This comment on their video really paints the picture: "Netflix is $6.99 a month, Disney+, $7.99. Prime Video, $8.99. And you're asking $5.99 a month!... most people have to choose between the three. Do you really think you're in the same league as the big streaming giants?"
On top of that, these companies have bundles. Disney Plus and Hulu along with ESPN are all bundled together Netflix is bundled with some cell phone brands so as long as you have a phone you also have Netflix. Obviously prime video is bundled with prime shopping which a lot of people use. Watcher is bundled with nothing
Yup and those are just the rates with ads, those services get a lot more expensive if you dont want ads, and I wouldnt be surprised if watcher will be the same, with 5.99 being the "base package"
ikr no offense guys but comparison wise you are a small child in the streaming world and you don't have a hope of EVER competing with Disney Netflix or prime
Another thing is that most people don’t even think about this outside this country. My monthly paycheck is 180 in dollars, since the money value difference is so huge. So this would definitely not be affordable for me and to a lot of people from outside.
I come to RUclips to avoid subscriptions. Or rumble when a creator can’t post to RUclips due to the censors. Why TF would I pay for what was once free, and only get their uploads, vs actual subscriptions that give you an endless library of content?
I feel like youtubers are always trying to convince you that they're struggling and need more money but then Charlie is just like "nah we make tons of money lol"
@@arandomtryhard9953It depends on your content. Some people have more monetizable content such as education or light entertainment. A 30 minute education video that gets 1,000,000 views could make upwards of $20,000 without sponsorship or anything, so they can get away with rare uploads and still be VERY well off as an individual or small group.
The fact they made a show where Shane and Ryan sit around a campfire, get drunk and read ghost stories to each other, which made near 2 million views, and they STILL think they need high end productions on everything they make is insane. People showed up for the personalities, not for the flashy sets and locations. There's no way they didn't realize this, that's absolutely insane.
FAN SUBMITTED!!! GHOST STORIES. they also have are you scared which is, again, FAN SUBMITTED horror stories. They literally built their brand off the backs of their fans
IT'S SO STUPID. I've been a fan of them since the initial run Of Unsolved Season 3! SEASON 3! We literally don't give a shit about production quality, we care about the dynamic between Ryan and Shane. Nobody fucking cares about Steven Lim and you can see that simply with the views on their respective shows!
its WILD creators have been talking about how difficult it is to make money off youtube for YEARS due to the censorship,etc and yall are still acting like 2 million views on a video gets you mr beast money or something.
Shane and Ryan are such personality based creators that they do not need a flashy 25 person crew to make engaging content, if they sat in an empty room with a webcam and talked they'd still get hella views
their scary story segment started with like the most low budget looking setup ever, just them two in their homes in a dark room with their computer screens lighting their faces. and people ate it up as they should, good fucking content came from that
@@ShearGenius88 yeah i think covid was the main reason why they were separated and extremely low budget, but just like a plain room with dim ambient lighting would literally be enough for a spooky story reading.
Read a comment that said "if I wanted a mfer with a tesla to call me broke, I'd just go on twitter" and that's the only good thing to come out of this whole ordeal
Not only was the subscription thing a shock, but in the previous video we were told we could share a password. So a lot of us did that, Then suddenly the website updated and told us that we could only stream on three devices at once. It felt like an additional punch to the gut.
one of the most heartbreaking things is one of the comments on the watcher video is someone saying how they watched the season finale for ghost files while in line at the food bank. $6 for content is fucking insane
This makes me sick. How betrayed would that person have felt watching that video? They had this place they came to for a little entertainment amidst all their struggles. Suddenly, these people who you thought were nice and genuine decide to spit in your face by making a statement like "we can all afford $6!", when that amount of money could potentially feed you for multiple days, if not a week. Absolutely disgusting.
On their podcast, Steven literally talks about how he's currently renovating his home, ordering a monthly pest control, and getting gwenyth paltrow's goop salads grubhub-ed to him daily at work.. like did he not think we realized that he's nowhere near struggling
Im telling you this is the same shit in every industry. No one in their right mind who majes something great for themselves is suddenly going to give it away to someone else. Its actually not "fair" when you look into it. We pay higher subscriptions for content in which the ceo can make a 100 million dollar bonus. You can yell at the top of your lungs that that is unfair and the subscription should cost less but the CEO made that money BECAUSE you are paying for it. Simply put, as it is in many industries, if you want change, don't pay for it.
Honestly, that Podcast made move from indifference about Silver Spoon Steven to full blown hate. That boy is so insanely inept and tone deaf. Those pods are so cringe. All their global vacations, the money they are blowing, the gold leaf food, the special caviar.. that Pod left me feeling so icky.
craziest thing is nobody ever asked them to invest in some high-end studios, we only want 2 chairs in a room, shane and ryan, talking ab paranormal stuff...
Unfortunately they aren’t thinking about us. They’ve always talked about how THEY want to make more highly-produced stuff. They either are completely oblivious or actively ignoring what viewers say they like about their content
In Chile Disney+; Star+ and another platform that I don't remember have an agreement with the MercadoLibre There are 3 streaming platforms for 7 dollars plus discounts on MercadoLibre😅
Also something to remember: Watcher’s fanbase tends to skew on younger side (a la broke college student), and one of the members, Shane, has been very vocal on his disdain for like major companies and a very much “eat the rich” mentality. This whole thing just feels like a slap to the face of a majority of their audience (a lot of whom are struggling to make ends meet) and complete hypocrisy.
Only said eat the rich when he was ready to ditch buzzfeed in the hopes for more profit then when they realized oh shit we cant make worse content and get 30 million views every video still they turn to a subscription model lmao
The worst for me is that people already on their patreon do NOT get free access - they get a discount. So they are being asked to pay TWICE for one channel
Now that is scummy. As someone who knows nothing about the channel but, and this is an unpopular opinion, can understand how they would want more income for bigger and better projects, that makes sense. If it were me, I would keep those projects separate from the the stuff already being published on YT, but I'd get it. But having a Patreon should already be the subscription based product. And to make those people pay twice? All understanding flew out the window.
i think in the apology video that they said that Patreon supporters will get a free code for the site Edit: "All current Patreon members will receive a free subscription code to the platform. If you've already purchased a subscription, please contact us and we will issue you a full refund." not sure how much i trust this, but im definitely interested to see how they handle everything
Geez, talk about ungrateful. These guys are extremely out of touch with their fans to pull that wool over their eyes. "Pay to support us, but also pay us again if you want to keep watching our stuff, because it's no longer free!" I'm glad I never heard of them before, because I'd be so disheartened if a channel I cared about tried pulling a stunt like this
No it isn't, idk where you getting this info. A lot of people who are living in paycheck-to-paycheck still buy subscriptions like Netflix, gym membership, etc. Which means they see it as affordable and beneficial. The problem is that their content is just not worth 6 dollars. Literally I can find better RUclipsrs than them with high quality production that can make videos way better than them FOR FREE.
@@lenny7822 uh actually ,yes it is...... I was homeless for three years living in a damn flea bit hotel with twin little girl's in tow up till a year ago. So yes there are some people who don't have Netflix or 50 subscriptions or cable tv or buying $12 cups of Starbucks every day there are those of us that don't have any of that because we have to feed our kids we quite litt live on youtube because its free at least till I am on my feet !
