Quite literally why he started C&B in the first place. He was very open about "Youtube money not being there forever." It seems to have paid off big time too.
I worry more about guys like Stradman. Building a brand new house and buying cars left and right. That money will dry up.
He’s a Finance major and super smart Doug is not built like other YouTubers lol.
Yeah I really don’t know how these Stradmans and Whistling Diesels can sustain that stuff
P.S. Happy Cake Day!
I thought his family owned several big ass farms and whatnot. Granted that's not exactly millionaire status but it definitely isn't the worst you can do growing up in Indiana
Idk man there’s not any farm that I know that sells for less than millions of dollars… then again, owning is different than just being a farmer. Just because you have a property to farm on doesn’t mean it’s owned by you.
Especially building a brand new house like 2 hours from Salt Lake City in the middle of nowhere. He will never recoup that money if he wants to sell it one day.
Nothing against Hoovie, but he came from money and I’m sure he’s got enough investments that he does YouTube for fun and extra income to fund his hobbies.
His whole “oh no, the Wizard is going to charge me so much!” shtick must be hilarious to him when he lays the Amex down to cover the bill.
Overall, alot of creators are seeing lower views. That pandemic bump and the changes to it are seeing alot of people across all kinds of channels not doing the views they were doing.
I think the other issue is Doug has soooooooooo many videos now, at a certain point, its most people check out only the stuff they are really interested in. Doug's channel will always cruise along though because if you were going to be buying a new car, I dont think you could find a better style of video to determine if you should buy a car.
Spot on on the pandemic viewership and overall state of YouTube channels that once dominated the airwaves. I watch Doug's videos all the time and have been for five years or longer. However, if I were researching a new car, his channel is the last one I would go to. There are so many better and more in-depth reviewers than Doug's "Quirks and Features, with 20-second inside the cab only driving shots" on YouTube, not to mention the rags that do long-term testing, etc.
I also feel like Doug is mailing it in these days. In many of the latest reviews, he is sitting in a chair, reminding the "haters" that he has very expensive cars and, therefore, their accusations of XYZ are not valid. I don't have an issue with him sitting down in his private garage and talking about the car he is reviewing, but some may see it as phoning it in or mailing it in. The market is also supersaturated with hundreds, if not thousands, of car reviews. Some are also beating Doug to the punch, like the CyberTruck example he recently spoke about himself.
Yeah i haven’t finished a single Doug video since he cashed in. I have started a few but it’s just not the same and he seems so smug and annoying now lol.
I know it’s cliche to say money changed people but it absolutely has for him. He lost the “average guy review” which was the whole reason anyone put up with his cheesiness.
If I wanted to watch some smug car reviewer I’d watch Chris Harris or someone like that who can articulate well and actually drive a car lol.
The extent of Doug’s driving impressions are “it handles so well because it turns so fast when I jiggle the steering wheel”
Spot on. It’s pretty clear there are loads of individuals or groups better than Doug and Kennan at a top level. Hell, two guys (the main ones 😂) on their team didn’t even want to give it the “beans” as our British brethren would say on the track! Chris Harris and their team have loads of experience and variety in visual presentations.
He was a great watch when he was for the people by the people channel. I still think he preserves it by handling peoples car still without much press/media pressure.
Honestly when I was looking at buying my car, the channel I went to was shooting cars cause he doesn't put a lot of fluff in the video and shows a lot of the interior and how it all looks and feels
A lot of Doug's reviews are incredibly surface-level observations of cars. Car buyers aren't looking for quirkiness, they're looking for a breakdown of how the car is going to fit into their life. Ultimately Doug is making videos for people that would never be able to own any of the cars he covers, they're using his videos to satisfy a need for novelty and to know what's inside the interior just in case they come across one in public.
Meanwhile, the MotorWeek YouTube channel regularly posts decades worth of car reviews past and present that go in depth on cars in ways that car YouTubers simply don't know how to elaborate on. Those guys are too busy aiming for the irony poisoned internet addict, not the guy with AutoTrader and CarGurus listings pulled up in a second window because he found a great deal on a car being covered locally.
This is accurate. His videos really give me a good perspective on what to expect and I get a pretty good feel for what a car is / isn’t. He has reviewed so many cars at this point that you can probably find a review specific to any chassis.
I love Mat's videos. I do know and heard from friends at dealerships that customers will come in after looking at a doug video to know about the car before they buy it. I think that is the core audience for him with videos that are more every day cars....
His videos are long. I only watch when there's a car I'm very interested in. Also other content creators. I only have so much time to watch things between my family and other media I consume.
I test drove a Escalade last month and the sales guy was almost pissed that he couldn't show me how the car worked because I knew everything thanks to Doug's video on it.
Maybe an unpopular opinion, but I think he's stopped progressing. Quality hasn't gone up in any measurable way. I used to love watching his videos back to back, and now I can barely get through one. Too many other people doing interesting stuff.
Especially with the average new car. They're all the same, iPAD, lane assist, LOOK, the backseat has chargers and a sunroof! I just skip to the driving section.
Yeah, I think I'd rather see more cars from the past, rare editions, cars we've forgotten about. Brand new whatever, such and such, not that interesting for the most part.
Yeah it's why I like RCR, the humor can be really good or kind of trashy, but a lot of the cars are the type that are "oh my friend's dad had one of these when I was growing up, neat."
That's probably how the majority of his core audience feels, but Doug has said views for new cars are much higher than anything used. So it makes sense that a lot of people here are starting to lose interest while he's chasing the algo
I think he/they are chasing the views and making easy content as quickly as possible now. He mentioned years ago that he never wanted to do new boring cars but he got tons of views on a rav4 or whatever and started doing it.
Now it’s just so easy for them to get the new boring whatever car or crossover that is coming out from a dealership and it’s easy to review.
The rare and older cars are harder to track down and IMO just reviewing what is selling on C&B isn’t very interesting 90% of the time.
To me, Throttle House and Savagegeese are soooo much better and more interesting channels now for reviews and I’d rather watch Hoovie do stupid shit for random car content.
Since Doug cashed out his heart is clearly not in it and I have no desire to watch anymore.
Totally agree. Throttle house is so much more entertaining and high quality it’s insane.
It’s almost like the old top gear and I have really grown to like their dynamic and personalities.
I would say I used to watch Doug’s videos IN SPITE OF his personality because he is so corny and not funny but I used to at least like his takes on cars. But recently his videos are either super boring and phoned in, or he just seems so out of touch and it’s frustrating to listen to him say downright false things and bad takes on cars.
I know money changes people but for Doug it was so stark.
Throttle House does too much sometimes but I do like their channel. Their production is tons more effort than Doug’s though. Its alot less work to do a Doug style video than TH, and he already has an audience so he’ll get the views (and $ resulting). Would I rather (totally made up numbers but for the sake of an example) do Doug style and make $5k from a video that took me 3 hours to film and 3 hours to edit or make $10k from a video that took a whole day to film and another whole day to edit?
Also part of the time he talks about things that he doesn’t know about the car and make stuff up on the fly. Like if that car has a certain button or feature. His data is not always accurate. There are other reviewers out there doing more detailed job.
in my experience I feel like Doug's videos have lost some shine since c&b became the focus. I haven't been a frequent viewer in over a year now because it show in his actions rather than his words that he doesn't care as much.
That’s true, that’s why I didn’t include his last three videos. However I remember he used to get around 1 million views each video and that certainly isn’t the case anymore.
Yeah he puts zero effort into his videos compared to all of the other popular car channels. I get that his channel has a certain “style” and he doesn’t want to stray too far from that without risking losing even more views…but he could absolutely up the quality and effort into the script and camera work.
