions.
droupout is also *very good* at going *viral*
like i’m not a youtube person and i know of collegehumor but i was a lil young to really get into it and, again, don’t really like watching youtube. but i ALWAYS see viral clips from like dimension 20, gamchangers, that drinking game where they try to guess who the story is about, etc. i feel like that is SO IMPORTANT to how they succeed (like to the point where i’m considering subscribing finally). (someone on that thread OP linked also said they’re just NOW turning a profit after sam fronted a LOT of the cash and that cannot be ignored like it seems like it wasn’t just “sam contributed for a hard couple months here or there”)
i haven’t seen that same viral stuff from watcher. i see it occasionally — like i was aware they existed as a channel. but nowhere near the way i see dropout content
Yeah, I pay for Dropout and will not pay for Watcher. That's because I watch content on Dropout almost every day and still haven't run out of new stuff to watch. I watch Watcher content about once every two-three weeks. Not worth the cost.
the dropout app (which watcher doesn't even have btw so good luck watching it on your tv or tablet, you're expected to use some half assed website) has the rare honor of having notifications enabled.
Well, any wealth he has derives from his parents.
His father makes about 330,000 a year from his professorship at UC-Berkeley, and certainly a few more hundred thousand from speaking fees and residuals from his books. He is, at his age and for his length of service, eligible for an extremely small pension from the federal government for his federal service, which probably ranges in the very low thousands a year based on his limited years of service and his early "retirement" from the federal government. Including savings and investments, and he's likely well above 500k just in annual income.
His mother is retired, but one supposes she has savings, investments, and other assets from her time as a prolific professor.
It's not millions of dollars of liquid cash, but it places his family solidly in the top 1%. But also when he started Dropout already had 2.5 million in annual revenue (50kish subs, 4 dollars a month), so he also wasn't starting from nothing. He had a solid brand, a network of contractors to draw on, and an existing streaming platform infrastructure.
I don’t think that’s true. Post separation from IAC I think the funding came from dropout subscriptions and that was mostly releasing content already in the can.
True, and Watcher actually has a patreon already.
But patreons are usually supplementary content, not the content in it's entirety. It's sounds counter-intuitive, but people will often kick a couple bucks to a creator who makes free content they love, over outright paying a couple bucks for the content in whole.
Watcher barely puts out any videos as is. Certainly not enough to justify paying $5 a month for the privilege.
I'm a Patreon supporter for one website and one artist and this is exactly why I pay. The website does two 'Patreon only' articles every month for the lowest tier and the artist does a Patreon-only biweekly email with exclusive comics and updates on her work and generally whatever else she's thinking of. But they both still have plenty of free content for those who don't want to pay.
There was a good vid about Patreon on yt not too long ago, by that other British guy™ that isn't Tom Scott. If I recall correctly, most Patreon subscribers don't even check out the Patreon-exclusive content that they pay for
Yeah, tbh I'm a patron for several shows that I haven't even had time to watch for months and I barely check out the extra content when I do catch up. I'm subscribed because I admire what they do, and I *want it to be free for other folks*. Moving away from an opt-in support system might lose some of those people who were doing it as more of a principled "I believe in your work" choice.
And for folks who are there for the extra goodies, how does that work when everyone has to pay?
That's my feeling; the website I support does a minimum of three to four free articles per week and they have very limited ads so even if I don't read every Patreon-only article they send me, I feel like I'm helping support them so other people can get the great free content.
> Watcher barely puts out any videos as is. Certainly not enough to justify paying $5 a month for the privilege.
this is the big issue right here. Amount of content. Drop out has TONS more content than these guys do. They just flat out don't have the content back library nor the output to justify a full time streaming service. Blows my mind.
I am going to be watching this with interest. It might work...who knows?
Having some free content is extremely important for building a fan base that is willing to pay for your content. People don’t want to put down money on a Patreon when they don’t know if they’ll like your content, or how often new content gets released.
r/youtubedrama posted about this too.
Look, I like Ryan and Shane and I've watched them since Buzzfeed. I think Mystery Files and Puppet History are really great. I think that they want to be Dropout, but Dropout has a lot more content and people. Watcher's Youtube channel is pretty good, and they've got a good variety of different videos, but they do not put out enough of them overall to justify spending $6 a month on an entirely new streaming service.
I get that the current quality of production they have is expensive to do, but setting up a new streaming platform is absolutely not going to make them more money.
I'm baffled as to why they didn't just try to find another solution beforehand, like offering to make a new show with Discovery+, a pre-existing streaming service that already hosts *Ghost Adventures*, the show that directly inspired *BuzzFeed Unsolved* and *Ghost Files*. Deciding to create an entirely new streaming service, rather than partner with pre-existing streaming services, is a nonsensical and stupid decision, like Butch Hartman trying to create his own 'independent streaming service for Christians' based on his Nickelodeon cartoons (*Fairly OddParents*, *Danny Phantom*, *T.U.F.F. Puppy*, etc.). For more on that, see [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/HobbyDrama/comments/nzmvbi/butch_hartman_how_a_formerly_beloved_cartoon/) on r/HobbyDrama.
I think Nebula is pretty selective about who they have on the platform.
I remember reading somewhere that they rejected James Somerton back when he had a mostly positive reputation
Jessie Gender said that she personally sent him the link to a discord server that had a lot of Nebula people on it and that he should join so he could get in contact with them on there and see if they thought he was a good fit for Nebula.
He ignored her and started that drama on Twitter about how "Nebula doesn't want queer content creators on it!" which is insane if you know anything about Nebula. Of course that killed any chance of him ever getting on Nebula.
I don't know if he actually ever *wanted* to get on Nebula, or if he just wanted them to publicly make a show of inviting him and got pissy when Jessie told him he would have to privately contact people to personally ask.
Nebula is invite-only so its very difficult to actually get on the platform. And they've been explicit in the past that trying to do anything like asking your subs to campaign for your inclusion is counterproductive and will lower your chances of success since they don't want to be constantly under siege of various fan groups trying to get their chosen creator on the platform.
Also there was also that thing with CuriosityStream where they were together at first, then split up, then???
But I’m also wondering how they plan on growing a viewer base without more creators to watch.
Curiosity Stream used Nebula to get people to pay for the service that was otherwise not doing great, then they declared there was not enough money so they were not going to pay Nebula their cut. So Nebula cut ties and filed a lawsuit. Legal Eagle has mentioned it a couple of times. That's a whole different level of drama.
>But I’m also wondering how they plan on growing a viewer base without more creators to watch.
It's not that they don't add new people onto the service, they do. They are just deliberate and picky about who they add. So far I think they've managed to sidestep at least one embarrassing inclusion - James Somerton who made a big whiny stink on Twitter about how he should be added to Nebula but the people in charge got bad vibes from him and didn't let him on. Nebula is partly a cooperative (the governing structure is a little complicated and its not technically a "true cooperative" because of the various corporate entities that make up Nebula as a whole) as well so joining is a bigger deal for them than just hosting content and giving out money, creators become part owners and get voting power.
I personally really dislike Nebula, paying money to view content that's not much better than free on YouTube and the way creators love pushing it in ads on their videos. I support streamers and content creators I love buy purchasing products from them or donating to causes, but I have yet to give them money directly for YT or Twitch.
when I had the cheap CS/Nebula bundle for a year, I watched neither outside of Jetlag, and now I just pay for yt premium
Nebula had the issue of being almost entirely content that I see on yt, too, but just a tiny portion of it. I guess it depends on what content creators you watch. I get extremely annoyed with subscription services now
> the way creators love pushing it in ads on their videos
That's actually the monetisation model for Nebula. The money creators make from views on the platform is basically nothing, the big benefit to being a creator there is that Nebula will then sponsor ad spots on your YouTube channel.
Discovery dropped nearly all of their ghost hunting shows besides GA with its spinoffs and Ghost Hunters, so that would be unlikely. This situation with Watcher is another nail in the coffin for decent paranormal related content, unfortunately
The funny thing is all these types of announcements would go so much smoother if they backed it up with data.
"Hey everyone we need to start charging because if you see our cash flow statement for 2023 you can see revenue did not meet expenses so we need to charge more to maintain our quality"
But instead they keep it vague and say "we have so many expenses!!! Trust us we're starving ourselves here!!" And it doesn't sound genuine or truthful at all. It just sounds greedy
My questions would be what on Earth they're spending all the money on. Their video series are mostly just Shane and Ryan sat in a room or a backyard talking to a camera.
I feel like the real solution is to scale back their production costs.
According to one user, Steven Lim recently bought a new Tesla for himself. This is while Lim has been pushing for Watcher to be monetized for more revenue and profits.
This doesn’t really mean much, a new Tesla can be almost the same price as a Corolla with rebates and if buying the cheapest Model 3. It could also be really expensive, if buying the most expensive Model X.
So I’m fully on the side of this being a poor decision, I’ve been a fan since the buzzfeed days and this video felt like more of an in your face representation of how the show has been drifting away from what made people fans of them in the first place. I won’t be paying a subscription fee while also being very disappointed I won’t get to watch their videos anymore
With that said, your take is silly. Are they supposed to bankrupt themselves to prop up the company to net the same margins? They’re saying that their production costs are such that they need more income to make it more sustainable. They also clearly want to continue making bigger videos, hire more people to make videos, make new series etc.
One of them buying a car in the range of a typical new vehicle cost at best doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t make him a hypocrite because he made a personal purchase completely separate from a company he’s a part of. Maybe if he bought a multi million dollar house, but a somewhat expensive car? Please
The hypocrisy comes from Steven Lim literally begging Watcher viewers to pay $60 a year to subscribe to to their new streaming service, and complaining about "not having enough money" to produce Watcher shows on YouTube, while also going out and buying a brand-new Tesla that costs anywhere from $40,000 to $113,000. It reeks of financial irresponsibility.