@@lenny7822 The people scraping by and having to fight between eating or not eating are definitely not paying for subscriptions. You're comparing two different kinds of people. I definitely can't afford food if I subscribe to anything. Lol
@@lenny7822you're so fucking out of touch you're comparing people who don't have disposable income to those who can't afford to buy groceries and rent so they pay rent and go to bed hungry.
Things I, a broke college student, can buy for six dollars: -Six-twelve (depending on where I go) bags of microwave Mexican rice. SIX TO TWELVE MEALS. -A printing pass good for 60 copies. -A small box of pads. -twelve packs of notecards -my shampoo and conditioner -overnight shipping for a textbook -student doordash -student paramount for myself and my friend, with all of our favorite tv shows (we are scifi nerds). -one to five novels that are required reading depending on what thrift store I go to -access to an academic paper Six dollars is not “nothing” for a lot of people, especially those who are part of their viewer base.
this is completely unrelated to your comment but you should pirate academic papers, researchers don't get paid for their articles it's literally just journals ripping people off
It's not for international viewers. Even Netflix and Prime only costs 2.76 USD without any ads and with HBO charging 1.72 USD, it's wild for Watcher to charge $6 + tax when that's the kind of market they're competing with, with so little to offer.
6 bucks is what I pay for my family's youtube premium subscription (converted from my currency). That's ad-free access to ALL channels on this site for the same price a month for 5 individual accounts. That price is ridiculous but a lot of the big creators have been moving behind paywalls these past few years.
@@Delandus Fr... Like, why not just promote their Patreon?? I've been watching them since 2017 and didn't even know they had one. They also have sponsors on every video, and their merch sells well. So yeah, this just makes no sense to me.
I'll say it - I preferred the Unsolved format they had when they worked at Buzzfeed. It was low-budget and what drew people in was the chemistry between Ryan and Shane acting like a Mulder and Scully 2.0 for true crime / paranormal investigations and cases.
THIS. I felt bad about saying it before but I don’t now. Ghost Files is boring and the spark is long gone, Unsolved was 10x better and I miss it so much.
It worked better at Unsolved because Ryan played the straight man who got scared at a moment's notice while Shane played the goofy side character. Now they're both the goofy side character.
Yeah.. i still like the watchers true crime series and the "discussion in a basement" concept of it, but ghost files doesnt hit the same as unsolved but I couldnt pin down why. One of my biggest issue is the episodes are too long for nothing, not enough interesting things are happening, no funny banter, but they insist on it being a longer video where it wouldve been better to cut it shorter
“Anyone and everyone can afford it” is a crazy statement at a time like now where basically if not literally the entirety of the country is struggling to survive 💀
fam...its 6 bucks a month...80% of their viewers are commenting their hate while sipping their $7 daily starbucks... for the rest of us they literally said account sharing is fine. Get 5 friends to split and now its $1 a month...
So according to them, the production costs for a single one of their ghost hunts gets in the hundreds of thousands. Film crew, flights and lodging, editing payroll, booking locations, I can believe that the episodes get expensive. However, they seem to forget people didn’t ask for, “oh you should totally do high quality TV production stuff.” People just asked for more Ryan and Shane. The early days of buzzfeed unsolved was literally just them walking around haunted locations asking questions, very barebones stuff, and these videos have millions and millions of views. They’ve complicated things themselves.
Exactly. They're trying to up the production value for their own egos and give all their homeboys jobs, which is admirable, but not if you expect your audience to directly pay for it.
Buzzfeed was famous for unrealistically quick turnaround time and almost zero production costs. It’s nice that they’ve upped their production value, but it’s bizarre that the lesson they’ve learned from getting big on buzzfeed is to spend more and more money and screw over your audience to do it.
its something that happens to like 80-90% of youtubers. they keep wanting to expand constantly and "build a brand/business" they expand and expand, when they would keep the audience if they went back to their solo no employee style from when they started. the glint of greed and success blinds them to the reality that nobody cares. and even some viewers like myself, stop watching most of them once the production value gets so high. i want the streamer in their moms basement, not some disingenuous production company churning out crap. its why you see some channels with several million subs but only like 15k views per video
watched 'are you scared' for a long time, have been waiting for a new season so so long. Then hear they are making a new season, I get excited. Next thing I know, they are paywalling it all, including the 'are you scared'. Now I'm sad 😢😢
Not to mention they fostered a community of skeptics who question everything then expect that same community not to question their own greedy business venture?
How is it a greedy business venture when they’re trying to escape the corporate hellscape that is servicing under RUclips? RUclips fucks over creators and they want to be able to make their own rules and that requires money. Idgi don’t you want more for independent creators trying to make a name for themselves?
the watcher community would’ve supported shane and ryan until the fucking wheels fell off, we just didn’t expect them to shove us out of the car moving full speed
To be honest though we don't know the full story or who decided on what. I'm sure we'll find out soon enough but at the end of the day the CEO (Steven) deserves all the blame and backlash for this greedy decision. Ryan and Shane may have been obligated by contract to agree to whatever the CEO said or risk losing their career. I really hope so at least because that would make them total freaking posers and greedy clowns if not.
@@TheAnthonyG. oh for sure, i wasn’t meaning to sound like they’re the only ones to blame cause i have no idea what happened leading up to this moment behind the scenes- all i know is i got dumped lmao 😭
like this actually breaks my heart they have been some of my favourite youtubers since they started at buzzfeed. like i saw on tumblr: "old shane would want us to pirate it"
Fr! There is nothing that makes sense to me about puppet history being behind a paywall. The professor would give us a step by step guide to how to watch for free :(
I've heard this reaction from a ton of people: "I liked their content with Buzzfeed. It's really high quality work. I didn't know they had moved to their own channel." This tells me they never really maximized their RUclips audience so people even knew about them. And that's staying on the same platform. I'm not sure how they expected to create a whole new platform while keeping their audience.
I actually watched them on BuzzFeed and Watcher and while their production was much better on Watcher, the content was way better on BuzzFeed unsolved imo. They were still decently entertainin, but they started taking themselves way too seriously and really lost what made them special to me.
@@Clooger- they were the only good part of BuzzFeed Original Content, they ran the BuzzFeed Unsolved True Crime and Supernatural series, which had absolutely nothing to do with BuzzFeed for the most part, which made them so great
@@Clooger- Right reaction, one everyone had, and while we all ran to the hills they carried those f*ckers on their backs while not earning that much money, they are the reason why those guys are still afloat at this point, I swear.
now, idk how it's in the US but digital tv(that's what's cable it's called here) is usually paid to one provider and for a package of channels. with all the streaming services, each doing their own thing it's like paying for each channel on cable seperately and with additional costs(like Disney having people pay addition 15 or so bucks, to watch their Raya when it first came out.) and all of them being the cost of an entire package. I sincerly hope that it all crashes down bc they killed the goose laying golden eggs.
@@negligible_reality Literally anyone that's a fan of Watcher and has a brain is just going to wait until someone pays for the subscription to upload elsewhere like xhamster. It's how people watch Vlog Creation's paywall BS for free too.
I still pay for cable even though I rarely watch TV these days. If a girl wants to come over and watch any of the movie channels, they're all available. Your house has to provide 5-star hotel service if you want to get those 9s or 10s.