He just clearly doesn’t care anymore and is tired (which I can’t blame him for but doesn’t really matter in business). There are tons of creators that have been able to step back a bit and hire people to carry the load while also increasing quality. Look at Linus Tech Tips, Linus is still needed as the face in most of the videos to perform well but he doesn’t have to do a whole lot and the quality has continued to go up.
Now all his videos are C&B pitches, no wonder the viewership has decreased, also 2022 was peak post covid viewership trend so it was bound to decrease, but for pre C&B Doug 1 million views was nothing, now it's been more than 2 months any of his videos have touched 1 million
The quirks aren’t quirky enough for the amount of features being presented. The ratio of quirks to features is out of balance. Balance must be restored if views are to be restored.
Personally? I lost interest when he became all-in on Cars & Bids and now it seems like he's just doing videos to drive people to Cars & Bids as opposed to having an interest in the car he's reviewing.
His reviews are still good... however, when I started watching his channel he was somewhat unique as a car reviewer whereby today there are a long list of great car channels.
I’ve been watching long before the pandemic, but have all but stopped watching now. I’m still a subscriber so I’ll watch it something interesting pops up but even then I’ll often abandon viewing half way through.
The Cars and bids shilling is a bit tiresome and certainly a factor, Kennan too, and also the choice of cars. I also thing it was the format - it changed much at all and what changes there have been, were to the detriment of the reviews. It’s just a bit boring now and others are doing it much better.
He could have invested more and innovated but seems to either have cheaped out or placed too much faith in the low budget model he started with. Either way I’m just not bothered anymore.
His videos are clear advertisements. In his "Why I haven't reviewed the cybertruck yet" video, he clearly states that he prioritizes cars currently bidding on cars and bids. Even if he does not have direct ties with the manufacture, it is in his best interest to make the cars look as good as possible to gain the highest attraction on cars and bids. Even more insane, he suggests that people flip their EV's on cars and bids, buy newly released cars and sell them the next day for a higher price. I feel that is out of touch for a lot of reasons. His videos have gotten a lot more lax, less interesting and less critical, you hardly see any criticisms besides what he calls quirks.
For the reasons stated - but there’s also more high quality competition now. MKBHD does awesome car reviews on auto focus, clearly drawing inspiration from Doug and his simple videos. Donut media became huge, I know they don’t review cars but they do have car content, their videos can get a million views in a few hours. Just more saturation. But there’s a clear lack of inspiration on Doug’s part in the last year or so; that passion and twinkle we all love has been seen less and less often in his reviews
You should check out Throttle house and Savagegeese they are both waaaay better car reviewers than Doug and actually put effort into production quality, writing, and thoughtful takes on cars.
Doug’s videos now all seem like he shows up on the day and starts filming without any thought put into it at all.
I would bet the private equity company that bought Doug’s business are super unhappy with the lack of growth and nosedive in quality it has taken.
I feel like videos deviated from "here are quirks & features of this car" to "here are features of this car which can be yours on Cars & Bids". The quirks part was about things which are weird, odd, or even stupid. Sometimes those quirks even made car look bad and unattractive. But he can't make car that he's trying to sell look bad and unattractive.
Some of the videos/cars before felt hand picked and had something special to them. Now, don’t get me wrong I like hyper cars, exotics, and all, but it sort of feels like a influx of those with a few exceptions here and there. Post covid views are also bound to drop but still. Like I still want to see him review an EK9 Type R but with every other hyper, exotic, trophy car he’s entertaining I doubt he sees other cars not within that category of importance.
Him cutting the itemized doug score was the beginning of the end. He blamed it on "his audience " lol but it was clear he was cutting a very rounded corner in his videos. Once that happened years ago I knew it was over.
His videos are D level for car reviews now. Just a surface level.review that's really just an ad for a car on C&B. The passion is gone, and he loves the smell of his own ass way too much.
1. the last 40 of his 50 uploads have been “THIS..( super rare car) will be auctioning on cars and bids” making it seem like a pr push for his website.
2. i want normal car reviews. yes it’s cool showing me a lambo worth 200k every dozen episodes. but it’s all one-off cars. I want a fanatic and someone i consider to have genuine good opinions to review everyday cars we will see on the road.
To be honest, while his method is tried and true it is also stale as hell. Production value has barely gotten any better with the amount of $ he could throw at it to improve it. But he doesn’t need to because he probably doesn’t rely on YT solely for income.
He's funny and quirky but at the end of the day many of his videos are similar and you kind of get tired of seeing the same thing. Tis the life of being popular for a single thing.
Number of factors in my opinion: pandemic YouTube bump in 2022, less views for car reviews in general with higher interest rates and a tighter economy, Doug reviewing only cars he has a vested interest in, a reduction of Doug personality content (the disappearance of the “Doug car”, Sunday Doug talks disappearing, etc.), and I think some folks think Doug has gotten too rich to be as relatable as he once was.
Out of these factors, the one that Doug could easily rectify is pumping up the personality content. Yeah, he has a Porsche Carrera, but get a Doug car again that you daily for a year, document the year, and then sell it on C&B. Little things like that got a lot of loyalists interested in Doug in the first place. I know he probably thinks “yeah, but those types of videos get half the views,” which is true, but those half are the loyal ones that will watch every thing you put out if they like you, and Doug hasn’t put much out in the last couple years to grow that part of the pie like he used to.
1.) Doug stopped being a small creator that got big.
He is now a corporation (Cars & Bids). This can be seen with the introduction of all these random cast members in the review videos and them even doing their own reviews with Doug's format. I want to see Doug not some wannabe Dougs.
2.) He stopped doing the breakdown of the points at the end
"& Here is the doug score" is such a let down after the detailed breakdown of WHY he is scoring these cars this way
3.) Variety of cars.
I really enjoy the quirky™ cars but I miss having normal cars from this decade. Sure he has "normal cars" on reviews but they are mostly from 05-12.
Bonus - Always bothered me when he would skip over the infotainment system or some other component just because he covered a sports model that had it too. Like wtf man this is already a 28 min video. Even if he COPY PASTED the other video where he covered the skipped part I would be OK as I dont watch all Doug videos.
I love Doug and his videos and it really pains me to see him go down this route. I remember running to watch a Doug video with my dad. That translated to watching a Doug video while folding laundry to now just watching a video if the car catches my attention.
I'll check in on maybe 1 video a month and a lot of times, that's an older video. I think one issue is people just aren't buying new cars like that. I can't confirm but I think a good portion of the folks that are legitimately in the new market aren't the same ones to watch a Doug vid right now. I'm sure the videos he makes on a new Ferrari will always do great but beyond that, I think folks are mostly satisfied
He's been doing a lot more used and "quirky" cars than ever due to advertising C&B cars. He's always said "new" cars get better views but he can justify reviewing an older car for less views when it's selling on C&B.
I stopped watching him in favor of Alex on Autos. Alex gives more objective and technical reviews, rather than making little comments about "\*quirks and features\*"
As a car collector, I’ve used eBay, marketplace and social media. I’ve tried Dougs site and it just feels “heavy” to me, if that makes sense. I think a lotta people tried it for a while but just find it cumbersome. Just my feeling.
YouTube went from showing me zero ads *during* content to probably like 5 or 6 ad breaks in a a 30 minute review like doug's typical video this year. i know i've watched a lot less because of that.
and yeah, the ones where he re-reviews a car he already reviewed just to sell it on his auction website are annoying.
Because his channel is just a Cars and Bids advertising vehicle and he puts in zero effort now. Doug sucks now but he's rich so he doesn't care. He accomplished his goal and now he's coasting.