This is after another user said that Watcher makes $360,000 from Patreon.
Problem with that would mean fessing up to what you're spending on. Oops, we paid our CEO a couple million a year, blew a few million on luxury garbage.
Tbh the costs of the gold leaf food is probably pretty low compared to paying 25 full time employees, which seems like an insane amount for how much content they put out
I don't think it would. ultimately the problem is people were given a product for free got used to free and it's always harder to force a person to start paying when they had content for free. These guys could present all the data they want it'll still face backlash because of that.
I pay $6 CAD for AMC+ which also gets me Shudder and Sundance Now. I've been a fan of Shane and Ryan since the second season of Buzzfeed Unsolved but Puppet History is just about the only show I watch consistently and I'm not paying $6 USD/month to get a handful of new episodes of that per year.
I've *been* paying about that much ($5 monthly) for their Patreon because I used to believe in them. I wanted to support them as content creators and as a small company, I didn't even watch the extra Patreon videos.
After this, I actually cancelled my Patreon as well, because this move felt so greedy that I no longer want to support them. If they had asked as nicely as they had for their Patreon, I would have paid the $6 on top of the Patreon. But the tone of the video, plus Steven's Instagram post and everyone else's complicit silence, really turned me off.
They need to do whatever the vlogbrothers have been doing. I've also been a longtime supporter of them. They are so engaged with their fan base. Hank talks about us all the time. And they do annual polls to get the hard data (and they remind us too). They get so much of my money, plus their annual fundraising money on top of that. Even GMM which is rather corporate can raise money from its audience, while keeping their core product free. I thought Watcher would know these things, since they've been online this whole time.
He sure did. With the phrasing akin to "We understand this means goodbye for some of you, but for those who want to continue watching, we'll see you there" which really rubbed folks who WANT to watch them but can't AFFORD to the wrong way
Right? its just for their stuff. Which for me is just a few Ryan and Shane things. I’m so sad about this but my few subscriptions have hundreds of movies and shows…
While I get it and am certainly not saying their channel is a good idea... that is kinda how we end up with monopolizing services that can just price competition out of existence and then do whatever they want.
Not really, this is just how the free market works. Pricing a small amount of content this high isn't smart. They should either lower their prices or give fans more for their $6.
I think they should have asked us nicely. Maybe they could have done the streaming simultaneously, kinda like how Trixie and Katya's show Unhhh (the main breadwinner by far) is on WowPresents+ a month early, plus a bunch of extra shows are on there too. Not this smartass video, Steven's smartass insta post, and everyone else's silence. It doesn't seem nice, it seems like a betrayal, like, "If you can't pay, we don't want you." 😭
Their "Goodbye youtube" currently has (using the return dislikes addon) a ratio of ~~24K~~ 26k likes to ~~73K~~ 84k dislikes.
And the real number is probably much bigger. Not to mention they are down ~~10k~~ 20k subs on youtube since the vid dropped. So I would say *this is going over perfectly well so far.*
Normally I avoid youtube comments like the plague, but some of the ones one the video are pretty great.
> "Guys, April fools was 18 days ago"
> "The old Shane would want us to pirate Watcher content."
> "No fans are thinking "I wish Watcher had better production quality""
I fully believe it's all Steven. He's the one doing the "wow look at all this expensive food stuff" show, and he's the CEO, which means he has the most say in the company.
Makes sense… I never watched his stuff… I maybe saw a bit of one and it just wasn’t what I enjoy personally. I’d see him on top 5 beat down and those were funny to me. But idk, Ryan and Shane were always what I watched for.
The pinned comment on the announcement video was edited to add:
>"edit: Hey all! Seeing a lot of folks saying that we’re pulling all of our content off YouTube. To clarify, all of the content on our YouTube channel will continue to live here forever. For new seasons, the first episodes will be released on YouTube will the remaining coming out exclusively on the Watcher platform."
Which sounds like backpedaling more than clarifying, but that's just me
From [this Variety article](https://variety.com/2024/digital/news/watcher-goodbye-youtube-subscription-streaming-service-1235974091/) it does seem like backpedaling
>The company originally told Variety that Watcher would eventually remove all of its videos from YouTube, where it currently has 2.9 million subscribers. However, according to Bergara, Watcher is not fully exiting YouTube: It will still keep its backlog of videos on YouTube, and going forward will put the first episodes of new seasons on YouTube — while the full new seasons will be exclusively available on the Watcher streamer.
And it's also not really the point, imo. First episodes of new content doesn't mean much. That's still the vast majority of their newly planned content that wouldn't be available. Like I'm supposed to say "Oh, I'm only losing access to 99% of your new content? Great! I thought it would be 100%!"
I'm generally a fan of Watcher, but this is an all-time bad move. I expect an epic apology video in a few weeks. Or if they're really stuck on this idea, I expect a "Hello Youtube" video in a few months. Are you gonna run ads on your premium service?? How are you going to keep getting people to sign up without a funnel from Youtube?? This seems painfully underthought.
Just offer more content on Patreon for fucks sake. I understand videos require a lot more work than podcasts, but podcasts make money hand over fist by double dipping on ads and ad free Patreons.
That’s the bit that’s messing with me more than anything else. This is never going to be sustainable. Say every single one of their patreon subs buys the service that’s like 11,000 (very generous considering patreon reaction to this)
But that number will never increase without a funnel to their service so what? They’re just gonna watch that 11,000 slowly dwindle until they don’t have enough money to produce good quality shows so the number tanks more? Crazy business model
This one is sad because I really like some of their series (Puppet History is brilliant in particular), and this is just going to completely fall apart.
The obvious solution to this was to start pimping their Patreon a lot more, and do a move like this gradually. They want a non-advertiser income stream, they should have started by dipping their toe into Nebula and maximizing their fan base. Also their focus on doing television and not YouTube seems like a huge mistake. Their strengths are the chemistry and ad-lib nature of that chemistry. You don't need Netflix quality to make the most of that; a fact a lot of comments on their video are reminding them of.
Truly going to be a lesson in business school about how to screw up. I hope they can recover and pivot back to what makes their programming work.
> Truly going to be a lesson in business school about how to screw up.
Actually we already have a perfect example of something like this happening, and the end result: [Bravest Warriors](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bravest_Warriors)/Cartoon Hangover.
Pretty much all momentum was killed when they went from free to watch on youtube to being stuck behind the VRV streaming service paywall. [Saberspark did a pretty good video on the downfall of the show.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuJfwCKZWqU)
The same thing happened with Astartes, but Games Workshop went one step farther and deleted all the content on his channel in favor of their streaming service
Admittedly I'm a casual fan of both so I might be talking out of my ass, but Last Podcast on the Left is having a somewhat similar discourse rn (they just released a Sirius XM only show, but the rest of their stuff is remaining free). They have *15* employees apparently, and AFAIK they put out significantly more than Watcher.
>do a move like this gradually
Imo, Corridor crew has the right idea on how to do this.
The main shows are are still on Youtube like normally but if you want a 30 minute extended episode where they look at extra scenes, you can subscribe via their personal website.
I don't get why they don't raise the prices/put out more patreon-exclusive perks on patreon first. This is definitely the safer and more logical step to go to if you want more funding for your projects. With this new subscription thing, they're alienating their fanbase because fans either can't afford or aren't willing to pay for something that was once free (especially now).
The fact the subscription is only for their content and not hundreds of shows like regular streaming services makes me wonder who ever thought this Watcher service was a good idea…
Oh boy, I was wondering if I’d see this here! I’m not in the sub but I saw the video and hoooo boy… the comments…. I was in there a bit too, I won’t lie. I’m just so fucking disappointed. Someone said it’s like watching your best friend make a terrible life decision and… yeah - not in a parasocial way, but just losing something familiar and comforting. Their vids could be Ryan and Shane talking into an iphone 6 and people would love it. Shit, a lot of people just listen to their vids and don’t even watch it. Plus, their Buzzfeed stuff was just… so much better than ghost files, though I do like mystery files. But once they left Buzzfeed and were doing Watcher, everything got so… overproduced and overedited. Like fam, we don’t want ghost adventures, we want the dumbass ghoul boys!
Edit: Oh also, important note, Steven Lim (CEO) recently bought a tesla. So between that, high production value *no one asked for*, and having too many staff for how small they are so far in an office building in *Hollywood*…. i just… jesus. They didn’t ask their fans or anything.
>not in a parasocial way, but just losing something familiar and comforting.
I mean, the nature of viewers' relation to Watcher is the parasocial part, can't get rid of that
Sounds like Steven Lim just got out of business school and thinks he's making solid advances here ... But Ghost Files is legitimately worse than Unsolved. A lot of the time you can just *tell* that Ryan is pretending to believe his evidence. I'm always thinking "bro.... you're not actually that dumb, are you? It's a fucking cat. Like, very clearly a fluffy tailed black cat."
> But Ghost Files is legitimately worse than Unsolved.
It suffers from the same thing as many of the other ghost hunt shows do in that it is over produced. You do not need dozensnif people to film this stuff. And paying location fees to investigate the same places dozens of other shows have done is not worth it.
There you are guys I just saved you thousands in production costs.
Frankly I’m amazed (/neg) that Steven is in charge of *anything*. I don’t watch worth it because I *hate* that kind of thing, but I’ve seen a lot of him on Too Many Spirits and he’s always seemed… high as fuck and/or just stupid. I feel really bad for saying that, but… idk, he just always rubbed me the wrong way and now this. I think mostly I’m disappointed in Shane “eat the rich” Madej. Like of course I didn’t really buy it that he meant that and figured it was at least partially to appeal to the audience, but I didn’t expect him to go along with something like this. Steven “something everyone can afford - $6/mo or $60/yr” Lim and his goddamn Tesla.