_"So, since y'all absolutely hated paying for even ONE cable bill... How would you like to pay for 257 BILLION cable bills instead? It's a certified steal!"_ - Corpo Suit Number 20'054 probably
@@goblinkyVariety article that Ryan shared. There you can find an edit that the guys originally told them that they're gonna delete all of the vids from youtube, but then Ryan wrote a tweet that they're not gonna do that. Also 11:40 and 12:45 on their vid - Ryan says things like - now we can access the vids on yt, but later the whole shows and new releases are gonna be available only on their site. Aaaand - they edited their own comment under the vid at least twice now. At first they said that people misunderstood them and they're not in fact gonna delete the videos. And then they deleted a word "misunderstood"
@@coinwater8511 The Variety article by Todd Spangler claims that they originally told Variety they were going to be removing the old videos, so people are guessing they changed that decision because of the backlash. There are no quotes to back up any claims, but people aren't really going to be giving the guys the benefit of the doubt right now.
"We need more money!" they cry, while their CEO drives a tesla and flies first class to different countries to make videos of himself eating thousand dollar gold leaf steak. 🙄 It's the equivalent of multi million dollar companies telling poor people to just stop getting coffee and eating avocado toast and you won't be poor anymore.
@TwiggyHetfield27 this is a good point. I see a lot of people only mentioning Steven. did he hold them at 🔫 point and make them agree to this?? we gotta question their motives in this too.
What hurts is that we never showed up for the “big production”. We just wanted more ryan and shane, and then they decided we weren’t giving them enough anymore
My favorite take from this video was " I'm not paying them to travel the world and eat food covered in gold while I can barely afford to buy organic groceries"
To be fair, watcher is also pulling back curtains. They are being transparent. Transparently greedy. Three multi-millionaires sitting on a very expensive set being filmed with expensive equipment with their 500 dollar haircuts, thousand dollar jackets sitting in antique Victorian chairs. The transparently greedy pompous image they are putting out is only missing the hairless Siamese cat being pet in a menacing fashion and a cigar.
They do not pump out enough content to be worth 5.99 a month, when streaming services with 1000x their content costs the same or a bit more, and put out new stuff everyday. What level of insane delusion and greed is this. Never expected this from Shane and Ryan, but I guess I was delusional as well
The worst part is Watcher has at least 2 shows where they literally require fan submissions to function and now theyre CHARGING for you to watch those future "seasons" of the show. So you expect me to submit something for you to use for free but i have to pay to watch? No. Theyve shown how little their fans truly mean to them :(
EXACTLY this is what people are not getting! So much of their content is based off of stuff the FANS SUBMIT and now they can’t even watch the stuff that features their content ??
The fact that they asked fans to submit new stories for the new season literally a couple days before posting their “Goodbye RUclips” video is so icky to me
yep. i’ve been working on a story for the past year to submit for an “are you scared” episode, but then the news dropped. the series was what got me into writing again and i really wanted to submit something as a thank you for that
all this subscription bullshit is getting out of hand. Most of us already pay for things like netflix, hulu, hbo etc. and on top of that youtubers and instagramers really expect people to pay for even more subscription services? its wild.
I cancelled Hulu, Netflix, Disney plus etc. I'm tired of streaming services. I've bought merchandise, subscribed etc but I'm not getting another monthly expense for entertainment. The cost of living is too high and I don't care to see my money be used for Sara rubin's 100 dollar tote bags or Stevens 300 dollar avocado toast.
It’s genuinely predatory, subscription services exists because they hope people will forget about them (they do) so they can keep charging them. And the more that exist, the harder they are to keep up with if you’re subscribed to a lot
right, and the fact that apps for simple things like mood journal, exercise, recipes, and meditation are all subscription based now. what happened to the days when there was FitnessApp Lite and then FitnessApp for $9.99, a one time purchase on the App Store to unlock all extra features.
Right, like I'm sure they all huddled in an office to watch the final video before posting it - and not a single one of them commented on that line, which is so wild to me. Maybe they didn't really pick up on it.. but I doubt it
“$5.99 is something anyone can afford” feels like that one twitch streamer that got bashed for being pissed that people weren’t subscribing to her twitch
@@peachy_lilibro she literally was going off on the people who wouldn’t buy her cookies saying they’re broke and degrading them if they don’t. Stop simping.
Who tf is actually going to remember to keep up with their website? Theres a lot of content I love that I would completely forget about if RUclips didn’t put it in front of me
And I have to add, as I see almost no one comments from this perspective, if some people struggle to pay 5.99 + every other services they pay in USA, that move was a really big *fuck you* to every fan from other, less economically avanced country, for whom those 6 dollars can be LITERALLY days of food.
6 USD IS ABOUT 100,OOO IDR in indonesia, and their minimum wage is about 29,000 an hour, which is $1.79 in USD. God forbid they have any fan in indonesia or phillipines or somewhere else that has a smaller dollar value
@@Conceptually_yours As a Filipino not living in the capital, $6 would literally get me groceries to last half or even up to an entire week if I'm the only eating it.
I cannot even begin to comprehend by what metric they thought this would be worth it. They literally spat on their audience, many of whom are already supporting their patreon, and told them to give over more money to fund their expensive cars and jet trips. This is a FineBros React World level bag fumble.
My guess is that the steven guy thought up the idea, and ryan and Shane went along with it because he's their lifelong friend. Coffeezilla made a point about his language and how it's very tech-broish, which makes me think he was the devil on their shoulder
I genuinely cannot emphasize how crazy it is that WATCHER did this. Whoever gave them this advice needs to be fired or removed from there inner circle asap
@@JackieDaytona0000idk what the point of this comment is. Like, advisors can't be adults?? Adults can't make bad financial decisions???? Watcher takes advice from children????? 🤦🏻♀️
@@JackieDaytona0000 the ceo is allegedly very money hungry. a ceo’s job is make/approve choices for the betterment of the company, so it’s kinda common sense that steven lim is responsible. even if it wasn’t his idea he signed off on it, weird. i don’t think it was an advisor that made this decision lmao
So you mean *Boring 3rd Wheel Steven LAME* ofc. He wanted to keep funding his Tesla rides to expensive restaurants even though *nobody watches his videos.* Dude's so jealous of Ryan and Shane's success that he decided to just napalm the entire company 😬
Shane and Ryan were my comfort RUclipsrs and I have watched them since I was legit a teen and now I am in university. I always said that they were the least problematic buzzfeed group and now I feel completely betrayed. I can't afford yet another service on top of everything.
@@OpalLeighI feel like this is a safe space to express myself here about Steven, never liked the guy, he really tries too hard to be funny and his "vibes" really throw off the chemistry of Ryan and Shane. Imo! He's like the obnoxious third wheel that was dragged along out of pity.
I wouldn’t call myself a fan of the whole channel. I only watch their ghost hunter show and then the follow-up videos. They are great. But I’m not paying to watch it 😂
@@peaches44 This comment section makes me so happy to know I'm not the only one who never liked Steven Lim. I came for Ryan and Shane and I always felt like Steven just kinda threw himself in there, he never really fit in and stood out like a sore thumb. It's a shame that my dislike for him is now justified due to his scumbag decisions.