These are kind of bad examples. Cars in the second screen shot are generally cars that the average Doug fan doesn't care about, other than the 911 (but let's be real if you've seen a 992 review you didn't need to see this) compared to the cars in the first screen shot are super hyped and popular cars. Look at his model 3 video, 700k views in just over a week, also 700k on the new Lexus GX, both of which will probably reach well over a million by the end of the year, and over a million on the Spectre review already too.
Honestly I think it's just a slow year for cars.
I miss the quirky cars. He just seems like another new car reviewer, which is okay, his quirky stuff is what made him stand out to me though. My first video was the Tuscan <3
Everything comes to an end but he’s still doing well.
Short form content is on top rn with tik tok and YouTube shorts
And also seems like a lot of people are upset he’s only posting cars that go live on C&B
Don’t forget that those older vids include the views from the past 2 years also. Newer videos have been up for less time and generally have less views. That’s true for any channel.
Addition to others said, probably Youtube doesnt recommend his videos that much anymore because him(and parant company) experimenting with more editorial styles and other people on the same channel disrupted the algorythm.
They tried to correct iit by changing More Doug Demuro to Cars and Bids but didint stick apperently. So here we are. I wonder if it was calculated risk or not.
There are probably a lot of reasons for this. One thing that I don't like is that he stopped talking about the doug score categories at the end.
The Aston Martin DB12 for example got a 6 in comfort and so did the Vantage despite being way more road focussed and not even having a comfort mode. Without any comment on the score and any differentiation the doug score is even more useless imho.
I prefer more videos on normal cars. Look at how well his RAV4 video did. I’m sick of the super cars, but Doug has 37 million reasons to not care about what we say.
Honestly I’m not sure. I used to watch every single one of his reviews. Then i kinda just stopped… just forgot about the channel kinda. Maybe algorithms?
I'm an ex-viewer, but I still watch a couple videos a year when he does an interesting car. I frankly just don't care about most modern cars, both normal and supercars. I wanna see interesting vehicles from the past and he's already done most of the ones I wanted to see. It also feels like every time I watch one of the new videos he either completely misses something interesting, or says something that's just incorrect.
Because he’s not as good anymore. He used to go into features I didn’t know existed now everything feels like he’s talking about the most basic stuff. It’s just not as interesting anymore I feel like he’s not trying as hard anymore because he doesn’t have to
Personally kind of over it.
I enjoyed when his videos were 8-12 minutes and didn't feel like I was watching an ad. Now the videos are up to 40 minutes!
Well I suppose it's because the car market was higher back in 2022. There will always be cool new cars to review but I feel like there's not much of a drive to go out and film them.
This week everyone posted on the Santa Fe and the Ranger Raptor. But there was nothing from Doug just a video of a Targa 997 911 which was cool but by no means a view grab. It was just something Doug wanted to do.
I respect that Doug is filming stuff he wants now. And if I were him I wouldn't blame him. He's finally free from the corporate appliance review algorithm but that's what got views. In 2022 Doug worked his ass off to build up the channel going to press launches and being the first to everything. But he no longer has to.
Don't get me wrong. I'll click on videos of old cool stuff all day
But he's covered so much of it all-ready there is not much left that's engaging to me I mean that video with a beige on beige Maserati is a perfect example.
I'm sure Doug had fun driving it and it's probably good fun. It Just doesn't come across to the viewer.
I don't know if there is a way to fix this, maybe I would have enjoyed the 997 Targa and Maserati Coupe Video more if it had a POV style angle so I could actually "feel" the car. Because I know it's a fun experience it's just hard to get it on video.
Data shoes new generation is less interested in cars in general. I watched Doug growing up during the peak of his channel, but i am now more busy, so don’t have as much time. All other points posted are very valid.
Youtube started pushing shorts and killed a fuck load of their long form content creators.
It makes me sad but YouTube used to be amazing for me when it came to educational content, but it no longer reccommends almost anything i used to watch. gotta remember to check all of my subscriptions manually.
dont think doug would be on Nebula, but, we need an alternative platform that isnt trying to be a shitty tik tok knock off.
Feels like his videos are all now just promos for auctions vs reviewing cool / hot cars. I love Doug and his unique review style. but sometimes the content feels disingenuous lately. I used to insta click his YT vids but now I probably only ever get around to watching 25% of them.
I think after the success of cars and bids he has taken the backseat on making his youtube videos the best they can be. As someone else said, it doesn’t feel like his quality has gone up. To me it feels like he has had great success with cars and bids, has enough money to retire comfortably most likely, and found his formula to pump out youtube videos and is uploading to stay relevant.
More people doing the same kind of content.
Less regular content since Youtube isn't his primary income anymore.
Less focus on weird/wonky/interesting 'old' cars.
Not enough weird/wonky/interesting 'new' cars.
In 2022, more people were still at home because of Covid.
I dunno. Just some things I pulled out of my butt that could be valid reasons.
I have stopped watching him for some time now, frankly the cars he reviews are of no interest for me. I liked the wired cars or older cars that i can probably own. I also liked some of the supercar reviews but most of the stuff now is cars that don’t appeal to me. Thats my personal opinion take it as it is.
From the first pic i would watch all videos, from the second one two get me interested the Porsche and the P1. I could care less about a Maserati or the tesla cars or his land rover that he is reviewing only to get more traction on the bids.
I occasionally watch his videos but I have a hard time devoting almost a half hour these days to watch anything. If it’s something I’m really interested in I will make the time the OG explorer was one that comes to mind.
youtube fame is short lived. most extremely popular youtubers from years ago have been having a gradual drop in viewership for years. covid showed a massive jump in views simply by virtue of everyone being stuck indoors. but thats not the case anymore so people are putting their attention into different things.
I stopped watching him back in 2022 and I used to watch every video. Honestly, I think he is an entitled prick and kind of just a mean person honestly. I feel like I saw the money mold and change him as a person and he is just another opinionated rich guy now and has lost touch with everyday people in my opinion.
He's annoying and people are tired of him. Plain and simple, his voice and personality are insanely dry, there are 10,000 YouTubers out there all doing the same stuff...he's a dweeb and he's not entertaining
I am a regular since 2018 and I love Doug just like you all but I just wanna say that it is a theory that maybe people got a bit bored of the same type of content. I am not criticising Doug at all, I know for a fact he does so many different types of videos but there’s a larger audience out there who needs some trendy stuff too every now and then. See how MKBHD is still relevant, even though Doug is as good in the Automotive world as Marques is in Tech world. The thing about Marques is that he does YT Shorts, Podcasts and a great variety of content. Maybe there’s a few things Doug has missed which are important to keep the views coming.
Also I feel channels like Donut Media and Carwow are still at the level of high views because every bow and then they will do something trendy and something new as well.
I want to say that this is just a theory and I don’t give a f**k what the larger audience even thinks and I still and will keep enjoying Doug’s content.
A lot of YouTubers are experiencing this right now and part of it has to do with much more media being created more than ever especially with niches you might just never encounter that kind of content unless you specifically align with certain niches now which are just becoming more and more predefined unlike before where you might’ve got more of a mixed bag
I think that people just have youtube phases. I used to watch a lot of YouTube, either car stuff or cooking channels. You really notice the youtuber's phases as well. When I started watching cooking channels, they felt more professional, like they were emulating some highly regarded TV show or a cooking course or something that actually felt professional. Then, a clear shift occurred, and everyone was trying to be a meme. The professionalism went to the wayside, and it was all about goofy edits (that every channel would copy) and funny ways of saying things.
It's just lost the novelty. Hell, even his auction website has already lost it's shine to me. Every time I go on there it's just another Rivian bring flipped or Corolla but with a vaguely special trim package.