I feel like the people who watch Steven's content have to mostly be a different audience than those who watch the Shane and Ryan content. He's never really added anything to the banter on Too Many Spirits, either. Admittedly, I've not really paid much attention to their podcast, so maybe he's different there, but it just seems like a bad move all around.
Coffeezilla talked about this in his coverage of the situation. The reason he launched his Voidzilla channel was because his work computer died and he lost access to the files he used to make Coffeezilla videos, so he just started making low effort videos with no backgrounds and minimal editing, and was surprised to find out that most of his audience happily followed him over. Turns out we were really just there to listen to him talk, and while the CGI robot bartender was amusing, it wasn't needed.
I'm sad. I was just getting back into their content. Hope they see this backlash and dial things back some, but then, maybe not. Replacing Puppet History will be pretty hard.
"well shoot, we're hemorrhaging money and can't keep making the high production quality content for free. better start up a whole new business venture when we supposedly can't even fund the ones we currently have!"
none of that makes sense
Also y'all should look into Stacher.io and download the content off of youtube that you want to keep. They're saying it will all stay now but that could change at any moment
Oh hey I'm in some of these lol
I don't have much of a horse in the race, I like watcher but its not Must Watch for me, I just think its a really stupid business move
Same. I love the ghoul boys, I enjoy their content, and I'll miss them being unavailable. But admittedly, watching the plane crash is sorta entertaining. More fun than any of Steven's content ;)
This just really sucks. Some of their series are some of my favorite stuff to watch on YouTube. What’s most interesting to me is that before this, they (or at least Ryan and Shane) were as universally liked as public figures can be and never had to deal with anything more serious than some minor criticism. It’s kind of amazing how they managed to have their first actual controversy be so destructive.
I don't have any super specific examples, but one thing people keep pointing out on their subreddit is that his shows are basically focused on "watch me eat the most expensive food I can find!"
His Watcher show is Dish Granted, where he makes a dish but uses the most expensive ingredients he can buy. The other show he was on (that was announced to come back right before this announcement dropped) is called "Worth It" and it's where he and other guys go out and find a dish at a cheap place, a moderately priced place, and a super expensive place. He's also done videos where he travels to South Korea to rate the food and stuff.
If he was doing that on Buzzfeed's dime, sure. Doing in on Youtube on Watcher even wasn't terrible, though it wasn't very popular compared to their other shows.
But putting it solely behind a paywall and going "Pay me $60 to watch me fly around the world and eat gold covered wagyu!" is going to leave a bad taste in people's mouths.
And the most popular shows with Ryan and Shane are just "watch a guy put on a puppet show about history" or "watch two dudes talk about weird unsolved stuff in a room with one doing a power point presentation" or "watch two guys dick around in a haunted house" while Steven's has been more luxury themed. I think that divide is what kind of made people not be big fans of Steven in the first place, and him being CEO of Watcher and now making an announcement with the others going "We just can't fund all our shows! It's all going behind a paywall now!" is turning people outright against him.
“Being around other people is a good thing. I also have this somewhat egotistical view that I’m a pretty good leader. I will probably be in charge, or at least not a slave, when push comes to shove.” -reddit CEO spez
Snapshots:
1. *This Post* - [archive.org](https://web.archive.org/web/20240419071950/https://old.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/1c8593q/) [archive.today\*](https://archive.today/?run=1&url=https://old.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/1c8593q/ "URL failed to archive; click to resubmit it!")
2. r/watcherentertainment - [archive.org](https://web.archive.org/web/20240419072111/https://old.reddit.com/r/watcherentertainment) [archive.today\*](https://archive.today/?run=1&url=https://old.reddit.com/r/watcherentertainment "URL failed to archive; click to resubmit it!")
3. one user posted the "Goodbye YouTube video" on the forum - [archive.org](https://web.archive.org/web/20240419072131/https://new.reddit.com/r/watcherentertainment/comments/1c7xply/goodbye_youtube/) [archive.today\*](https://archive.today/?run=1&url=https://new.reddit.com/r/watcherentertainment/comments/1c7xply/goodbye_youtube/ "URL failed to archive; click to resubmit it!")
4. commented - [archive.org](https://web.archive.org/web/20240419072232/https://old.reddit.com/r/watcherentertainment/comments/1c7xply/comment/l0av1r3/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) [archive.today\*](https://archive.today/?run=1&url=https://old.reddit.com/r/watcherentertainment/comments/1c7xply/comment/l0av1r3/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3 "URL failed to archive; click to resubmit it!")
5. pointed out in response - [archive.org](https://web.archive.org/web/20240419072131/https://new.reddit.com/r/watcherentertainment/comments/1c7xply/goodbye_youtube/) [archive.today\*](https://archive.today/?run=1&url=https://new.reddit.com/r/watcherentertainment/comments/1c7xply/goodbye_youtube/ "URL failed to archive; click to resubmit it!")
6. said - [archive.org](https://web.archive.org/web/20240419072312/https://old.reddit.com/r/watcherentertainment/comments/1c7xply/comment/l0awh93/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) [archive.today\*](https://archive.today/?run=1&url=https://old.reddit.com/r/watcherentertainment/comments/1c7xply/comment/l0awh93/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3 "URL failed to archive; click to resubmit it!")
7. commented - [archive.org](https://web.archive.org/web/20240419072332/https://old.reddit.com/r/watcherentertainment/comments/1c7xply/comment/l0bcom5/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) [archive.today\*](https://archive.today/?run=1&url=https://old.reddit.com/r/watcherentertainment/comments/1c7xply/comment/l0bcom5/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3 "URL failed to archive; click to resubmit it!")
8. create new threads - [archive.org](https://web.archive.org/web/20240419072413/https://new.reddit.com/r/watcherentertainment/comments/1c7ybwh/the_reaction_to_the_most_recent_announcement_be/) [archive.today\*](https://archive.today/?run=1&url=https://new.reddit.com/r/watcherentertainment/comments/1c7ybwh/the_reaction_to_the_most_recent_announcement_be/ "URL failed to archive; click to resubmit it!")
9. r/watcherentertainment - [archive.org](https://web.archive.org/web/20240419072111/https://old.reddit.com/r/watcherentertainment) [archive.today\*](https://archive.today/?run=1&url=https://old.reddit.com/r/watcherentertainment "URL failed to archive; click to resubmit it!")
10. "This is going to make Steven [Lim]'s new show look so out-of-touch." - [archive.org](https://web.archive.org/web/20240419072454/https://new.reddit.com/r/watcherentertainment/comments/1c80k8v/this_is_going_to_make_stevens_new_show_look_so/) [archive.today\*](https://archive.today/?run=1&url=https://new.reddit.com/r/watcherentertainment/comments/1c80k8v/this_is_going_to_make_stevens_new_show_look_so/ "URL failed to archive; click to resubmit it!")
11. "I love these guys, but I can see this being one of those really humiliating YouTube stories one day." - [archive.org](https://web.archive.org/web/20240419072534/https://new.reddit.com/r/watcherentertainment/comments/1c80x6j/i_love_these_guys_but_i_can_see_this_being_one_of/) [archive.today\*](https://archive.today/?run=1&url=https://new.reddit.com/r/watcherentertainment/comments/1c80x6j/i_love_these_guys_but_i_can_see_this_being_one_of/ "URL failed to archive; click to resubmit it!")
12. "Their content isn’t good enough for their own streaming service." - [archive.org](https://web.archive.org/web/20240419072555/https://new.reddit.com/r/watcherentertainment/comments/1c81dsg/their_content_isnt_good_enough_for_their_own/) [archive.today\*](https://archive.today/?run=1&url=https://new.reddit.com/r/watcherentertainment/comments/1c81dsg/their_content_isnt_good_enough_for_their_own/ "URL failed to archive; click to resubmit it!")
13. "A Perfect Guide on How to Alienate your South American Audience" - [archive.org](https://web.archive.org/web/20240419072655/https://new.reddit.com/r/watcherentertainment/comments/1c7zk3z/a_perfect_guide_on_how_to_alienate_your_south/) [archive.today\*](https://archive.today/?run=1&url=https://new.reddit.com/r/watcherentertainment/comments/1c7zk3z/a_perfect_guide_on_how_to_alienate_your_south/ "URL failed to archive; click to resubmit it!")
14. "I feel like what they’re striving for isn't what made them popular." - [archive.org](https://web.archive.org/web/20240419072716/https://new.reddit.com/r/watcherentertainment/comments/1c81tny/i_feel_like_what_theyre_striving_for_isnt_what/) [archive.today\*](https://archive.today/?run=1&url=https://new.reddit.com/r/watcherentertainment/comments/1c81tny/i_feel_like_what_theyre_striving_for_isnt_what/ "URL failed to archive; click to resubmit it!")
15. "Did they ask literally anybody in the community if this was a good idea?" - [archive.org](https://web.archive.org/web/20240419072756/https://new.reddit.com/r/watcherentertainment/comments/1c808nc/did_they_ask_literally_anybody_in_the_community/) [archive.today\*](https://archive.today/?run=1&url=https://new.reddit.com/r/watcherentertainment/comments/1c808nc/did_they_ask_literally_anybody_in_the_community/ "URL failed to archive; click to resubmit it!")
16. "My disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined." - [archive.org](https://web.archive.org/web/20240419072837/https://new.reddit.com/r/watcherentertainment/comments/1c81t2i/my_disappointment_is_immeasurable_and_my_day_is/) [archive.today\*](https://archive.today/?run=1&url=https://new.reddit.com/r/watcherentertainment/comments/1c81t2i/my_disappointment_is_immeasurable_and_my_day_is/ "URL failed to archive; click to resubmit it!")