In addition to calling out the rampant greed here, I’d like to thank Critikal for being upfront and transparent on some of his costs as well and revenue as well. This kind of discussion only helps workers, while hiding it helps the employer only.
And that 5.99 is in US Dollars…in some currencies that’s a shit ton of money to spend for ONE SINGLE CHANNEL. A total slap in the face for their supporters from other countries
I’m in the service industry and one thing we are told is never think for someone’s budget. Telling someone they can afford something is insulting that’s ridiculous
Feels so weird being apart of this in real-time. After watching the Watcher video, I thought to myself, “I wonder if Charlie’s gonna cover this.” Sure enough, here we are.
Wanted to add, also, for people that aren't in the community: 1. In the video, they absolutely imply that they were going to take away all videos from youtube. Also, Ryan Bergara (one of the members) told Varsity that this was their decision. After the backlash, they backpedaled; but instead of going the route of "we hear you, and we're going back on this decision", they decided to pretend that it was all a misunderstanding (also known as gaslighting: lying in a way that makes you second-guess your understanding of things). If you read the Varsity article now, they say that "originally, Bergara told Varsity that they were going to remove the videos from youtube, but now they recanted that decision" (paraphrased). 2. This announcement was hyped up as a cool, big thing for weeks. It had a countdown. For those of you who don't know, countdowns are usually used to hype up fun, new things like a new show, or a comeback of an old favorite, NOT to announce that your content is no longer free. It was EXTREMELY tone-deaf. 3. This announcement was also prefaced by them bringing back the staff of Worth-It. Worth-It was a Buzzfeed show (whose host was Steven Lim, Watcher's CEO) where they flew around the country eating extremely expensive food (think gold leaf and caviar). All of this implies that Lim wants to bring back Worth-It (which wouldn't be out of character for Watcher- They brought back Buzzfeed Unsolved Supernatural as Ghost Files, and Buzzfeed Unsolved True Crime somewhat as Mystery Files). The community is not happy with their whole discourse of "needing the money" to continue their careers when they're planning on making a show all about expensive food.
right they don't need money they just need to budget better. we ate UP buzzfeed unsolved true crime when it was a black screen with text and pictures for most of the episode. I still prefer some of that content to the new mystery files. the set is beautiful- but so unnecessary. they are also totally overhiring- which is funnily enough why buzzfeed failed. they could be so lucrative if they didn't go so extreme, it seems like they think they're above ... idk.. being youtubers.. and have unrealistic expectations of what we want to see. it sucks bc I loved them sm, I would have watched Ryan and Shane banter if it was recorded on an iPhone 4
I thoroughly enjoyed the old Unsolved crimes with the black screen and silly animations. I haven’t watched them in years. It is kind of sad they have gone in such a direction.
actually the wedding was more expensive than that 55k was on their venue alone! not to mention the bride wore at least 3 different dresses that day too. their wedding i heard estimated around 250k
@@yvonnecortes_ Shane's wife is blocking everyone on Tumblr who even dares to address this video, she made some really nasty comments that all sounded like "not my fault if you're poor and this is the best decision" when she flaunts her 100 tote bag for her honeymoon, and keep reminding us about how much she spent on her wedding. I never liked her, and now I know why.
Damn, even just RUclips premium is a couple bucks more and that's millions of videos ad free. It's insane to pay 6 bucks for one channel that isn't even producing content at least once a week.
@@plumbunnii youtube premium is literally theft you guys are wild for putting money just in youtubes pocket but complain about a creator wanting to expand their career and rake it more seriously from now on. Im so sick of people complaining if you dont wanna spend the money dont and get over it.
@@kristenmckinniss5517 YT Premium gives creators MORE money, not less. For videos with monetization enabled, creators are paid out much more per user if they are on YT Premium than if a user isn''t. The problem here isnt that people dont wanna spend money, the problem is that youtubers like themselves are taking previously free content and making it paid. If this becomes a trend for mid-sized youtubers, then it could trend to have many many channels behind a paywall.
Remember when Netflix was 6.99 and you got, just, EVERYTHING? Easier to get a job back then, too. And feed a family for a week on $100. I'm literally watching myself get older as I type.
I remember going grocery shopping with my mom, as a child, and our weekly grocery bill was always sitting around $100, and that was to feed a family of FOUR. Now my weekly groceries, alone, are roughly $70. It's absurd.
It was not easier to get a job when Netflix came out. Right now literally everywhere is hiring and they pay more than they ever have. If you're struggling it's no ones fault but their own. There's plenty of money to be had out there.
@@youtubebannedme4207You have no idea, you’re just making assumptions based on casual observation cuz you need to feel self-righteous in lieu of having any healthy self-esteem.
@@youtubebannedme4207 then why, when I was looking for a job, did I apply to so many places and no one got back to me? And the few who did rejected me, because I didn’t have enough experience to be a barista or a cashier at a pet store. If you don’t have 5 years experience in the relevant field, no one wants you, even for entry level jobs. It’s ridiculous. I did finally find a job after about 4 or so months of searching, but my boss literally told me I wasn’t her first option because I didn’t have experience ;-; Also my brother, who was a supervisor at his last job, got rejected by TARGET. For a regular cashier position. So no, it’s not easy to get a job, and you’d know that if you talked to literally anyone who has recently been or is still on a job hunt.
I think some people are being too nice to Ryan and Shane here, saying it’s almost single handedly Stephen who is wanting higher budget and funding these big videos but they’re all adults, they all must play some role in this. It is sad to see Mr “i hate capitalism” Shane Madej doing something like this but we can’t try to save their image by giving the benefit of the doubt when they don’t deserve it.
they're adults but also cofounders. so even if maybe just shane "eat the rich" Madej said no, it was still a 2:1 vote. Its a shame to see this roll out. I've been a fan since buzzfeed and am sad to see them leave and be rather tone deaf saying "its 5.99 so everyone can afford it" while in a cost of living crisis. we all start somewhere and as someone who is ~ the age shane/ryan were when they started at buzzfeed unsolved (early 20's) I'm struggling to even pay for groceries let alone save to move out, its a damn shame to see this move. The added touch of the first series they're rolling out on watcher tv being about expensive food is really, REALLY tone deaf. I'm not saying they shouldn't be allowed to bring in more profit, but they could have handled it better. I mean Keith from the try guys is eating EVERYTHING on the menu at Michelin star restaurants right now, and second try LLC defiantly has more employees than watcher, but they continue to put out FREE long form content on their channel while having their patreon and merch for profit along with sponsors. Even Good Mythical Morning is continuing to put out amazing FREE content after a decade on the internet. I just dont see the need to put all future content behind a pay wall even if they are "cool" with people password sharing so its "more accessible". The most accessible content is free content.