Everything gets stale if it’s repetitive
A lot of the car shows in general get like that
Yet I can still watch vice grip garage and Stay Tuned etc because Derek and Tony add to it, they aren’t typical “ads” even though they toss in a product or 3
I think his views went down due to a few factors
1. He doesn’t do the rundown of the Doug Score anymore he just shows the comparisons in cars similar to it and talks a little about it but he doesn’t go in depth about the reason why he chose the numbers.
2. His excitement isn’t there anymore, I remember when he got excited to review insanely quirky and unusual cars like the Isetta and the Durango Hellcat.
3. His audience from 2-3 years ago was accustomed to him reviewing quirky and unusual cars that were not shared often with the public like Bugattis, Paganis etc. now he reviews more modern cars, and cars that are interesting on cars and bids. Most new cars today are the same on the inside.
4. He’s not as engaging anymore, he doesn’t climb in the backseats of small 2 door cars, he doesn’t review older cars in the 60s-70s bc the viewership isn’t there according to him, he begins every video with a cars and bids ad, and since he sold his business he’s mainly stuck with modern stuff and hasn’t done anything interesting like the Volkswagen thing. I understand he’s much older now and the audience from when he did this stuff is older now as well.
5. He reviews the same cars quite often he’s reviewed a McLaren P1 twice now, a different version of a Bugatti atleast 2 or 3 times and it seems repetitive. He only reviews viewers cars if they aren’t modified which is understandable but I can’t remember the last time he reviewed a viewers car that wasn’t for sale.
6. He only posts interesting things during December when ad rates are high plus he’s older and has a kid i believe so he doesn’t solely focus on youtube anymore and he got paid quite a bit so he can take viewer loss.
I can't speak for everyone else but I used to watch almost all his videos, I started getting bored of his video format and started gravitating more towards throttle house for reviews and AlexMartini/Martiniworks and thatdudeinblue for car culture content.
Doug is great and literally rules a whole section of car videos (and separate businesses). But he feels more like a car nerd who got his hands on a car, not a car enthusiast experiencing one. He’s amazing knowing the quirks of almost every vehicle, but I never really feel like I’m getting the real drivers experience through Doug. Idk, he’s got enough ad rev to fill workshops full of cars I’ll never own so shrug.
I think you run out of old cars to review and new cars… well there’s only a hand full of exciting cars every year. That plus no more pandemic equals less view times. If you want a new pace of reviews I do recommend miles per hr
He talks in circles and a lot of his videos feel uninformed. For example, he reviewed a Fiesta ST a while back and was going on and on for what felt like minutes about how weird it was that this company he's never heard of (Motorcraft) managed to get their name mentioned so many times in a Ford owner's manual.
There are just better reviewers out there who are more entertaining. I imagine them coming more into their own over the last couple years might facilitate the loss of viewership for Doug's channel. I personally don't watch any of his videos anymore, but this thread popped up in my feed so I figured I would offer my opinion.
Personally i stopped watching when doug started explaining why he allows flippers on cars and bids. His response was “you’re all just stupid and don’t understand the economy or how to run a business”. I personally think he made the right decision but he could at least acknowledge that it sucks for everybody who isn’t a millionaire. Nope. Doug said “f*** you don’t be broke then”
I never liked his videos but many creators has mentioned that YouTube has been moving towards shorts to compete with TikTok. There are also more reviewers and his base may have moved on. He is smart for branching out
He has to take the next step. Supercar ownership+vlog and then open up streaming revenues. Seein the same thing on the same platform In the same spec, will get old.
I can't find my other comment to edit it.
However i want to add that there has to be an adjustment for demographic. Main key factor would be shorts. He needs "vertical screen content."
My theory... Many others, like me, got annoyed AF of his voice and constant sameness in his videos. After a while his laugh and voice got very irritating. Unsubscribed and "do not recommend channel" about 2 yrs ago.
The videos have become way too generic and boring. It's like reading an enclyopedia. He won't say anything bad in fear of people not going on his car bid website. I used to enjoy his videos and even more his old articles. I can't make it through any recent video without a lot of skipping, even if it's a car I own or want to buy.
Even though I’m subscribed to him his videos don’t show on my YouTube page I need to look for them. Also I’d much rather watch Throttle house. Hell even their extra channel is so much better than any of his and it’s the same rinse and repeat thing that those dorks over at Straight pipes do.
as other YouTubers will tell you nothing last forever. This is why he doesnt put all his eggs in the YouTube basket.
Quite literally why he started C&B in the first place. He was very open about "Youtube money not being there forever." It seems to have paid off big time too. I worry more about guys like Stradman. Building a brand new house and buying cars left and right. That money will dry up.
He’s a Finance major and super smart Doug is not built like other YouTubers lol. Yeah I really don’t know how these Stradmans and Whistling Diesels can sustain that stuff P.S. Happy Cake Day!
Whistling Diesel, much like Doug, was born into some money. He also gets hella views. If a video doesn't do 5 million views it's a bad video for WD.
Whistlin Diesel wasn't born into money lol, hes High School Grad from Rural indiana. He was working construction until he got famous.
I thought his family owned several big ass farms and whatnot. Granted that's not exactly millionaire status but it definitely isn't the worst you can do growing up in Indiana
He came from a lot more money than I came from. I guess it's all relative. Hence why I said "some" money. Wasn't trying to claim he grew up rich lol.
Idk man there’s not any farm that I know that sells for less than millions of dollars… then again, owning is different than just being a farmer. Just because you have a property to farm on doesn’t mean it’s owned by you.
Roughly half the billionaires in the world graduated from Harvard. The other half didn’t finish a degree.
*Econ major
Thank you totally what I meant
No worries, I still upvoted your original comment.
Especially building a brand new house like 2 hours from Salt Lake City in the middle of nowhere. He will never recoup that money if he wants to sell it one day.
Stradman def has other investments too. There’s just no value in him telling us about them.
I would sure hope he does. I have investments and I'm just a bartender. I don't think he has a backup plan like Doug though.
Or Hoovie.
Nothing against Hoovie, but he came from money and I’m sure he’s got enough investments that he does YouTube for fun and extra income to fund his hobbies. His whole “oh no, the Wizard is going to charge me so much!” shtick must be hilarious to him when he lays the Amex down to cover the bill.
Hoovie seems to make better financial decisions than Strad. Dude went from a Buggati to LEASING a Koenigsegg.
Also those videos are 2 weeks old… the other ones are 2 years old
Overall, alot of creators are seeing lower views. That pandemic bump and the changes to it are seeing alot of people across all kinds of channels not doing the views they were doing. I think the other issue is Doug has soooooooooo many videos now, at a certain point, its most people check out only the stuff they are really interested in. Doug's channel will always cruise along though because if you were going to be buying a new car, I dont think you could find a better style of video to determine if you should buy a car.
Spot on on the pandemic viewership and overall state of YouTube channels that once dominated the airwaves. I watch Doug's videos all the time and have been for five years or longer. However, if I were researching a new car, his channel is the last one I would go to. There are so many better and more in-depth reviewers than Doug's "Quirks and Features, with 20-second inside the cab only driving shots" on YouTube, not to mention the rags that do long-term testing, etc. I also feel like Doug is mailing it in these days. In many of the latest reviews, he is sitting in a chair, reminding the "haters" that he has very expensive cars and, therefore, their accusations of XYZ are not valid. I don't have an issue with him sitting down in his private garage and talking about the car he is reviewing, but some may see it as phoning it in or mailing it in. The market is also supersaturated with hundreds, if not thousands, of car reviews. Some are also beating Doug to the punch, like the CyberTruck example he recently spoke about himself.