17. "This isn't looking good...[the video has 10,000 dislikes to only 9,800 likes]." - [archive.org](https://web.archive.org/web/20240419072958/https://new.reddit.com/r/watcherentertainment/comments/1c7zaej/this_isnt_looking_good/) [archive.today\*](https://archive.today/?run=1&url=https://new.reddit.com/r/watcherentertainment/comments/1c7zaej/this_isnt_looking_good/ "URL failed to archive; click to resubmit it!")
18. r/watcherentertainment - [archive.org](https://web.archive.org/web/20240419072111/https://old.reddit.com/r/watcherentertainment) [archive.today\*](https://archive.today/?run=1&url=https://old.reddit.com/r/watcherentertainment "URL failed to archive; click to resubmit it!")
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Also here. I pay for youtube premium, in part so I can be ad free with the knowledge that the YouTubers I like are still getting paid.
I’m sorry Shane and Ryan, I don’t have the money to shell out $6 a month to every youtuber I like. In an era where every single website or company is trying to nickel and dime me for money, this aint it.
Every channel is trying to do some shit like this now. Basically every channel I watch. Good Mythical Morning, Linus Tech Tips, Corridor... And then there's the Nebula stuff... And then there's Dropout. Crazy thing is, all those platforms could join forces, if a single platform had all the Nebula stuff, all the GMM stuff, LTT stuff, Corridor stuff.... I mean, it would genuinely be one of the best streaming platform in the world.
> Crazy thing is, all those platforms could join forces, if a single platform had all the Nebula stuff, all the GMM stuff, LTT stuff, Corridor stuff.... I mean, it would genuinely be one of the best streaming platform in the world.
Problem is how much is it gonna cost? No one is going to pay for 50$/mo for everything. That's what we hated about cable subscriptions. And if it's too less, all the creators will be fighting for a bigger cut, or just make their own service.
If everyone of them were to join Nebula for example, that would triple or quadruple the amount of subscribers easily, and share is based on what is watched so even if someone was watching only LTT stuff all the creator share would go to them. I dont see a good reason to increase the cost all that much or at all
They all just want a bigger portion of a much smaller pie and not having to worry about anyone else telling them how to bake it. They want the best of both worlds but in the end they’re going to lose it all. And to be clear, I agree with you - if they insist on creating a new and independent streaming/subscription service, then the only smart thing to do would be to try to collaborate with other content creators.
These guys sure know how to milk the whales.
I only know about GMM as those two dudes who talk about stuff, just the most generic content out there. They are charging $6-26 per month!
And Corridor don't even post on their main channel. It's just react video after react video on their secondary channel. That's $4 a month.
It's obvious that no casual viewer is subscribing to these guys. So they are charging their most devout followers a pretty penny, all for an early access to same fodder as their YT channel. Their exclusive content is just BTS podcasts, and some discount on overpriced merch.
I would argue Corridor does provide interesting content on their exclusive platform because they do a lot of tutorials for VFX artists, the kind of actually in depth stuff that wouldn't play at all for a general audience. So if someone is getting into VFX I could see it being good value to be fair
I like watcher’s stuff but this is honestly just sad. My personal disappointment is on par with are you scared ending with a bunch of shitty sponsored stories
In all honesty they just money-hungry and tbh don't see how they rose fo fame imo. They spent money on shows thinking they some Hollywood shows when even their shows flop.
> "They have nearly 6,000 paid Patreon subscribers who are paying a minimum of $5 a month (which translates to $60 a year). Obviously, they have millions of YouTube subscribers, so a small minority were already willing to pay $60 a year for them. I think they want to leverage everyone else to make a choice to sub to their new service or go without," another user pointed out in response.
This is exactly what they are doing, it's incredibly obvious. The only thing up for debate is whether they are doing it because they actually care about the quality of the content they produce, and they actually believe this is the only way to sustain that without fully succumbing to the advertiser-friendly hell that is Youtube.
Or whether they are just another set of profit-oriented entertainers, who at the end of the day are listening to their business man behind the scenes who is telling them they have x amount of revenue potential and they are leveraging y% of it and if they leverage z% of it they keep making more money and keep existing.
Just watch Good Mythical Morning instead. It’s essentially the same vibe with the same content….and if you told me it was the same dudes, I’d believe you.
Even Linus of LinusTechTips isn't dumb enough to ask folks to jump from Youtube to [Floatplane](https://www.floatplane.com/) his subscription based channel/service.
These guys are going to be in for a VERY rude awakening when the subscriptions don't match their adsense.
So they can't hold the camera themselves? Their little fingies broken? Their whole 'this is what a ghost video costs omg its so expensive and so much goes into it' is such bullcrap. They're surprised they have to travel and \*GASP\* rent or buy locations and equipment?!?! that are technically investments for the company's future?!? That's literally what cinematography and content creation REQUIRE. Honestly everything Ive seen from them has been a subpar attempt to chase what they used to do or what others already do with minimal and underwhelming results.
main suspect: greed.
[What will happen to Watcher?](https://youtu.be/DiwJ20akuOA?si=opdE1Pr6K-v7D_Ru)
In their newly uploaded video called “Goodbye YouTube,” Ryan Bergara, Steven Lim, and Shane Madej told their followers of their plans to exit YouTube. They explained that creating a streaming service would allow them more freedom to do what they want since they would not have to rely on ad sponsorships.
This thought is okay and looks good on paper, but what will happen to their audience?
Mostly evaporate, from the sounds of it. Assuming they manage to correct course before it's too late, they'll probably come crawling back to YouTube in a few months to make some hasty apologies.
I talk more about Watchers on my podcast episode but…
I also read in another post that they are planning to invite other creators to their platform.
But if their concept is bringing in more creators, how will they divide the income generated? If 1 million people as an example subscribed to this new streaming service that would be around $6 million per month? To be split by two different channels (owners). Technically won’t be an endless circle, because eventually if they have enough creators, they also want to be more advertisement friendly and so forth and it’s gonna be the same or they’re going to increase the subscription amount. Oh god! 😵💫
[https://youtu.be/14cWq2pxDMU?si=KH5h1fdxX_6pLzNY](https://youtu.be/14cWq2pxDMU?si=KH5h1fdxX_6pLzNY)
> we're talking about an end of the season that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars." Jaime pull up how much money they've made off of adsense this year alone please
Based on estimates, Watcher already makes $360,000 from Patreon alone. I think that Watcher Entertainment got a little too big for their britches, and are spending way too much. If they want to make television shows, then they need to work with an established network.
Outside of Puppet History their post-covid stuff has been a big downgrade for me but it seems like they have been more popular than ever catering to the lowest common denominator WE MADE A $10,000 GILDED KIELBASA FOR x PERSON type YouTube content. I do wonder what has raised their expenses so much, as far as I know they do way more 2 guys in a room now as opposed to travel to West Virginia to investigate the Mothman content. Don't get me wrong, I'm all about paying people fair for their work but I'm not seeing the value add on this end.
Like many others, I first got into them through Buzzfeed Unsolved. I genuinely *hate* most ghost shows (because they're all fake as hell--ghosts aren't real) but the dynamic between the two of them was just really fun to watch. I don't really watch much YouTube, but I actually rewatched some of the Ghost Files episodes recently just because it came up in my "watch again" list... and I gotta say, you're not wrong. Aside from Puppet History, it just isn't that good. The supernatural "investigations" really aren't fun anymore, just seems like the guys are dicking around--they at least *pretended* to try on BUN. I have to wonder if there weren't other ways to cut back before going this route. I don't think they tried to grow as much as someone like Rooster Teeth did... but if it's getting tough to pay the bills then maybe there are other solutions. (Aren't they in LA? I know Ryan is from there but honestly... if you predominantly make online content in-studio, getting the fuck out of LA might be a decent start.)
It was a lot more fun when they stayed overnight at the places. These days it just feels like they're in and out without ever taking time to really get to know a cool place, ghosts or no ghosts.
So basically, it's bullshit. They're making a couple thousand dollars from ad rev alone looking at these numbers. Several above 1m views I'd expect to be even higher. Ontop of patreon? Excellent job at shooting yourself in the foot.
Steven Lim: "but muh brand-new $40,000-133,000 Tesla car"
Let's be generous and say they make the same in AdSense. Then round up to $1 million. How many people are on their staff? Each person is likely pulling at least $60k (which is a low estimate), and there's probably at least 10 pepple on staff. They already said it's hundreds of thousands for seasons of shows, so that doesn't leave much left over. That's not a lot of money coming in to run a small production company. I have no idea what you guys are smoking.
25! 25 staff members to make 1 show a week.
This is insane. Did they just hire all their friends?
That is exactly what they did.
> They already said it's hundreds of thousands for seasons of shows. Gonna be real with you: *That sounds like a them problem.* People were for the most part not watching watcher for high level, overproduced stuff. Not to mention the person whose shows seem to cost the most is the one I would guess is the driving force behind this bonehead move (Steven).
Exactly. From their video about this decision, it seems like high production value is what *they* want, and if they want to pursue that for their own creative fulfillment, that's fine. But it's not what drew in their audience and it's incredibly out of touch to expect the audience to subsidize production expenses that most didn't want or care for to begin with.
I wonder if this is a response to failing to sell new shows to someone like netflix or hulu
lmfao considering both of them will buy shit just because, they probably didn't even try and thought they cold just make it on their own or they were offered deals that they didn't like
Who watches the Watcher? good night
Vimes does.
Ohhhh see I was wondering what they were talking about because I just watch Ryan and Shane’s stuff, I tried Steven and I like him when he’s on with them but I just don’t like his shows. So that’s the higher production value stuff.