@@jade2014 yes exactly 🙏🙏 the entire thing is tone deaf, i am not even in america but there is cost of living crisis everywhere, i feel their fans are all young adults who are just trying to stay afloat in this economy. to say everyone should be able to afford it is just crazy ignorant, i myself am just starting university and there is no way in hell $6 a month is viable for me for what it is stephen bringing back "worth it"? this subscription service is in fact not worth it
What I think happened is a couple of things that just made them go a bit broke faster then they we're expecting. They all got married recently right? I am assuming they paid for all of their weddings with Watcher money and maybe they didn't expect the wedding bills to make they go that in debt. But I mean the wedding photos looked boujie as hell, and a small wedding is still making you pay out the ass. All their weddings looked big and hella expensive. Plus Steven has a Tesla and wants a second one and he wants his own coffee shop to run. I think Steven was hoping this service was gonna give him enough money to fulfill his wildest dreams but they all forgot that they aren't funding anything and are nothing without fans. Hope they figure this shit out or they gonna be the fry cooks at McDonald's
It's important to note that what they're doing is that they're trying to do the Dropout model, where they move their content to subscription-based for more funding and release free episodes to keep them relevant on youtube. The difference though is that Dropout is not solely one group. It's genuinely a ton of shows run by many different comedians, each with a ton of variety and flavor, alongside accessing their old content, all for free, also alongside accessing behind the scenes content as well. While Dropout's subscription is about the same price, Dropout essentially guarantees that not only are you accessing all their content, but also getting at least 4 ongoing new shows every week, and more. They guarantee more content than what you paid for. These guys aren't doing any of this, so while it's understandable why they're doing this, the way they're doing it is really poor.
plus iirc dropout started because so many people were being let go by collegehumor, them moving to dropout wasn't about making more money it actually gave stability and opportunities to a lot of comedians and artists. i got dropout for d20, which alone has 21 independent seasons featuring a huge cast, dedicated art team, customisable subtitles, audio only versions, trigger warnings with time stamps and three separate behind the scenes series. again, this is ONE show. you can see where their production budget goes because it adds significant value to their content
Yea this sounds very similar to dropout. But their context was different as you guys point out. Also, it's a huge backlog of content that dropout has. But it is the same business model, except patreon.
Long-time Watcher Patron here. A few things: - They actually have four membership tiers: $5, $10, $25, and $100. They’ll be cutting it down to three in the near future. - Patrons are getting a 40% discount on the streaming service. We’re not getting free access. - Watcher has a long history of making promises to their Patrons and not fulfilling them. If I had to guess, the issue here is that the folks at Watcher don’t know how to appropriately budget their shows. And they’d rather take a giant risk on streaming than actually rethink their production model.
I'm pretty sure Steven is the reason they can't "budget". as in, the "budget" is his pocket money and they have to try and find even more of it -- it'll never be enough.
@@peachy_lili personally, I don’t think this is the case. Ghost Files in particular is, IMO, massively overproduced. They could have canned the flashy visuals and fancy set and the audience would stick around for the ghoulboys alone, but alas, they choose to aim higher than was reasonable.
@@peachy_lilitbh I don't get why Steven is making so many of his own shows, he's not as popular as Ryan and Shane. They could have cut back on the shooting costs by cutting some of the less popular shows.
Everyone has been comparing this attempt to Dropout. Dropout is the same price per month, HOWEVER, Dropout releases 5 videos a week and have so many seasons of different shows to watch. Watcher is nowhere near big enough of a production to justify the cost.
I truly hope Dropout’s name doesn’t get even a speck of mud I LOVE DROPOUT and they even have a more affordable option on RUclips and release SO MUCH AMAZING CONTENT and every episode they share has been touched by amazing artists and set design and sound design teams it is all so worth it. They are literally the only source of media I’ve consumed all year till now and I still have an ocean left to explore.
Also dropout is $2 a month with various shows and series with already established content to look at. This is a subscription for the hope for more content
It’s worth noting that when their announcement video first launched, they absolutely were planning on paywalling their already posted RUclips content. They had already started taking down older episodes of shows that got them big like Puppet History from the Watcher channel, and it was reported by Variety, who they did an interview with that was released as part of an article on the same day that the video dropped, that this was the plan. It wasn’t until the massive backlash following the release of the “Goodbye RUclips” video that Variety claimed this was an error and that Watcher made a public statement that they were not paywalling old content. Regardless of whether you want to give them the benefit of the doubt on this or not, it’s still scummy, but to me, it really looks like they thought they could get away with paywalling the content that made them, but then they caved to the public outcry.
Variety actually called them out on that whenever they updated their article: "The company originally told Variety that Watcher would eventually remove all of its videos from RUclips... However, according to Bergara, Watcher is not fully exiting RUclips" They definitely wanted people to know that they backtracked on that decision and essentially lied to them about removing their older episodes and content.
The most out of touch thing about this is that Steven (the CEO) has a show where he travels the world to eat very expensive food. So they are literally asking their low income subscribers to pay for that show instead of multibillion dollar companies..... Oh and I forgot to mention that Steven's shows do the worst on their channel. They literally don't need a show for poorer people to watch rich people eat wildly expensive food
Yeah, I tried watching Steven's shows when I first subscribed to Watcher, but I never liked him. He just didn't have the same charisma and entertainment value as Ryan and Shane. I think Steven is just an out of touch tech bro honestly, he used all the big tech bro buzzwords when describing their shitty streaming service.
This. They’re having money/production issues? Gee, wonder what series they could stop that would save them hundreds, if not THOUSANDS of dollars with meals, travel, and production that was never the biggest draw for the channel?
Right? I was super confused how he went from that awkward bartender dude behind the scenes to CEO..........like dude respectfully we're not here for you.
“Anyone and everyone can afford” I’m a broke ass college student who can barely afford FOOD, much less a streaming service. I’m so upset. I loved their content.
@@chrislevack405..... You know people can save up for vacations and trips or get taken there by their parents as a gift or something????? doesn't mean they have money. My parents took me to Disney when i was 19 and then had me figure out myself how to afford to eat when i started college a month later
@@chrislevack405 you do realize once every few years or so vacations are a thing?? Or even went with friends or family??? What a stupid comment and assumption to make about someone just bc they're at an amusement park
Within the past year my card declined for a $3 bag of chips while I was at lunch at work. It's a "low price" but when living paycheck to paycheck it a big deal.
bro if you cant afford it than spend it on yourself its that easy. its not the end of the world because a show is now being behind a pay wall everyone in the comments are just stupid
The main issue is Steven - their ceo. That guy was never popular compared to shane and ryan and recently has been pushing a show where he travels the world and spends ridiculous sums of money on food and international trips. Its really bad and frankly he should step down.
it was always these two so when a dude you don't know gets involved its weird you know? and its not like mr bartender on the show, he's himself and not that present, but steven is always kinda there, no? like if you're gonna bring a third party, they should be involved? like trixie mattel and her editor, its not a fake relationship, he's not just there once.
I’d like to point out re their back catalogue, they’ve totally changed their story. Their article with Variety now says ‘The company originally told Variety that Watcher would eventually remove all of its videos from RUclips’. They were totally going to remove it. This is fire fighting plain and simple
@@gaygayhomosexualgay5858 maybe. It’s the article Ryan linked to on x. It’s after one of those ads that take up the whole screen so you think it’s the end of the article. I just checked and it’s still there.
The fact that Charlie recognizes 6 dollars can even be a financial burden on people these days is all the more reason to love his Charlie brain and thoughts
They say that $5.99 a month isn't a lot while people are literally canceling their heath insurance because they can't afford it while also paying for rent. food, and other more important insurances.
Yeah while they also buy their cigarettes and energy drinks and weed and whatever else. $6 is not a lot, for anyone, full stop. That said, asking everyone to pay for your content when you make youtube videos is never gonna go well. There will never be a youtuber who can get away with that. It is absolutely not a problem with being able to afford it, it's the principle.