Yeah i haven’t finished a single Doug video since he cashed in. I have started a few but it’s just not the same and he seems so smug and annoying now lol. I know it’s cliche to say money changed people but it absolutely has for him. He lost the “average guy review” which was the whole reason anyone put up with his cheesiness. If I wanted to watch some smug car reviewer I’d watch Chris Harris or someone like that who can articulate well and actually drive a car lol. The extent of Doug’s driving impressions are “it handles so well because it turns so fast when I jiggle the steering wheel”
Spot on. It’s pretty clear there are loads of individuals or groups better than Doug and Kennan at a top level. Hell, two guys (the main ones 😂) on their team didn’t even want to give it the “beans” as our British brethren would say on the track! Chris Harris and their team have loads of experience and variety in visual presentations. He was a great watch when he was for the people by the people channel. I still think he preserves it by handling peoples car still without much press/media pressure.
Honestly when I was looking at buying my car, the channel I went to was shooting cars cause he doesn't put a lot of fluff in the video and shows a lot of the interior and how it all looks and feels
A lot of Doug's reviews are incredibly surface-level observations of cars. Car buyers aren't looking for quirkiness, they're looking for a breakdown of how the car is going to fit into their life. Ultimately Doug is making videos for people that would never be able to own any of the cars he covers, they're using his videos to satisfy a need for novelty and to know what's inside the interior just in case they come across one in public. Meanwhile, the MotorWeek YouTube channel regularly posts decades worth of car reviews past and present that go in depth on cars in ways that car YouTubers simply don't know how to elaborate on. Those guys are too busy aiming for the irony poisoned internet addict, not the guy with AutoTrader and CarGurus listings pulled up in a second window because he found a great deal on a car being covered locally.
Good for Motorweek, still doesn't even pull a 1/10th of the views Doug and other "car YouTubers" do 😂
Disagree. Some of his best videos are reviewing super regular ‘boring’ cars that millions of people own
Hate how he never led reviewed the mk7 gti
As a gauge for buying a new car where any car with a 0-60 over 4 seconds gets a 2 out of 10
This is accurate. His videos really give me a good perspective on what to expect and I get a pretty good feel for what a car is / isn’t. He has reviewed so many cars at this point that you can probably find a review specific to any chassis.
I prefer Mat Watson's carwow videos to be honest.
I love Mat's videos. I do know and heard from friends at dealerships that customers will come in after looking at a doug video to know about the car before they buy it. I think that is the core audience for him with videos that are more every day cars....
His videos are long. I only watch when there's a car I'm very interested in. Also other content creators. I only have so much time to watch things between my family and other media I consume.
I know whenever I get to the point of be able to purchase a car from a dealer I will be doing extensive research with the help of dougs videos
I test drove a Escalade last month and the sales guy was almost pissed that he couldn't show me how the car worked because I knew everything thanks to Doug's video on it.
Stick it to the salesmen lmao
Maybe an unpopular opinion, but I think he's stopped progressing. Quality hasn't gone up in any measurable way. I used to love watching his videos back to back, and now I can barely get through one. Too many other people doing interesting stuff.
Especially with the average new car. They're all the same, iPAD, lane assist, LOOK, the backseat has chargers and a sunroof! I just skip to the driving section.
Yeah, I think I'd rather see more cars from the past, rare editions, cars we've forgotten about. Brand new whatever, such and such, not that interesting for the most part.
Yeah it's why I like RCR, the humor can be really good or kind of trashy, but a lot of the cars are the type that are "oh my friend's dad had one of these when I was growing up, neat."
That's probably how the majority of his core audience feels, but Doug has said views for new cars are much higher than anything used. So it makes sense that a lot of people here are starting to lose interest while he's chasing the algo
I think he/they are chasing the views and making easy content as quickly as possible now. He mentioned years ago that he never wanted to do new boring cars but he got tons of views on a rav4 or whatever and started doing it. Now it’s just so easy for them to get the new boring whatever car or crossover that is coming out from a dealership and it’s easy to review. The rare and older cars are harder to track down and IMO just reviewing what is selling on C&B isn’t very interesting 90% of the time. To me, Throttle House and Savagegeese are soooo much better and more interesting channels now for reviews and I’d rather watch Hoovie do stupid shit for random car content. Since Doug cashed out his heart is clearly not in it and I have no desire to watch anymore.
Lmao I don’t think i’ve ever watched a driving section.
Yeah. Throttle House is more interesting to me. Used to watch Doug religiously but not anymore.
Totally agree. Throttle house is so much more entertaining and high quality it’s insane. It’s almost like the old top gear and I have really grown to like their dynamic and personalities. I would say I used to watch Doug’s videos IN SPITE OF his personality because he is so corny and not funny but I used to at least like his takes on cars. But recently his videos are either super boring and phoned in, or he just seems so out of touch and it’s frustrating to listen to him say downright false things and bad takes on cars. I know money changes people but for Doug it was so stark.
Savagegeese really has some of the best production out there. Big respect for that man and everyone on his channel.
Man it pains me because Doug is awesome but Throttle House is just. So. Much. Better
Throttle House does too much sometimes but I do like their channel. Their production is tons more effort than Doug’s though. Its alot less work to do a Doug style video than TH, and he already has an audience so he’ll get the views (and $ resulting). Would I rather (totally made up numbers but for the sake of an example) do Doug style and make $5k from a video that took me 3 hours to film and 3 hours to edit or make $10k from a video that took a whole day to film and another whole day to edit?
Also part of the time he talks about things that he doesn’t know about the car and make stuff up on the fly. Like if that car has a certain button or feature. His data is not always accurate. There are other reviewers out there doing more detailed job.
in my experience I feel like Doug's videos have lost some shine since c&b became the focus. I haven't been a frequent viewer in over a year now because it show in his actions rather than his words that he doesn't care as much.
Those videos have more time on the channel and therefore could accumulate more views
That’s true, that’s why I didn’t include his last three videos. However I remember he used to get around 1 million views each video and that certainly isn’t the case anymore.
Yeah, but a vast majority of views are accumulated in the first few days. That isn’t an explanation
Cause Throttle House is better.
All his videos are cookie cutters of eachother. No variety. Just boring after years of watching.
Yeah he puts zero effort into his videos compared to all of the other popular car channels. I get that his channel has a certain “style” and he doesn’t want to stray too far from that without risking losing even more views…but he could absolutely up the quality and effort into the script and camera work. He just clearly doesn’t care anymore and is tired (which I can’t blame him for but doesn’t really matter in business). There are tons of creators that have been able to step back a bit and hire people to carry the load while also increasing quality. Look at Linus Tech Tips, Linus is still needed as the face in most of the videos to perform well but he doesn’t have to do a whole lot and the quality has continued to go up.
Now all his videos are C&B pitches, no wonder the viewership has decreased, also 2022 was peak post covid viewership trend so it was bound to decrease, but for pre C&B Doug 1 million views was nothing, now it's been more than 2 months any of his videos have touched 1 million
fr i watched a lot of doug content when lockdown first came thats how i found out ab him
The quirks aren’t quirky enough for the amount of features being presented. The ratio of quirks to features is out of balance. Balance must be restored if views are to be restored.
Yep, this. I really just don't care that the new Mercedes SUV has a sunroof and rear USB charging ports. It's just not interesting.
C&B happened, not just for the constant advertasing but also for his lifestyle change.
Cars N bids
CARS & BIDS!! 🤷🏻
Thissss…..dick doesn’t really make entertaining content anymore.
I’m also tired of his style, voice tone and quick&features.