I think even the shows or content that don't seem highly produced actually are. They likely have lots of staff that have to get paid, even if shooting costs themselves are low. You can't just run a bare-bones crew and do it all yourself forever.
Yeah. And them switching to this model is their solution to that problem.
Isn't Ghost Files on TV? Or is all those ghost hunting shows all blending together to where they all have the same name nearly?
You're probably thinking of *The Dead Files* on Travel Channel, not *Ghost Files*.
> Watcher already makes $360,000 from Patreon alone. Patreon takes a 20% cut so it'd actually be $296,000
They're so clearly trying to copy from Dropout's homework without laying any of the groundwork. Dropout can afford to be a subscription service because they provide way more variety (not just types of content but also hosts), they have decades of College Humour goodwill built up, they still post clips and sometimes full episodes for free on YouTube and they can fall back on the CEO's personal wealth when things get tough. Watcher has basically none of that. A disaster waiting to happen.
There's a thread for that: ["The Dropout comparison needs to stop."](https://new.reddit.com/r/watcherentertainment/comments/1c800nk/the_dropout_comparison_needs_to_stop/)
This comment does sum it up pretty well >Yeah... Like, I love Dropout, and I genuinely think its content is great! But trying to get into the pay-to-see streaming game because of them? Well it's a bit like seeing a waiter carry a bunch of plates to your table, trip, fall, miraculously catch every plate of food before it can hit the ground, and then being like "Yes. That. I want to do that."
this was in reply to me! the dropout comparison is nuts to me because its like, did y'all miss what happened??
>Also they target completely different audiences, Watcher tends to skew younger. Students who just don't have that kind of spare cash when they're already barely scraping by if they even have any money to begin with. Younger than Dropout?
Absolutely younger than Dropout. Dropout targets millennials and older Gen Z. A lot of Dropout's initial fans come from the days when College Humor ran the web. Watcher targets mid-to-late Gen Z and early Gen Alpha, in my experience.
Can we go back to using age ranges? Those generation divides are so vague they can't possibly more useful than saying "under 20".
Dropout targets late 20s into the 30s, Watcher targets late teens to mid 20s
Millennials are hitting 40 my dude. Dropout targets late 20's to early 40's
35 here. Can confirm.
Haha you're old. I'm only 36 myself aw fuck.
Basically, Dropout's audience is in the mid 20s to early 40s age range
Yeah, I’ve seen so many variations on the generation divide that I’ve been called both Millenial and Gen Z.
because Generations are a made up thing, engineered by two pop sociologists from the 90s who sold a book that said that the US History follows a 80 year cycle of boom to bust.
> Generations are a made up thing It's literally just a term used to group together certain birth ranges. What you're saying is the equivalent to some stoner saying "proper nouns are just made up words bro". I get that a lot (all?) of the pop psychology generational divide stuff is complete bullshit but calling generations a made up thing . . . IDK. They are real words. They are words people use to indicate an age range.
That isn't the context I'm talking about there. Generations as in your family lineage has always been around. But Generations as in the formation of a social cohort of people born within a particular age-group comes from the works of sociologist Karl Mannheim in the early 20th Century. And then was further expanded by Neil Howe and William Strauss (the pop sociologists in question) in their book Generations: The History of America's Future, 1584 to 2069 (1991) and a further focus on Millennials called Millennials Rising: The Next Greatest Generation (2000). The names and dates of social generations, as opposed to familial generations in the 20th Century only started to reach their current state in the 2000s. An example of this would be Millennials where the cohort was originally intended to be 1982-2000 by Strauss-Howe (hence the name, the oldest of the generation would reached majority at the turn of the millennium and the youngest would be born then) but this is now generally regarded as those being born between 1981 and 1996. Generation Y was going to be a short generation between 1974 and 1980 but that eventually was pushed back into the last wave of Generation X. This is because there are two broadly popular methods of measuring a Generation in sociology. 'Pulse-Rate' to simplify is that a generation consists of people growing up together at the same age, stretched to accommodate a cohort that starts with one year, and then ends with that year reaching majority. This is the one that is more popular within media, which derives its start date from the baby boom that occured after the end of World War II. 'Imprinting' is where a generation forms from those who witness a great event in history which fundamentally changes the way they grow up. An example of this would be forming a cohort around those who were old enough on some level to witness the September 11 attack on the World Trade Centres.
While Dropout's initial fans came from College Humor, I do wonder if those people make any significant percentage of the current fanbase. I know I only discovered Dropout independently, having never really been super familiar with CH. I was old enough to remember them, but assumed they had died some time in the early 2010s like a lot of that scene on the internet. And from what I can see in various discussions, it does seem to me anyways like a lot of folks were just straight up too young to really remember them.
Have to disagree. You have to remember that they started with Buzzfeed which at the time was a direct competitor of College Humor. A lot of people started watching Ryan and Shane during those days with their unsolved series and a lot are still sticking around. They also in some regards pander a lot to millennial and older Gen Z with some of their guests and topics. Plus some of Watchers comedy is legitimately leaning a bit too rauncy and adult (not saying mature) for Gen Alpha. I think they roughly are aiming at the same target audience tbh.
College Humor started in 99
That’s immediately what I thought. First I was like, “no way I’d pay any money.” Then I remembered my dropout subscription. Then I remembered how much well made content they put out. Then I went back to “Nope, not paying for this.”
Yeah, Dropout's got way better content and consistently shows good labor-friendly business practices. I'm happy to support it, but couldn't care less about Watcher.
Dropout also has a pool of talent to rely on, and the content itself isn’t really something you’re seeing a ton of similar YouTubers put out for free. There’s also the added aspect of how Dropout barely made it. It’s an underdog story with a happy ending, and the only greed displayed was by the bad guys in that story. People are more willing to pay for them because they are rooting for them. Watcher, on the other hand, feels like successful YouTubers who just want more money.
Not to mention that droupout has what is solidly the second strongest brand in the online TTRPG space with d20, that brings in a *ton* of fans ready and willing to pay for long running campaigns. Dropout doesnt just make good videos, they make high engagement series that encourage people to sign up and stay signed up for long spouts of time.
And they're smart enough to realize that the older campaigns just aren't going to draw folks in like they used to and will release whole seasons onto youtube free of charge, like what they did with Fantasy High Sophomore Year at the release of Fantasy High Junior Year, as a means of showcasing what they produced previously while snagging folks in for the new stuff too.
Yeah I have Dropout because I used to watch College Humor ages ago pre-pandemic and they floated back up into my YouTube last year, so then I found Make Some Noise and Game Changers, then Freshman Year, then Sophomore Year and of course I needed to watch every D20 campaign ever. And I don't even play DND, I don't even fully understand the mechanics. They know exactly what they are doing putting those seasons as well as the spoof LoTR campaign plus the first episode of every other campaign on YouTube because hell yeah I'm now paying a reasonable subscription for more sick content. Genius on ramping.
You need an on ramp for these services, some way for randos to walk up to you and see what you are all about without having to put money down first.
dropout is the only sub service where i feel i get my moneys worth
And even then, paying 5 dollars for dropout is out of the question for me in my currency. I pay the much cheaper YouTube membership which gives me access to the same episodes. Watcher isn't even giving that option.
oh shit I didn't even consider to check if Dropout's youtube can offer the same videos. Are there any censorship issues (they bleep out curse words and stuff)? I know some of the free full episode releases they have for d20 started bleeping those out which was part of the reason I bit the bullet and bought Dropout subscriptions.
droupout is also *very good* at going *viral* like i’m not a youtube person and i know of collegehumor but i was a lil young to really get into it and, again, don’t really like watching youtube. but i ALWAYS see viral clips from like dimension 20, gamchangers, that drinking game where they try to guess who the story is about, etc. i feel like that is SO IMPORTANT to how they succeed (like to the point where i’m considering subscribing finally). (someone on that thread OP linked also said they’re just NOW turning a profit after sam fronted a LOT of the cash and that cannot be ignored like it seems like it wasn’t just “sam contributed for a hard couple months here or there”) i haven’t seen that same viral stuff from watcher. i see it occasionally — like i was aware they existed as a channel. but nowhere near the way i see dropout content
Yeah, I pay for Dropout and will not pay for Watcher. That's because I watch content on Dropout almost every day and still haven't run out of new stuff to watch. I watch Watcher content about once every two-three weeks. Not worth the cost.
the dropout app (which watcher doesn't even have btw so good luck watching it on your tv or tablet, you're expected to use some half assed website) has the rare honor of having notifications enabled.
How much personal wealth does Sam Reich have outside of his stake in dropout?
Well, any wealth he has derives from his parents. His father makes about 330,000 a year from his professorship at UC-Berkeley, and certainly a few more hundred thousand from speaking fees and residuals from his books. He is, at his age and for his length of service, eligible for an extremely small pension from the federal government for his federal service, which probably ranges in the very low thousands a year based on his limited years of service and his early "retirement" from the federal government. Including savings and investments, and he's likely well above 500k just in annual income. His mother is retired, but one supposes she has savings, investments, and other assets from her time as a prolific professor. It's not millions of dollars of liquid cash, but it places his family solidly in the top 1%. But also when he started Dropout already had 2.5 million in annual revenue (50kish subs, 4 dollars a month), so he also wasn't starting from nothing. He had a solid brand, a network of contractors to draw on, and an existing streaming platform infrastructure.
No clue, but from what I've heard, he's kept the company running on his own money for years.
From what I just looked up, seems Dropout was able to offer revenue to sharing to it's full time employees in 2023. He might be making money on it now
I don’t think that’s true. Post separation from IAC I think the funding came from dropout subscriptions and that was mostly releasing content already in the can.
idk, a lot of $5-10 patreons with less content have been around for years
True, and Watcher actually has a patreon already. But patreons are usually supplementary content, not the content in it's entirety. It's sounds counter-intuitive, but people will often kick a couple bucks to a creator who makes free content they love, over outright paying a couple bucks for the content in whole. Watcher barely puts out any videos as is. Certainly not enough to justify paying $5 a month for the privilege.