I have to hand it to the people of the Watcher community. The comments section for that announcement was blunt but respectful in explaining why they could not support the decision. I saw the video yesterday, and the disappointment was high. Whoever told them that people could afford any more cost is an idiot.
I agree, I saw most people point out that they've stayed because they enjoy the chemistry between them and that the high production value just made things more complicated, and wasn't what anybody wanted. It was giving "I'm not mad, i'm just disappointed" energy. I think if they listen to the fans and back track quickly enough, the criticism will remain towards the decision itself rather than them as people. And if so, maybe it will become this self aware inside joke like "lets forget how bad we fucked up". Only time will tell.
the attitudes in the comments on that video were of genuine disappointment and betrayal and it's insane how gently everyone was able to get that across. with the way the internet is you'd expect some insane shit. really shows the quality of the fanbase they built up and how much it sucks that they fumbled that this fucking badly
Yeah, really shows how much the fans love them (Shane and Ryan). A lot of us were basically raised by those two. The whole fan base migrated to Watcher after they left buzzfeed and gave them so much support when they started their company. This whole thing is such a big slap in the face.
The fact that they’re charging for fan submissions is CRAZY. I’m almost 100% sure that the segments that rely on the audience for content are all going to fail miserably. I just don’t understand why they ever thought this would be a good idea
RUclipsrs like jacksfilms who take fan submissions for genuine fan interaction and shoutouts I really respect. Charging for it, when it's giving YOU content, is absolutely stupid
@@geegeezlouis86 Well in Too Many Spirits they rate a few short stories submitted by fans, while in Are You Scared series they read one horror anecdote per video, some of them are usually from horror subreddit, and some other are original works written by the fans. If they continue these series in their streaming service thingie, technically the fans have to pay to see their own work, no?
@@geegeezlouis86 for example, my favorite series is Are You Scared. They need recommendations and independent writers so that they can fulfill the series, which is part of the reason why I like it so much. IMO, Are You Scared is the simplest series, and there's no way I'm gonna pay 6 bucks to watch like 5 stories, unless I'm just that desperate for that content (which I'll admit, is possible, and I'm thinking that they're hoping people will crack under the same circumstances).
@@geegeezlouis86 the show ghost files and too many spirits take fan submissions and make content off it The og comment here just made me realise that this decision of theirs is even stupider.... Where are they gonna get the fan submissions if there's no fans 😂 jokes aside like think of it, what if I submit content but i cant watch the episode I'm in because i need to pay for it...
@@clmxxxviii im a charlie viewer, probably for longer than you have been, ive never spent a cent on anybody other than myself in my entire life, like what the fuck are you talking about LOL💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀
The irony is that this has already been done. One of the big selling points of cable was no ads. Then cable got greedy and did ads anyway. Then streaming was no ads. Now streaming has gotten greedy, and ads are there unless you pay more. What do you think will happen if Watcher TV doesn't meet it's revenue goals after a couple of years? Did someone say ADS!?? What a novel concept; but of course, if you pay a smidge more (which everyone can afford) then you can be ad free again. JFC.
@@MrKrk221988patreon I’m most peoples eyes is a way to both get exclusive content while also SUPPORTING a creator they like. I have a Netflix subscription because I want the exclusive and consolidated content I don’t give a single shit about supporting Netflix as a company I just want the content. That’s the difference between patreon and regular subscription services
@@MrKrk221988 because it guilt trips people into supporting richer people. They all do it. "your subs keep us going" "we need your help" "ad revenue isnt cutting it anymore". theres 1000s of way to say it, but the end result is the same. People with money guilt tripping people with less money into paying for things they dont need.
@@MrKrk221988 Depends. Patreon for the most part is being used as a donation kind of platform for some people, platform for paid services for some freelancers, and as you said, subscription service. It's not inherently paid subscription because you can always post stuff without locking it behind a tier.
@@MrKrk221988 Its because after covid, people subs to bunch alot of things and some of them forgot to turn it off. Oh trust me yep they are. Its goin to the point the market are saturated right now and normal people also get Fatigue of subs. I even stop Apple Subs for RUclips subs. Not only its handy but also bigger in scope. A niche cult like using patreon might be good, but its not as easier than just subs in youtube. Subs Fatigue is real.
Subscriptions are starting to remind me of school when I had homework. I had teachers who would say, "My homework shouldn't take longer than an hour," and then I had 5 more classes with homework.
Me in college when professors say "You should spend 2 hrs on this subject every day" like I don't have 4 other classes and other activities and a life outside of school
Not to mention this immediately followed the announcement of a Worth It reboot, where Steven travels and eats the most expensive meals he can find. We’re expected to pay for this man’s dinner now.
That's actually a good point. And id bet money, 5 bucks I'm not spending on a subscription, that this was Steven's idea. He usually is the financial planner.....Boy just misses eating gold.
Even dumber, gold doesn't taste like anything. And texture-wise it's like leaving a thin piece of foil on your food. So you're paying this guy to eat expensive, shiny foil so you can watch it.
Also. It would have been different, if the show was about seeking out hidden gems of restaurants -- lesser known or underrated chefs. But instead, actively seeking out the most expensive food for content, while still asking patrons for money? Yeesh. I always felt uncomfortable about the "I made a $4000 steak for XYZ celebrity" videos. Anyone can use expensive crap in food. How about making amazing food on a reasonable budget, and showcase ingenuity, or skill? Nope. M O N E Y.
@@elhazthorn918 he wants us to pay him, to be the guy who gets to eat useless overpriced shit. and he looked us in the face and asked us to accept that deal.
Something I haven't seen people mention is they've been doing a tour recently that's SOLD OUT. Not only is that more revenue for them, but what baffles me is their timing because they're in the middle of said tour. They literally have a show in London coming up and a part of the show is a live Q&A. I don't know if they originally thought people would be excited and that's why they dropped this bomb beforehand to answer questions about their "exciting" departure from RUclips but needless to say I would be shitting bricks right now if I were them cause fans are 100% going to bring up their disappointments to their faces.
Oh nooooooooooooo9o goddamnit why would they do this??? So suddenly?????? Are Ryan and Shane high all the time and blindly going along with Stevens ideas like what the heck even
the craziest part about this as someone whose been watching them for years is they keep making new series and shows that no one asked for. they make something good then abandon it, only to come out with something new that no one watches out of enjoyment. ive seen so many people admit they only watch some shows out of support for the company. it’s interesting that they suddenly drop this streaming service and then announce steven lim’s new show where he travels the world to eat fancy food. large majority of their audience did not follow them from buzzfeed for that, we dont care about steven lim’s show and dont want to pay for it
Steven Lim has always been super out of touch with both an inferiority and superiority complex at the same time. Who the hell wants to watch a Steven Lim show? I can barely stand him when he’s with two of my favorite “creators”. Well, at least formerly favorite. It was bad enough already before I found out all the money they’re making off of pattern, let alone advertising bucks. Mr. Lim was perfectly fine with gambling the careers of Ryan and Shane if it meant making more money and having more control. They had to have thought it’d be worth it to alienate 92% of their viewers if it means they could constantly milk the teets of their most staunch supporters. The hubris of it all is astonishing!
yup, i wanted to support them so i occasionally watched a video that looked decent like the boysenberry festival food ep at Knotts, but i loved the Unsolved true crime stuff which they stopped p much immediately after leaving Buzzfeed even tho it was very popular
I really never got on board after they left BuzzFeed. I know they had to make changes because of copyright etc but it never had the same feel. The older stuff was more casual and easy going. the more production value they put into it the less fun it was.