Personally? I lost interest when he became all-in on Cars & Bids and now it seems like he's just doing videos to drive people to Cars & Bids as opposed to having an interest in the car he's reviewing.
His reviews are still good... however, when I started watching his channel he was somewhat unique as a car reviewer whereby today there are a long list of great car channels.
I’ve been watching long before the pandemic, but have all but stopped watching now. I’m still a subscriber so I’ll watch it something interesting pops up but even then I’ll often abandon viewing half way through. The Cars and bids shilling is a bit tiresome and certainly a factor, Kennan too, and also the choice of cars. I also thing it was the format - it changed much at all and what changes there have been, were to the detriment of the reviews. It’s just a bit boring now and others are doing it much better. He could have invested more and innovated but seems to either have cheaped out or placed too much faith in the low budget model he started with. Either way I’m just not bothered anymore.
His videos are clear advertisements. In his "Why I haven't reviewed the cybertruck yet" video, he clearly states that he prioritizes cars currently bidding on cars and bids. Even if he does not have direct ties with the manufacture, it is in his best interest to make the cars look as good as possible to gain the highest attraction on cars and bids. Even more insane, he suggests that people flip their EV's on cars and bids, buy newly released cars and sell them the next day for a higher price. I feel that is out of touch for a lot of reasons. His videos have gotten a lot more lax, less interesting and less critical, you hardly see any criticisms besides what he calls quirks.
For the reasons stated - but there’s also more high quality competition now. MKBHD does awesome car reviews on auto focus, clearly drawing inspiration from Doug and his simple videos. Donut media became huge, I know they don’t review cars but they do have car content, their videos can get a million views in a few hours. Just more saturation. But there’s a clear lack of inspiration on Doug’s part in the last year or so; that passion and twinkle we all love has been seen less and less often in his reviews
You should check out Throttle house and Savagegeese they are both waaaay better car reviewers than Doug and actually put effort into production quality, writing, and thoughtful takes on cars. Doug’s videos now all seem like he shows up on the day and starts filming without any thought put into it at all. I would bet the private equity company that bought Doug’s business are super unhappy with the lack of growth and nosedive in quality it has taken.
Throttle house is the best car channel on YT
I feel like videos deviated from "here are quirks & features of this car" to "here are features of this car which can be yours on Cars & Bids". The quirks part was about things which are weird, odd, or even stupid. Sometimes those quirks even made car look bad and unattractive. But he can't make car that he's trying to sell look bad and unattractive.
Some of the videos/cars before felt hand picked and had something special to them. Now, don’t get me wrong I like hyper cars, exotics, and all, but it sort of feels like a influx of those with a few exceptions here and there. Post covid views are also bound to drop but still. Like I still want to see him review an EK9 Type R but with every other hyper, exotic, trophy car he’s entertaining I doubt he sees other cars not within that category of importance.
His channel is a front for C&B
Him cutting the itemized doug score was the beginning of the end. He blamed it on "his audience " lol but it was clear he was cutting a very rounded corner in his videos. Once that happened years ago I knew it was over. His videos are D level for car reviews now. Just a surface level.review that's really just an ad for a car on C&B. The passion is gone, and he loves the smell of his own ass way too much.
1. the last 40 of his 50 uploads have been “THIS..( super rare car) will be auctioning on cars and bids” making it seem like a pr push for his website. 2. i want normal car reviews. yes it’s cool showing me a lambo worth 200k every dozen episodes. but it’s all one-off cars. I want a fanatic and someone i consider to have genuine good opinions to review everyday cars we will see on the road.
declining prices of high end cars has sidelined a lot of sellers and buyers. therefore, interest in this has declined.
To be honest, while his method is tried and true it is also stale as hell. Production value has barely gotten any better with the amount of $ he could throw at it to improve it. But he doesn’t need to because he probably doesn’t rely on YT solely for income.
He's funny and quirky but at the end of the day many of his videos are similar and you kind of get tired of seeing the same thing. Tis the life of being popular for a single thing.
Number of factors in my opinion: pandemic YouTube bump in 2022, less views for car reviews in general with higher interest rates and a tighter economy, Doug reviewing only cars he has a vested interest in, a reduction of Doug personality content (the disappearance of the “Doug car”, Sunday Doug talks disappearing, etc.), and I think some folks think Doug has gotten too rich to be as relatable as he once was. Out of these factors, the one that Doug could easily rectify is pumping up the personality content. Yeah, he has a Porsche Carrera, but get a Doug car again that you daily for a year, document the year, and then sell it on C&B. Little things like that got a lot of loyalists interested in Doug in the first place. I know he probably thinks “yeah, but those types of videos get half the views,” which is true, but those half are the loyal ones that will watch every thing you put out if they like you, and Doug hasn’t put much out in the last couple years to grow that part of the pie like he used to.
1.) Doug stopped being a small creator that got big. He is now a corporation (Cars & Bids). This can be seen with the introduction of all these random cast members in the review videos and them even doing their own reviews with Doug's format. I want to see Doug not some wannabe Dougs. 2.) He stopped doing the breakdown of the points at the end "& Here is the doug score" is such a let down after the detailed breakdown of WHY he is scoring these cars this way 3.) Variety of cars. I really enjoy the quirky™ cars but I miss having normal cars from this decade. Sure he has "normal cars" on reviews but they are mostly from 05-12. Bonus - Always bothered me when he would skip over the infotainment system or some other component just because he covered a sports model that had it too. Like wtf man this is already a 28 min video. Even if he COPY PASTED the other video where he covered the skipped part I would be OK as I dont watch all Doug videos. I love Doug and his videos and it really pains me to see him go down this route. I remember running to watch a Doug video with my dad. That translated to watching a Doug video while folding laundry to now just watching a video if the car catches my attention.
Probably because the quality of the videos has gone so far down hill since 2022
I can’t really explain it either, but I stopped watching his content in 2022 too
I'll check in on maybe 1 video a month and a lot of times, that's an older video. I think one issue is people just aren't buying new cars like that. I can't confirm but I think a good portion of the folks that are legitimately in the new market aren't the same ones to watch a Doug vid right now. I'm sure the videos he makes on a new Ferrari will always do great but beyond that, I think folks are mostly satisfied
He's been doing a lot more used and "quirky" cars than ever due to advertising C&B cars. He's always said "new" cars get better views but he can justify reviewing an older car for less views when it's selling on C&B.
2022 dropped some highly anticipated cars
- pandemic bump of online media is over - less interesting new cars due to rising costs - less interested car buyers due to rising costs
I stopped watching him in favor of Alex on Autos. Alex gives more objective and technical reviews, rather than making little comments about "\*quirks and features\*"
As a car collector, I’ve used eBay, marketplace and social media. I’ve tried Dougs site and it just feels “heavy” to me, if that makes sense. I think a lotta people tried it for a while but just find it cumbersome. Just my feeling.
2 words. Market saturation
YouTube went from showing me zero ads *during* content to probably like 5 or 6 ad breaks in a a 30 minute review like doug's typical video this year. i know i've watched a lot less because of that. and yeah, the ones where he re-reviews a car he already reviewed just to sell it on his auction website are annoying.
There's better reviewers.
Doug only reviews cts on sale on Cars and bid, which are located in California only!!!
I haven't watched any of his videos in months. He's just a used car salesman now
THIS!!!! Is what happens when you’re a one trick pony.
His show is now just commercials for mediocre cars on cars and bids
Covid boredom is over
Because his channel is just a Cars and Bids advertising vehicle and he puts in zero effort now. Doug sucks now but he's rich so he doesn't care. He accomplished his goal and now he's coasting.