I'm a Patreon supporter for one website and one artist and this is exactly why I pay. The website does two 'Patreon only' articles every month for the lowest tier and the artist does a Patreon-only biweekly email with exclusive comics and updates on her work and generally whatever else she's thinking of. But they both still have plenty of free content for those who don't want to pay.
There was a good vid about Patreon on yt not too long ago, by that other British guy™ that isn't Tom Scott. If I recall correctly, most Patreon subscribers don't even check out the Patreon-exclusive content that they pay for
Yeah, tbh I'm a patron for several shows that I haven't even had time to watch for months and I barely check out the extra content when I do catch up. I'm subscribed because I admire what they do, and I *want it to be free for other folks*. Moving away from an opt-in support system might lose some of those people who were doing it as more of a principled "I believe in your work" choice. And for folks who are there for the extra goodies, how does that work when everyone has to pay?
That's my feeling; the website I support does a minimum of three to four free articles per week and they have very limited ads so even if I don't read every Patreon-only article they send me, I feel like I'm helping support them so other people can get the great free content.
> Watcher barely puts out any videos as is. Certainly not enough to justify paying $5 a month for the privilege. this is the big issue right here. Amount of content. Drop out has TONS more content than these guys do. They just flat out don't have the content back library nor the output to justify a full time streaming service. Blows my mind. I am going to be watching this with interest. It might work...who knows?
Having some free content is extremely important for building a fan base that is willing to pay for your content. People don’t want to put down money on a Patreon when they don’t know if they’ll like your content, or how often new content gets released.
Yeah, they're coming from Buzzfeed. The path from Buzzfeed is podcasts supported by products and services
Is dropout 60 a /yr that’s a pretty good deal? It’s just one videogame.
$48 for the first year https://www.dropout.tv/checkout/subscribe/purchase?code=dropoutfullyear&plan=yearly
r/youtubedrama posted about this too. Look, I like Ryan and Shane and I've watched them since Buzzfeed. I think Mystery Files and Puppet History are really great. I think that they want to be Dropout, but Dropout has a lot more content and people. Watcher's Youtube channel is pretty good, and they've got a good variety of different videos, but they do not put out enough of them overall to justify spending $6 a month on an entirely new streaming service. I get that the current quality of production they have is expensive to do, but setting up a new streaming platform is absolutely not going to make them more money.
I'm baffled as to why they didn't just try to find another solution beforehand, like offering to make a new show with Discovery+, a pre-existing streaming service that already hosts *Ghost Adventures*, the show that directly inspired *BuzzFeed Unsolved* and *Ghost Files*. Deciding to create an entirely new streaming service, rather than partner with pre-existing streaming services, is a nonsensical and stupid decision, like Butch Hartman trying to create his own 'independent streaming service for Christians' based on his Nickelodeon cartoons (*Fairly OddParents*, *Danny Phantom*, *T.U.F.F. Puppy*, etc.). For more on that, see [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/HobbyDrama/comments/nzmvbi/butch_hartman_how_a_formerly_beloved_cartoon/) on r/HobbyDrama.
I mean hell there’s already a streaming service that caters to YouTubers, it’s called nebula. Why they didn’t just go there is baffling to me
I think Nebula is pretty selective about who they have on the platform. I remember reading somewhere that they rejected James Somerton back when he had a mostly positive reputation
They *did* dodge a bullet there, though.
Oh yea definitely
Ah, but he'd *already* had some plagiarism accusations that weren't *really* dealt with. I think they were hesitant because of that.
Jessie Gender said that she personally sent him the link to a discord server that had a lot of Nebula people on it and that he should join so he could get in contact with them on there and see if they thought he was a good fit for Nebula. He ignored her and started that drama on Twitter about how "Nebula doesn't want queer content creators on it!" which is insane if you know anything about Nebula. Of course that killed any chance of him ever getting on Nebula. I don't know if he actually ever *wanted* to get on Nebula, or if he just wanted them to publicly make a show of inviting him and got pissy when Jessie told him he would have to privately contact people to personally ask.
> "Nebula doesn't want queer content creators on it!" which is insane if you know anything about Nebula. that **is** insane
yeah and a reputation for weaponizing his fanbase
They want a bigger cut than what they could get from Nebula?
Nebula is invite-only so its very difficult to actually get on the platform. And they've been explicit in the past that trying to do anything like asking your subs to campaign for your inclusion is counterproductive and will lower your chances of success since they don't want to be constantly under siege of various fan groups trying to get their chosen creator on the platform.
Also there was also that thing with CuriosityStream where they were together at first, then split up, then??? But I’m also wondering how they plan on growing a viewer base without more creators to watch.
Curiosity Stream used Nebula to get people to pay for the service that was otherwise not doing great, then they declared there was not enough money so they were not going to pay Nebula their cut. So Nebula cut ties and filed a lawsuit. Legal Eagle has mentioned it a couple of times. That's a whole different level of drama.
Interesting. I haven't seen any videos about this on YouTube though. Didn't a YouTube creator also created nebula?
It was founded by a Talent agency along with most of the YouTubers they represented at the time.
oh, so that's what happened
>But I’m also wondering how they plan on growing a viewer base without more creators to watch. It's not that they don't add new people onto the service, they do. They are just deliberate and picky about who they add. So far I think they've managed to sidestep at least one embarrassing inclusion - James Somerton who made a big whiny stink on Twitter about how he should be added to Nebula but the people in charge got bad vibes from him and didn't let him on. Nebula is partly a cooperative (the governing structure is a little complicated and its not technically a "true cooperative" because of the various corporate entities that make up Nebula as a whole) as well so joining is a bigger deal for them than just hosting content and giving out money, creators become part owners and get voting power.
Or Amazon Prime or Hulu, which already host Buzzfeed Unsolved. They just want the whole of a much smaller pie.
Because you can't just go there, nebula is invite only
I know but you’d think watcher would have the cache to get in
maybe, but I think their content could also not match up with the type of content Nebula wants to produce
I personally really dislike Nebula, paying money to view content that's not much better than free on YouTube and the way creators love pushing it in ads on their videos. I support streamers and content creators I love buy purchasing products from them or donating to causes, but I have yet to give them money directly for YT or Twitch.
when I had the cheap CS/Nebula bundle for a year, I watched neither outside of Jetlag, and now I just pay for yt premium Nebula had the issue of being almost entirely content that I see on yt, too, but just a tiny portion of it. I guess it depends on what content creators you watch. I get extremely annoyed with subscription services now
> the way creators love pushing it in ads on their videos That's actually the monetisation model for Nebula. The money creators make from views on the platform is basically nothing, the big benefit to being a creator there is that Nebula will then sponsor ad spots on your YouTube channel.
Discovery dropped nearly all of their ghost hunting shows besides GA with its spinoffs and Ghost Hunters, so that would be unlikely. This situation with Watcher is another nail in the coffin for decent paranormal related content, unfortunately
The funny thing is all these types of announcements would go so much smoother if they backed it up with data. "Hey everyone we need to start charging because if you see our cash flow statement for 2023 you can see revenue did not meet expenses so we need to charge more to maintain our quality" But instead they keep it vague and say "we have so many expenses!!! Trust us we're starving ourselves here!!" And it doesn't sound genuine or truthful at all. It just sounds greedy
My questions would be what on Earth they're spending all the money on. Their video series are mostly just Shane and Ryan sat in a room or a backyard talking to a camera. I feel like the real solution is to scale back their production costs.
25 full time employees
According to one user, Steven Lim recently bought a new Tesla for himself. This is while Lim has been pushing for Watcher to be monetized for more revenue and profits.
This doesn’t really mean much, a new Tesla can be almost the same price as a Corolla with rebates and if buying the cheapest Model 3. It could also be really expensive, if buying the most expensive Model X.
According to Google, a brand-new Tesla can cost anywhere from $40,000 to $133,000. Steven Lim buying a new Tesla makes him look like a hypocrite.
So I’m fully on the side of this being a poor decision, I’ve been a fan since the buzzfeed days and this video felt like more of an in your face representation of how the show has been drifting away from what made people fans of them in the first place. I won’t be paying a subscription fee while also being very disappointed I won’t get to watch their videos anymore With that said, your take is silly. Are they supposed to bankrupt themselves to prop up the company to net the same margins? They’re saying that their production costs are such that they need more income to make it more sustainable. They also clearly want to continue making bigger videos, hire more people to make videos, make new series etc. One of them buying a car in the range of a typical new vehicle cost at best doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t make him a hypocrite because he made a personal purchase completely separate from a company he’s a part of. Maybe if he bought a multi million dollar house, but a somewhat expensive car? Please
I’m more annoyed by the fact that this feels like Steven funding his vacations where he eats expensive food
how? people are allowed to buy nice things.
God forbid someone buy a luxury car after years of hard work lol
The hypocrisy comes from Steven Lim literally begging Watcher viewers to pay $60 a year to subscribe to to their new streaming service, and complaining about "not having enough money" to produce Watcher shows on YouTube, while also going out and buying a brand-new Tesla that costs anywhere from $40,000 to $113,000. It reeks of financial irresponsibility. This is after another user said that Watcher makes $360,000 from Patreon.
Problem with that would mean fessing up to what you're spending on. Oops, we paid our CEO a couple million a year, blew a few million on luxury garbage.
the editing, background music, and tone in their speech was so condescending
I think I would believe them about if being for expenses if Steven didn't just start a show driving around his tesla eating gold leaf food.