Exactly. I started watching those fools when they were doing voice over PowerPoints about ghost lore and aimlessly wandering around in the woods with a camera. I don’t need much more than that. I could give a fuck less about wagyu or whatever Steven lim brings to the table.
I want to think that this came from a place of "We don't want to have to take sponsor deals anymore cause we don't really believe in any of them." BUT It was so terribly executed. There are so many other content services that just give extras rather than take things away.
And also, now that they’ve backpedaled, I wouldn’t be surprised to see some of those old sponsors drop them. If I was buying ad space from them before, I know I’d be like “Oh so you’re too good for my ads now? Guess I’ll go give my money to someone who actually wants it.”
The worst part is their latest season was the highest production but in terms of actual content, it was really low effort and the stars of the shows did not try very hard. So they made the worst season of their most popular show and then decided to put the next season behind a paywall.
I felt that way too; it's like their newest releases for Ghost Files specifically pale in comparison to the old Buzzfeed Unsolved Supernatural videos *gasp* even if they were made on a smaller budget. The newer episodes definitely feel overproduced and lacking actual substance. It's not why a lot of people followed them in the first place, but they've decided that the "quality" of production overpowers the dedication of their long-term fans I guess.
It feels like their heart isn’t in it anymore. Which is fine - they’re getting older, gotten married, maybe ready to start families. They specifically talked about making shows that they aren’t in. But people aren’t watching their channel for other people; it’s for them specifically. Maybe they should have decided to move on instead of doing whatever it is they’re doing if they feel burnt out. Leave with some dignity and not piss off the fanbase that kept them alive after they left Buzzfeed.
Not sure if Charlie mentioned it, but patrons also have to pay for the subscription. They only get a 40 per cent discount. So on top of the patrons , they still have to pay.
They also forget that RUclips is worldwide. USD6 is not the same value for them as to their viewers who lets say from Argentina or India that have lower conversion rates and way lower minimum wage
Loll that 345 for me dude that can buy me a week of what I pay for lunch at my school (catering at school is a whole different thing than other schools) loll that's like my biggest expense and my canva subscription
This. In the Philippines, $6 is roughly PHP340 - in certain parts of the country, that's like an entire day's allowance (public transportation, lunch, snacks).
Ive been watching the boys since the very first buzzfeed unsolved episode. Disappointed doesn’t begin to explain my feelings towards this. I feel like Ryan and Shane could literally record themselves just doing their old true crime content instead of just paranormal stuff and save all the money they apparently are losing because I still just go back and watch those old episodes. Steven becoming the ceo for watcher was their biggest mistake.
@@agnieszkaadamkiewicz4747 agreed! sad to see them ruin their name with this awful decision but i really hope they figure out that their audience is there for them, not the amount of money they spend!
They’ve now released an apology video lol… but let me comment on one more thing people have been keen to mention on the video: the exchange rate in certain currencies for USD is shit, meaning that international viewers would be paying a lot more in order to buy the $7 subscription. They really did not give a fuck about anyone when they made that decision, now they’re backtracking but I for one will not think of them the same way.
6 dollars in my country would let me eat good food 6 times also i completely agree with not being able to think of them the same way. hell, i couldnt even bring myself to watch their apology video
@@e.vanl.I think most fans gonna record it and blast it on Twitter or Tumblr anyway, so heads up. But I've also heard most of the fans are contemplating whether to get a refund for the show. So yeah, this whole ordeal is sad
@@dragonayre-00 some people might not even be able to get a refund because the venue may not be accepting refund requests, I've seen someone mention the theater one of their shows was going to be at, that they were going to go to, said since the start they were not going to be giving refunds
@@curtisss That just shows that you lack a brain too. Die hard fans, looking forward to the next game, disappointed at not getting an update and you try to make it their fault? Yeah, no.
That is the definition of fumbling the bag. I studied media with a buisness focus for my master and one of the things that is *burnt* into my mind is: Media is consumer-driven, not creator-driven, your audience decides your format for you, anything else will feel like a "breach of trust" and closely tied to that: KNOW your audience. This is a PERSONALITY-first RUclips Channel not a production company, the hosts carry the content through parasocial attachment. This is SCORCHED EARTH now, the trust is broken and it is done. They hit self-destruct on their channel. This went against anything you would learn in a modern media buisness course.
@@KRAKENKRYPTED Oh yes! At least *modern* courses. I even teach a bit myself here and there. Through media fragmentation people have way more choice which greatly increases their power in supporting and forming content (which is a good thing!) and through easily accessible social media, like Charlie's channel, people are way more in charge and capable of questioning "Hey, this is weird, right? Anyone else?" therefor band together against bad decissions and making their voices heard. The modern communicaton model "empowers" the receiver of a message to respond directly, instant feedback was not a thing in the past like that. So the power of the consumer and their improved media literacy is one thing, the other: Subscription models are OUT. Because 1. There are too many of them, 2. Through bad experiences, debt from loosing subscriptions out of sight, lost media and events like the pandemic people "rediscovered" the value of full ownership. Through the past few years people's desire for security greatly improved. The competiton anywhere is SO huge nowadays due to low "entrance barriers" that your stuff has to be consumer-friendly (as it should be!). So yea, be mad, speak out, do not give money to those buisness models! Companies will have to reconsider sooner or later. "My goal is to print money" does not work anymore, you actually have to care, on average people became *really* smart in the last two decades, they see through the BS.
@@kosmosXcannon One of the things I always try to convey is: Dont maximize income, maximize happiness/entertainment and then communicate *honestly* ...People who really like you will understand a statement along the lines of "Hey, guys. We love creating content with our friends and for our friends. It just gets increasingly expensive and we dont really know where to go from here at this pace, but we want to hear your voice too as we would not be here without you all: Could you guys imagine supporting a more expensive series through patreon or extended cuts or should we scale back some production value? We are open to any ideas". Include the audience, they know that it is hard out there, inflation and all. No sugar-coating. If the "issue" is just wanting to own a bigger sportscar and not actually keep the show going the wrong person is in charge...as often is the case. :/ A good company-to-consumer relationship should not need a slimey monetization model because the users actually have an own *agency* to keep it going: Liking the people involved and their content. Watcher would have easily fit this description. So yea, they straight up fumbled it, people *would* have helped them.
Huh, if only most media companies learned that. Then maybe Marvel wouldn't need Deadpool to save them and American comics wouldn't be digging themselves a hole.
This comment on their video really paints the picture:
"Netflix is $6.99 a month, Disney+, $7.99. Prime Video, $8.99. And you're asking $5.99 a month!... most people have to choose between the three. Do you really think you're in the same league as the big streaming giants?"
On top of that, these companies have bundles.
Disney Plus and Hulu along with ESPN are all bundled together
Netflix is bundled with some cell phone brands so as long as you have a phone you also have Netflix.
Obviously prime video is bundled with prime shopping which a lot of people use.