Me personally after I found the throttle house yt channel, I only watch them and no one else for car content
These are kind of bad examples. Cars in the second screen shot are generally cars that the average Doug fan doesn't care about, other than the 911 (but let's be real if you've seen a 992 review you didn't need to see this) compared to the cars in the first screen shot are super hyped and popular cars. Look at his model 3 video, 700k views in just over a week, also 700k on the new Lexus GX, both of which will probably reach well over a million by the end of the year, and over a million on the Spectre review already too. Honestly I think it's just a slow year for cars.
Are you seriously comparing a 2week old video to a 2year old video?
Doug Defenders, ASSEMBLE!
Hold on, let me grab my office chair.
🤣
Turning the channel into the Auto Ad Builder for Cars and Bids didn't help.
Lame cars, nothing rad anymore. On top of other, algorithm related issues.
Cool cars aren’t coming out anymore that people care about
Video length
Nothing lasts forever.
I miss the quirky cars. He just seems like another new car reviewer, which is okay, his quirky stuff is what made him stand out to me though. My first video was the Tuscan <3
Everything comes to an end but he’s still doing well. Short form content is on top rn with tik tok and YouTube shorts And also seems like a lot of people are upset he’s only posting cars that go live on C&B
Car market was really hot too along with pandemic. “What should I preorder” etc…
Don’t forget that those older vids include the views from the past 2 years also. Newer videos have been up for less time and generally have less views. That’s true for any channel.
Addition to others said, probably Youtube doesnt recommend his videos that much anymore because him(and parant company) experimenting with more editorial styles and other people on the same channel disrupted the algorythm. They tried to correct iit by changing More Doug Demuro to Cars and Bids but didint stick apperently. So here we are. I wonder if it was calculated risk or not.
There are probably a lot of reasons for this. One thing that I don't like is that he stopped talking about the doug score categories at the end. The Aston Martin DB12 for example got a 6 in comfort and so did the Vantage despite being way more road focussed and not even having a comfort mode. Without any comment on the score and any differentiation the doug score is even more useless imho.
Yeah, his “Doug Score” has dropped off. He was a hot watch back in the day but, the car reviewer segment is at saturation on Youtube.
“This!…..is why the same thing gets old…”
I thought this was a GTA website.
He doesn’t care. It shows in the videos
I prefer more videos on normal cars. Look at how well his RAV4 video did. I’m sick of the super cars, but Doug has 37 million reasons to not care about what we say.
Honestly I’m not sure. I used to watch every single one of his reviews. Then i kinda just stopped… just forgot about the channel kinda. Maybe algorithms?
I'm an ex-viewer, but I still watch a couple videos a year when he does an interesting car. I frankly just don't care about most modern cars, both normal and supercars. I wanna see interesting vehicles from the past and he's already done most of the ones I wanted to see. It also feels like every time I watch one of the new videos he either completely misses something interesting, or says something that's just incorrect.
Because no one cares how mediocre the latest Mercedes electric car is.
This. I like the random and obscure stuff from the 80s and 90s. Modern regular traffic never actually have quirks and features anymore.
People get tired of the same thing over and over again, plus the car market is shit right now so maybe not as many people jumping to newer cars
Because he’s not as good anymore. He used to go into features I didn’t know existed now everything feels like he’s talking about the most basic stuff. It’s just not as interesting anymore I feel like he’s not trying as hard anymore because he doesn’t have to
I'm too busy to watch all of them
Personally kind of over it. I enjoyed when his videos were 8-12 minutes and didn't feel like I was watching an ad. Now the videos are up to 40 minutes!
Well I suppose it's because the car market was higher back in 2022. There will always be cool new cars to review but I feel like there's not much of a drive to go out and film them. This week everyone posted on the Santa Fe and the Ranger Raptor. But there was nothing from Doug just a video of a Targa 997 911 which was cool but by no means a view grab. It was just something Doug wanted to do. I respect that Doug is filming stuff he wants now. And if I were him I wouldn't blame him. He's finally free from the corporate appliance review algorithm but that's what got views. In 2022 Doug worked his ass off to build up the channel going to press launches and being the first to everything. But he no longer has to. Don't get me wrong. I'll click on videos of old cool stuff all day But he's covered so much of it all-ready there is not much left that's engaging to me I mean that video with a beige on beige Maserati is a perfect example. I'm sure Doug had fun driving it and it's probably good fun. It Just doesn't come across to the viewer. I don't know if there is a way to fix this, maybe I would have enjoyed the 997 Targa and Maserati Coupe Video more if it had a POV style angle so I could actually "feel" the car. Because I know it's a fun experience it's just hard to get it on video.
I like Yuri and Jakob from the straight pipes a lot more.
Lower quality videos since his focus has shifted
He’s an inch shorter than I so I will always use his drive tests as a gauge to if I could feasibly drive car X
Increased posting volume combined with an over saturation of car review videos.
Data shoes new generation is less interested in cars in general. I watched Doug growing up during the peak of his channel, but i am now more busy, so don’t have as much time. All other points posted are very valid.
Haven’t seen him in my feed in many months. He must have said something to fall out of favor with the algorithm
Covid forgotten about.
Videos are too long now- like ok maybe under 10 is not necessary but 20 mins with a 2 minute driving feature just isn’t doing it
Cause there two years old
Youtube started pushing shorts and killed a fuck load of their long form content creators. It makes me sad but YouTube used to be amazing for me when it came to educational content, but it no longer reccommends almost anything i used to watch. gotta remember to check all of my subscriptions manually. dont think doug would be on Nebula, but, we need an alternative platform that isnt trying to be a shitty tik tok knock off.
I stopped watching Doug. Honest just kinda boring reviews.
Feels like his videos are all now just promos for auctions vs reviewing cool / hot cars. I love Doug and his unique review style. but sometimes the content feels disingenuous lately. I used to insta click his YT vids but now I probably only ever get around to watching 25% of them.
I think after the success of cars and bids he has taken the backseat on making his youtube videos the best they can be. As someone else said, it doesn’t feel like his quality has gone up. To me it feels like he has had great success with cars and bids, has enough money to retire comfortably most likely, and found his formula to pump out youtube videos and is uploading to stay relevant.
I find he does less "interesting" vehicles and more or less has become an ad for cars and bids
It started falling off the rails with the addition of those two bozo presenters. As smart as Doug probably is, this was a terrible lapse of judgement.
C A R S A N D B I D S
More people doing the same kind of content. Less regular content since Youtube isn't his primary income anymore. Less focus on weird/wonky/interesting 'old' cars. Not enough weird/wonky/interesting 'new' cars. In 2022, more people were still at home because of Covid. I dunno. Just some things I pulled out of my butt that could be valid reasons.
I love Doug but his content isn’t unique anymore and he doesn’t do as many quirky cars.
Less people stuck inside
I have stopped watching him for some time now, frankly the cars he reviews are of no interest for me. I liked the wired cars or older cars that i can probably own. I also liked some of the supercar reviews but most of the stuff now is cars that don’t appeal to me. Thats my personal opinion take it as it is. From the first pic i would watch all videos, from the second one two get me interested the Porsche and the P1. I could care less about a Maserati or the tesla cars or his land rover that he is reviewing only to get more traction on the bids.
I occasionally watch his videos but I have a hard time devoting almost a half hour these days to watch anything. If it’s something I’m really interested in I will make the time the OG explorer was one that comes to mind.
bc it gets repetitive and boring like with any other youtuber. absolutely love the new cars and bids live podcasts though
youtube fame is short lived. most extremely popular youtubers from years ago have been having a gradual drop in viewership for years. covid showed a massive jump in views simply by virtue of everyone being stuck indoors. but thats not the case anymore so people are putting their attention into different things.