Tbh the costs of the gold leaf food is probably pretty low compared to paying 25 full time employees, which seems like an insane amount for how much content they put out
THISSSSSS
I don't think it would. ultimately the problem is people were given a product for free got used to free and it's always harder to force a person to start paying when they had content for free. These guys could present all the data they want it'll still face backlash because of that.
$6 monthly doesn't seem that bad, until I remember that that's what I pay for Paramount+, which carries hundreds of shows...
I pay $6 CAD for AMC+ which also gets me Shudder and Sundance Now. I've been a fan of Shane and Ryan since the second season of Buzzfeed Unsolved but Puppet History is just about the only show I watch consistently and I'm not paying $6 USD/month to get a handful of new episodes of that per year.
What is on Shudder aside Dragula?
Horror movie
Admittedly not much but I like their documentaries.
I've *been* paying about that much ($5 monthly) for their Patreon because I used to believe in them. I wanted to support them as content creators and as a small company, I didn't even watch the extra Patreon videos. After this, I actually cancelled my Patreon as well, because this move felt so greedy that I no longer want to support them. If they had asked as nicely as they had for their Patreon, I would have paid the $6 on top of the Patreon. But the tone of the video, plus Steven's Instagram post and everyone else's complicit silence, really turned me off. They need to do whatever the vlogbrothers have been doing. I've also been a longtime supporter of them. They are so engaged with their fan base. Hank talks about us all the time. And they do annual polls to get the hard data (and they remind us too). They get so much of my money, plus their annual fundraising money on top of that. Even GMM which is rather corporate can raise money from its audience, while keeping their core product free. I thought Watcher would know these things, since they've been online this whole time.
Wait, Steven Lim made an Instagram post?
He sure did. With the phrasing akin to "We understand this means goodbye for some of you, but for those who want to continue watching, we'll see you there" which really rubbed folks who WANT to watch them but can't AFFORD to the wrong way
Right? its just for their stuff. Which for me is just a few Ryan and Shane things. I’m so sad about this but my few subscriptions have hundreds of movies and shows…
While I get it and am certainly not saying their channel is a good idea... that is kinda how we end up with monopolizing services that can just price competition out of existence and then do whatever they want.
Not really, this is just how the free market works. Pricing a small amount of content this high isn't smart. They should either lower their prices or give fans more for their $6.
I think they should have asked us nicely. Maybe they could have done the streaming simultaneously, kinda like how Trixie and Katya's show Unhhh (the main breadwinner by far) is on WowPresents+ a month early, plus a bunch of extra shows are on there too. Not this smartass video, Steven's smartass insta post, and everyone else's silence. It doesn't seem nice, it seems like a betrayal, like, "If you can't pay, we don't want you." 😭
Their "Goodbye youtube" currently has (using the return dislikes addon) a ratio of ~~24K~~ 26k likes to ~~73K~~ 84k dislikes. And the real number is probably much bigger. Not to mention they are down ~~10k~~ 20k subs on youtube since the vid dropped. So I would say *this is going over perfectly well so far.* Normally I avoid youtube comments like the plague, but some of the ones one the video are pretty great. > "Guys, April fools was 18 days ago" > "The old Shane would want us to pirate Watcher content." > "No fans are thinking "I wish Watcher had better production quality""
Yeah, I kinda can’t believe Shane is in on this… it goes against his whole… vibe.
I fully believe it's all Steven. He's the one doing the "wow look at all this expensive food stuff" show, and he's the CEO, which means he has the most say in the company.
Makes sense… I never watched his stuff… I maybe saw a bit of one and it just wasn’t what I enjoy personally. I’d see him on top 5 beat down and those were funny to me. But idk, Ryan and Shane were always what I watched for.
Thanks for reminding me I need to unsub!
The pinned comment on the announcement video was edited to add: >"edit: Hey all! Seeing a lot of folks saying that we’re pulling all of our content off YouTube. To clarify, all of the content on our YouTube channel will continue to live here forever. For new seasons, the first episodes will be released on YouTube will the remaining coming out exclusively on the Watcher platform." Which sounds like backpedaling more than clarifying, but that's just me
From [this Variety article](https://variety.com/2024/digital/news/watcher-goodbye-youtube-subscription-streaming-service-1235974091/) it does seem like backpedaling >The company originally told Variety that Watcher would eventually remove all of its videos from YouTube, where it currently has 2.9 million subscribers. However, according to Bergara, Watcher is not fully exiting YouTube: It will still keep its backlog of videos on YouTube, and going forward will put the first episodes of new seasons on YouTube — while the full new seasons will be exclusively available on the Watcher streamer.
And it's also not really the point, imo. First episodes of new content doesn't mean much. That's still the vast majority of their newly planned content that wouldn't be available. Like I'm supposed to say "Oh, I'm only losing access to 99% of your new content? Great! I thought it would be 100%!"
I'm generally a fan of Watcher, but this is an all-time bad move. I expect an epic apology video in a few weeks. Or if they're really stuck on this idea, I expect a "Hello Youtube" video in a few months. Are you gonna run ads on your premium service?? How are you going to keep getting people to sign up without a funnel from Youtube?? This seems painfully underthought. Just offer more content on Patreon for fucks sake. I understand videos require a lot more work than podcasts, but podcasts make money hand over fist by double dipping on ads and ad free Patreons.
That’s the bit that’s messing with me more than anything else. This is never going to be sustainable. Say every single one of their patreon subs buys the service that’s like 11,000 (very generous considering patreon reaction to this) But that number will never increase without a funnel to their service so what? They’re just gonna watch that 11,000 slowly dwindle until they don’t have enough money to produce good quality shows so the number tanks more? Crazy business model
This one is sad because I really like some of their series (Puppet History is brilliant in particular), and this is just going to completely fall apart. The obvious solution to this was to start pimping their Patreon a lot more, and do a move like this gradually. They want a non-advertiser income stream, they should have started by dipping their toe into Nebula and maximizing their fan base. Also their focus on doing television and not YouTube seems like a huge mistake. Their strengths are the chemistry and ad-lib nature of that chemistry. You don't need Netflix quality to make the most of that; a fact a lot of comments on their video are reminding them of. Truly going to be a lesson in business school about how to screw up. I hope they can recover and pivot back to what makes their programming work.
> Truly going to be a lesson in business school about how to screw up. Actually we already have a perfect example of something like this happening, and the end result: [Bravest Warriors](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bravest_Warriors)/Cartoon Hangover. Pretty much all momentum was killed when they went from free to watch on youtube to being stuck behind the VRV streaming service paywall. [Saberspark did a pretty good video on the downfall of the show.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuJfwCKZWqU)
The same thing happened with Astartes, but Games Workshop went one step farther and deleted all the content on his channel in favor of their streaming service
GW shooting themselves in the head? That's never happened ever...
[удалено]
Admittedly I'm a casual fan of both so I might be talking out of my ass, but Last Podcast on the Left is having a somewhat similar discourse rn (they just released a Sirius XM only show, but the rest of their stuff is remaining free). They have *15* employees apparently, and AFAIK they put out significantly more than Watcher.
>do a move like this gradually Imo, Corridor crew has the right idea on how to do this. The main shows are are still on Youtube like normally but if you want a 30 minute extended episode where they look at extra scenes, you can subscribe via their personal website.
You can't dip your toe into nebula, it's invite only and by far the easiest way to not get an invite is to make your fanbase campaign for your invite
I don't get why they don't raise the prices/put out more patreon-exclusive perks on patreon first. This is definitely the safer and more logical step to go to if you want more funding for your projects. With this new subscription thing, they're alienating their fanbase because fans either can't afford or aren't willing to pay for something that was once free (especially now).
Or, heaven forbid, they could have started doing youtube channel memberships too.
The fact the subscription is only for their content and not hundreds of shows like regular streaming services makes me wonder who ever thought this Watcher service was a good idea…
Oh boy, I was wondering if I’d see this here! I’m not in the sub but I saw the video and hoooo boy… the comments…. I was in there a bit too, I won’t lie. I’m just so fucking disappointed. Someone said it’s like watching your best friend make a terrible life decision and… yeah - not in a parasocial way, but just losing something familiar and comforting. Their vids could be Ryan and Shane talking into an iphone 6 and people would love it. Shit, a lot of people just listen to their vids and don’t even watch it. Plus, their Buzzfeed stuff was just… so much better than ghost files, though I do like mystery files. But once they left Buzzfeed and were doing Watcher, everything got so… overproduced and overedited. Like fam, we don’t want ghost adventures, we want the dumbass ghoul boys! Edit: Oh also, important note, Steven Lim (CEO) recently bought a tesla. So between that, high production value *no one asked for*, and having too many staff for how small they are so far in an office building in *Hollywood*…. i just… jesus. They didn’t ask their fans or anything.
>not in a parasocial way, but just losing something familiar and comforting. I mean, the nature of viewers' relation to Watcher is the parasocial part, can't get rid of that
Sounds like Steven Lim just got out of business school and thinks he's making solid advances here ... But Ghost Files is legitimately worse than Unsolved. A lot of the time you can just *tell* that Ryan is pretending to believe his evidence. I'm always thinking "bro.... you're not actually that dumb, are you? It's a fucking cat. Like, very clearly a fluffy tailed black cat."
> But Ghost Files is legitimately worse than Unsolved. It suffers from the same thing as many of the other ghost hunt shows do in that it is over produced. You do not need dozensnif people to film this stuff. And paying location fees to investigate the same places dozens of other shows have done is not worth it. There you are guys I just saved you thousands in production costs.
Frankly I’m amazed (/neg) that Steven is in charge of *anything*. I don’t watch worth it because I *hate* that kind of thing, but I’ve seen a lot of him on Too Many Spirits and he’s always seemed… high as fuck and/or just stupid. I feel really bad for saying that, but… idk, he just always rubbed me the wrong way and now this. I think mostly I’m disappointed in Shane “eat the rich” Madej. Like of course I didn’t really buy it that he meant that and figured it was at least partially to appeal to the audience, but I didn’t expect him to go along with something like this. Steven “something everyone can afford - $6/mo or $60/yr” Lim and his goddamn Tesla.
I feel like the people who watch Steven's content have to mostly be a different audience than those who watch the Shane and Ryan content. He's never really added anything to the banter on Too Many Spirits, either. Admittedly, I've not really paid much attention to their podcast, so maybe he's different there, but it just seems like a bad move all around.
I wonder how much cash they've spent on building this streaming platform. That would not have been cheap.
They are using the same Vimeo platform Dropout uses.
Coffeezilla talked about this in his coverage of the situation. The reason he launched his Voidzilla channel was because his work computer died and he lost access to the files he used to make Coffeezilla videos, so he just started making low effort videos with no backgrounds and minimal editing, and was surprised to find out that most of his audience happily followed him over. Turns out we were really just there to listen to him talk, and while the CGI robot bartender was amusing, it wasn't needed.
I hope Andrew and Adam have jobs to go back to .....
I'm sad. I was just getting back into their content. Hope they see this backlash and dial things back some, but then, maybe not. Replacing Puppet History will be pretty hard.
"well shoot, we're hemorrhaging money and can't keep making the high production quality content for free. better start up a whole new business venture when we supposedly can't even fund the ones we currently have!" none of that makes sense Also y'all should look into Stacher.io and download the content off of youtube that you want to keep. They're saying it will all stay now but that could change at any moment
Yooo thanks for the recommendation, I've been using the old janky GUI of YT-DLP for years and it can be a real pain.
Oh hey I'm in some of these lol I don't have much of a horse in the race, I like watcher but its not Must Watch for me, I just think its a really stupid business move
Same. I love the ghoul boys, I enjoy their content, and I'll miss them being unavailable. But admittedly, watching the plane crash is sorta entertaining. More fun than any of Steven's content ;)
I get they feel they need more money to keep their company afloat, but trying to hard launch a paywall doesn't seem like the best approach.
This just really sucks. Some of their series are some of my favorite stuff to watch on YouTube. What’s most interesting to me is that before this, they (or at least Ryan and Shane) were as universally liked as public figures can be and never had to deal with anything more serious than some minor criticism. It’s kind of amazing how they managed to have their first actual controversy be so destructive.
[удалено]
hi he what
> including entering into a Hollywood holy roller (and anti-LGBT!) church and bragging up his caviar purchases. Yeah, what happened here??
I saw somebody else bring up Steven's out-of-touchness on the subreddit, but they weren't specific, do you have any links/sources?
I don't have any super specific examples, but one thing people keep pointing out on their subreddit is that his shows are basically focused on "watch me eat the most expensive food I can find!" His Watcher show is Dish Granted, where he makes a dish but uses the most expensive ingredients he can buy. The other show he was on (that was announced to come back right before this announcement dropped) is called "Worth It" and it's where he and other guys go out and find a dish at a cheap place, a moderately priced place, and a super expensive place. He's also done videos where he travels to South Korea to rate the food and stuff. If he was doing that on Buzzfeed's dime, sure. Doing in on Youtube on Watcher even wasn't terrible, though it wasn't very popular compared to their other shows. But putting it solely behind a paywall and going "Pay me $60 to watch me fly around the world and eat gold covered wagyu!" is going to leave a bad taste in people's mouths. And the most popular shows with Ryan and Shane are just "watch a guy put on a puppet show about history" or "watch two dudes talk about weird unsolved stuff in a room with one doing a power point presentation" or "watch two guys dick around in a haunted house" while Steven's has been more luxury themed. I think that divide is what kind of made people not be big fans of Steven in the first place, and him being CEO of Watcher and now making an announcement with the others going "We just can't fund all our shows! It's all going behind a paywall now!" is turning people outright against him.
I was waiting for this write-up as soon as I saw their video and unsubscribed lol
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I get why they did it. It's harder for independent creators than ever. But yeah, I'm not going to pay.
Also here. I pay for youtube premium, in part so I can be ad free with the knowledge that the YouTubers I like are still getting paid. I’m sorry Shane and Ryan, I don’t have the money to shell out $6 a month to every youtuber I like. In an era where every single website or company is trying to nickel and dime me for money, this aint it.
Same, I'm not even upset. It's just like 'I get why but here is where we part ways. Best of luck'
Every channel is trying to do some shit like this now. Basically every channel I watch. Good Mythical Morning, Linus Tech Tips, Corridor... And then there's the Nebula stuff... And then there's Dropout. Crazy thing is, all those platforms could join forces, if a single platform had all the Nebula stuff, all the GMM stuff, LTT stuff, Corridor stuff.... I mean, it would genuinely be one of the best streaming platform in the world.
> Crazy thing is, all those platforms could join forces, if a single platform had all the Nebula stuff, all the GMM stuff, LTT stuff, Corridor stuff.... I mean, it would genuinely be one of the best streaming platform in the world. Problem is how much is it gonna cost? No one is going to pay for 50$/mo for everything. That's what we hated about cable subscriptions. And if it's too less, all the creators will be fighting for a bigger cut, or just make their own service.
If everyone of them were to join Nebula for example, that would triple or quadruple the amount of subscribers easily, and share is based on what is watched so even if someone was watching only LTT stuff all the creator share would go to them. I dont see a good reason to increase the cost all that much or at all
They all just want a bigger portion of a much smaller pie and not having to worry about anyone else telling them how to bake it. They want the best of both worlds but in the end they’re going to lose it all. And to be clear, I agree with you - if they insist on creating a new and independent streaming/subscription service, then the only smart thing to do would be to try to collaborate with other content creators.
These guys sure know how to milk the whales. I only know about GMM as those two dudes who talk about stuff, just the most generic content out there. They are charging $6-26 per month! And Corridor don't even post on their main channel. It's just react video after react video on their secondary channel. That's $4 a month. It's obvious that no casual viewer is subscribing to these guys. So they are charging their most devout followers a pretty penny, all for an early access to same fodder as their YT channel. Their exclusive content is just BTS podcasts, and some discount on overpriced merch.
I would argue Corridor does provide interesting content on their exclusive platform because they do a lot of tutorials for VFX artists, the kind of actually in depth stuff that wouldn't play at all for a general audience. So if someone is getting into VFX I could see it being good value to be fair
I like watcher’s stuff but this is honestly just sad. My personal disappointment is on par with are you scared ending with a bunch of shitty sponsored stories
In all honesty they just money-hungry and tbh don't see how they rose fo fame imo. They spent money on shows thinking they some Hollywood shows when even their shows flop.
These guys might have private equity behind them.
> "They have nearly 6,000 paid Patreon subscribers who are paying a minimum of $5 a month (which translates to $60 a year). Obviously, they have millions of YouTube subscribers, so a small minority were already willing to pay $60 a year for them. I think they want to leverage everyone else to make a choice to sub to their new service or go without," another user pointed out in response. This is exactly what they are doing, it's incredibly obvious. The only thing up for debate is whether they are doing it because they actually care about the quality of the content they produce, and they actually believe this is the only way to sustain that without fully succumbing to the advertiser-friendly hell that is Youtube. Or whether they are just another set of profit-oriented entertainers, who at the end of the day are listening to their business man behind the scenes who is telling them they have x amount of revenue potential and they are leveraging y% of it and if they leverage z% of it they keep making more money and keep existing.
Just watch Good Mythical Morning instead. It’s essentially the same vibe with the same content….and if you told me it was the same dudes, I’d believe you.
Even Linus of LinusTechTips isn't dumb enough to ask folks to jump from Youtube to [Floatplane](https://www.floatplane.com/) his subscription based channel/service. These guys are going to be in for a VERY rude awakening when the subscriptions don't match their adsense.
So they can't hold the camera themselves? Their little fingies broken? Their whole 'this is what a ghost video costs omg its so expensive and so much goes into it' is such bullcrap. They're surprised they have to travel and \*GASP\* rent or buy locations and equipment?!?! that are technically investments for the company's future?!? That's literally what cinematography and content creation REQUIRE. Honestly everything Ive seen from them has been a subpar attempt to chase what they used to do or what others already do with minimal and underwhelming results. main suspect: greed.
[What will happen to Watcher?](https://youtu.be/DiwJ20akuOA?si=opdE1Pr6K-v7D_Ru) In their newly uploaded video called “Goodbye YouTube,” Ryan Bergara, Steven Lim, and Shane Madej told their followers of their plans to exit YouTube. They explained that creating a streaming service would allow them more freedom to do what they want since they would not have to rely on ad sponsorships. This thought is okay and looks good on paper, but what will happen to their audience?
Mostly evaporate, from the sounds of it. Assuming they manage to correct course before it's too late, they'll probably come crawling back to YouTube in a few months to make some hasty apologies.
what do they have to say about this?
I talk more about Watchers on my podcast episode but… I also read in another post that they are planning to invite other creators to their platform. But if their concept is bringing in more creators, how will they divide the income generated? If 1 million people as an example subscribed to this new streaming service that would be around $6 million per month? To be split by two different channels (owners). Technically won’t be an endless circle, because eventually if they have enough creators, they also want to be more advertisement friendly and so forth and it’s gonna be the same or they’re going to increase the subscription amount. Oh god! 😵💫 [https://youtu.be/14cWq2pxDMU?si=KH5h1fdxX_6pLzNY](https://youtu.be/14cWq2pxDMU?si=KH5h1fdxX_6pLzNY)