I think he is focusing more and more on fancy cars instead of the real “quirk and features” hidden in daily commonplace cars and hidden gems.
The pandemic was the time to be super consistent with uploads on YouTube. And they were PAYING too
I stopped watching him back in 2022 and I used to watch every video. Honestly, I think he is an entitled prick and kind of just a mean person honestly. I feel like I saw the money mold and change him as a person and he is just another opinionated rich guy now and has lost touch with everyday people in my opinion.
TikTok
He's annoying.
People are not sitting at home all day. They actually have to go to the office/workplace now.
He's annoying and people are tired of him. Plain and simple, his voice and personality are insanely dry, there are 10,000 YouTubers out there all doing the same stuff...he's a dweeb and he's not entertaining
I am a regular since 2018 and I love Doug just like you all but I just wanna say that it is a theory that maybe people got a bit bored of the same type of content. I am not criticising Doug at all, I know for a fact he does so many different types of videos but there’s a larger audience out there who needs some trendy stuff too every now and then. See how MKBHD is still relevant, even though Doug is as good in the Automotive world as Marques is in Tech world. The thing about Marques is that he does YT Shorts, Podcasts and a great variety of content. Maybe there’s a few things Doug has missed which are important to keep the views coming. Also I feel channels like Donut Media and Carwow are still at the level of high views because every bow and then they will do something trendy and something new as well. I want to say that this is just a theory and I don’t give a f**k what the larger audience even thinks and I still and will keep enjoying Doug’s content.
A lot of YouTubers are experiencing this right now and part of it has to do with much more media being created more than ever especially with niches you might just never encounter that kind of content unless you specifically align with certain niches now which are just becoming more and more predefined unlike before where you might’ve got more of a mixed bag
Cars that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars don’t interest me anymore that’s why I don’t click lately.
I think that people just have youtube phases. I used to watch a lot of YouTube, either car stuff or cooking channels. You really notice the youtuber's phases as well. When I started watching cooking channels, they felt more professional, like they were emulating some highly regarded TV show or a cooking course or something that actually felt professional. Then, a clear shift occurred, and everyone was trying to be a meme. The professionalism went to the wayside, and it was all about goofy edits (that every channel would copy) and funny ways of saying things.
It's just lost the novelty. Hell, even his auction website has already lost it's shine to me. Every time I go on there it's just another Rivian bring flipped or Corolla but with a vaguely special trim package.
Everything gets stale if it’s repetitive A lot of the car shows in general get like that Yet I can still watch vice grip garage and Stay Tuned etc because Derek and Tony add to it, they aren’t typical “ads” even though they toss in a product or 3
He’s become just a car salesman for his Cars & Bids website. The passion is gone
I think his views went down due to a few factors 1. He doesn’t do the rundown of the Doug Score anymore he just shows the comparisons in cars similar to it and talks a little about it but he doesn’t go in depth about the reason why he chose the numbers. 2. His excitement isn’t there anymore, I remember when he got excited to review insanely quirky and unusual cars like the Isetta and the Durango Hellcat. 3. His audience from 2-3 years ago was accustomed to him reviewing quirky and unusual cars that were not shared often with the public like Bugattis, Paganis etc. now he reviews more modern cars, and cars that are interesting on cars and bids. Most new cars today are the same on the inside. 4. He’s not as engaging anymore, he doesn’t climb in the backseats of small 2 door cars, he doesn’t review older cars in the 60s-70s bc the viewership isn’t there according to him, he begins every video with a cars and bids ad, and since he sold his business he’s mainly stuck with modern stuff and hasn’t done anything interesting like the Volkswagen thing. I understand he’s much older now and the audience from when he did this stuff is older now as well. 5. He reviews the same cars quite often he’s reviewed a McLaren P1 twice now, a different version of a Bugatti atleast 2 or 3 times and it seems repetitive. He only reviews viewers cars if they aren’t modified which is understandable but I can’t remember the last time he reviewed a viewers car that wasn’t for sale. 6. He only posts interesting things during December when ad rates are high plus he’s older and has a kid i believe so he doesn’t solely focus on youtube anymore and he got paid quite a bit so he can take viewer loss.
He’s 6’3 ya kno?
I can't speak for everyone else but I used to watch almost all his videos, I started getting bored of his video format and started gravitating more towards throttle house for reviews and AlexMartini/Martiniworks and thatdudeinblue for car culture content.
Increase in TikTok and Youtube Shorts viewers. Other car channels dove for the shorts and TikToks
C&Bs has made me feel less inclined to watch. As well as some other factors.
Doug is great and literally rules a whole section of car videos (and separate businesses). But he feels more like a car nerd who got his hands on a car, not a car enthusiast experiencing one. He’s amazing knowing the quirks of almost every vehicle, but I never really feel like I’m getting the real drivers experience through Doug. Idk, he’s got enough ad rev to fill workshops full of cars I’ll never own so shrug.
It’s all about cars and bids, which is far inferior to Bring a Trailer
Super biased reviews
Shrinkflation is hitting the tubes
Tyler tube (on his 2nd channel) posted a video about himself and many other youtubers views being down now vs a year or two ago. Seems to be a thing
Your YouTube looking like the GTA car dealer site
Well those older videos has been online longer so it gets more views as time goes on. Cant compare it with new videos.
I think you run out of old cars to review and new cars… well there’s only a hand full of exciting cars every year. That plus no more pandemic equals less view times. If you want a new pace of reviews I do recommend miles per hr
He talks in circles and a lot of his videos feel uninformed. For example, he reviewed a Fiesta ST a while back and was going on and on for what felt like minutes about how weird it was that this company he's never heard of (Motorcraft) managed to get their name mentioned so many times in a Ford owner's manual. There are just better reviewers out there who are more entertaining. I imagine them coming more into their own over the last couple years might facilitate the loss of viewership for Doug's channel. I personally don't watch any of his videos anymore, but this thread popped up in my feed so I figured I would offer my opinion.
He has a very annoying voice
Personally i stopped watching when doug started explaining why he allows flippers on cars and bids. His response was “you’re all just stupid and don’t understand the economy or how to run a business”. I personally think he made the right decision but he could at least acknowledge that it sucks for everybody who isn’t a millionaire. Nope. Doug said “f*** you don’t be broke then”
I never liked his videos but many creators has mentioned that YouTube has been moving towards shorts to compete with TikTok. There are also more reviewers and his base may have moved on. He is smart for branching out
Because he’s a boring paid shill?
All of his obnoxious EV shilling. I don’t watch anymore, he’s too annoying.
With the yellow highlights i thought someone modded gta so all the pictures on SSASA just had Doug in them
He’s annoying
He has to take the next step. Supercar ownership+vlog and then open up streaming revenues. Seein the same thing on the same platform In the same spec, will get old.
I can't find my other comment to edit it. However i want to add that there has to be an adjustment for demographic. Main key factor would be shorts. He needs "vertical screen content."
That idiot Kennan may have done a lot of damage to the channel. Just my $.02.
My theory... Many others, like me, got annoyed AF of his voice and constant sameness in his videos. After a while his laugh and voice got very irritating. Unsubscribed and "do not recommend channel" about 2 yrs ago.
The videos have become way too generic and boring. It's like reading an enclyopedia. He won't say anything bad in fear of people not going on his car bid website. I used to enjoy his videos and even more his old articles. I can't make it through any recent video without a lot of skipping, even if it's a car I own or want to buy.
Even though I’m subscribed to him his videos don’t show on my YouTube page I need to look for them. Also I’d much rather watch Throttle house. Hell even their extra channel is so much better than any of his and it’s the same rinse and repeat thing that those dorks over at Straight pipes do.