Watcher is bundled with nothing
Yup and those are just the rates with ads, those services get a lot more expensive if you dont want ads, and I wouldnt be surprised if watcher will be the same, with 5.99 being the "base package"
YT Premium is $23/mo. Why would I pay to watch the same content on another service?
If people were smart they would get access to a plex server with it all for like 2bucks a month lol
ikr no offense guys but comparison wise you are a small child in the streaming world and you don't have a hope of EVER competing with Disney Netflix or prime
'$6.99 is affordable' is giving highschool teacher energy of 'it's only 1 hour of homework' when you have 4-5 other teachers saying the same thing
exactly this!!
TRULYY
Another thing is that most people don’t even think about this outside this country. My monthly paycheck is 180 in dollars, since the money value difference is so huge. So this would definitely not be affordable for me and to a lot of people from outside.
And minimum wage is still $7.25 in quite a few states…
@@BusinessSkrub No one is saying that you absolute goofball.
i saw one of the comments on that video was "the old shane would want us to pirate it" which is so valid and true
I'm sure the current Shane does too lol
Did you notice him smirking through the whole video? He knows this is going down in flames. A TORRENT of backlash is coming.
Real
I’m pretty sure he advocated for people to share passwords after the discussion of the price there at the end. Whatever, it’s disappointing all around
I come to RUclips to avoid subscriptions. Or rumble when a creator can’t post to RUclips due to the censors. Why TF would I pay for what was once free, and only get their uploads, vs actual subscriptions that give you an endless library of content?
I feel like youtubers are always trying to convince you that they're struggling and need more money but then Charlie is just like "nah we make tons of money lol"
PREACH
The more successful ones are undoubtedly earning enough, smaller channels, before the algorithm blesses them, do struggle a bit
I mean penguinz0 is INSANELY rich a lot of RUclipsrs aren't I would say most fs
@@arandomtryhard9953It depends on your content. Some people have more monetizable content such as education or light entertainment. A 30 minute education video that gets 1,000,000 views could make upwards of $20,000 without sponsorship or anything, so they can get away with rare uploads and still be VERY well off as an individual or small group.
I constantly underestimate how stinking rich big RUclipsrs are. I love Charlie for being one of the few honest ones.
The fact they made a show where Shane and Ryan sit around a campfire, get drunk and read ghost stories to each other, which made near 2 million views, and they STILL think they need high end productions on everything they make is insane. People showed up for the personalities, not for the flashy sets and locations. There's no way they didn't realize this, that's absolutely insane.
FAN SUBMITTED!!! GHOST STORIES. they also have are you scared which is, again, FAN SUBMITTED horror stories. They literally built their brand off the backs of their fans
@@blakewhite3131im pretty sure that the stories from are you scared are all from reddit not from fans
@@sleepsleep2 at first it was from reddit like russian sleep experiment and smile dog. But the newer season is a fan submitted
IT'S SO STUPID. I've been a fan of them since the initial run Of Unsolved Season 3! SEASON 3! We literally don't give a shit about production quality, we care about the dynamic between Ryan and Shane. Nobody fucking cares about Steven Lim and you can see that simply with the views on their respective shows!
its WILD creators have been talking about how difficult it is to make money off youtube for YEARS due to the censorship,etc and yall are still acting like 2 million views on a video gets you mr beast money or something.
Shane and Ryan are such personality based creators that they do not need a flashy 25 person crew to make engaging content, if they sat in an empty room with a webcam and talked they'd still get hella views
They used to basically do that essentially, with cuts to literal black screens with text of their conversation. It was peak content in a way.
their scary story segment started with like the most low budget looking setup ever, just them two in their homes in a dark room with their computer screens lighting their faces.
and people ate it up as they should, good fucking content came from that
yes!! The first season of Are You Scared - it was SO GOOD that way! I wish they still did it like that
@@ShearGenius88THE WRATH OF A THOUSAND CHIHUAHUAS ARE NOW APON YOU!!!!!
@@ShearGenius88 yeah i think covid was the main reason why they were separated and extremely low budget, but just like a plain room with dim ambient lighting would literally be enough for a spooky story reading.
Read a comment that said "if I wanted a mfer with a tesla to call me broke, I'd just go on twitter" and that's the only good thing to come out of this whole ordeal
My parents said if I reach 10k, they'd buy me a professional camera for recording... Pls guys Im
literally begging you.
Who asked. My content is far better lol...
Who asked. My content is far better lol...
Who asked. My content is far better lol...
I'm upset that they left but it is understandable and I hope they do well.
Not only was the subscription thing a shock, but in the previous video we were told we could share a password. So a lot of us did that, Then suddenly the website updated and told us that we could only stream on three devices at once. It felt like an additional punch to the gut.
This isn't being said enough.
Tbf three screens at once for one account is pretty decent.
@@StephenNgo-sw7ty that's not the point
@@dacorsiiiiwhat... *Is* the point?
How many friends do you have that are all watching at the same
Time
Lmao
one of the most heartbreaking things is one of the comments on the watcher video is someone saying how they watched the season finale for ghost files while in line at the food bank. $6 for content is fucking insane
God that is so sad.
This makes me sick. How betrayed would that person have felt watching that video?
They had this place they came to for a little entertainment amidst all their struggles.
Suddenly, these people who you thought were nice and genuine decide to spit in your face by making a statement like "we can all afford $6!", when that amount of money could potentially feed you for multiple days, if not a week.
Absolutely disgusting.
Not 6 dollar's it's 6.99 (that 7 dollars) we need to stop rounding down to x, when we see x.99 instead we need to think x+1
Yep, years of being homeless I held onto hope by watching the boys on my phone. Guess no one is immune to greed or shitting on their fans.
@@austinschwartz7424the actual price is $5.99, i just rounded up :)
On their podcast, Steven literally talks about how he's currently renovating his home, ordering a monthly pest control, and getting gwenyth paltrow's goop salads grubhub-ed to him daily at work.. like did he not think we realized that he's nowhere near struggling
Also the Tesla and his $300 matcha machine...
Im telling you this is the same shit in every industry. No one in their right mind who majes something great for themselves is suddenly going to give it away to someone else. Its actually not "fair" when you look into it. We pay higher subscriptions for content in which the ceo can make a 100 million dollar bonus. You can yell at the top of your lungs that that is unfair and the subscription should cost less but the CEO made that money BECAUSE you are paying for it.
Simply put, as it is in many industries, if you want change, don't pay for it.
Don’t forget his Tesla and his food show where he eats the most expensive food possible 🙄
@@carontorliak2760 oh and I absolutely will not be paying for it
Honestly, that Podcast made move from indifference about Silver Spoon Steven to full blown hate. That boy is so insanely inept and tone deaf. Those pods are so cringe. All their global vacations, the money they are blowing, the gold leaf food, the special caviar.. that Pod left me feeling so icky.
craziest thing is nobody ever asked them to invest in some high-end studios, we only want 2 chairs in a room, shane and ryan, talking ab paranormal stuff...
this!!! for me, the charm of unsolved was their funny banter. i always go back to unsolved bc i don't see the charm in the watcher content
Yeah, i think i would have been fine with the low budget set again.
Let's not forget about Puppet History. Add a third chair and a set for the professor please
@@Midnight0Mistress literally. no one would’ve been mad. we watched for YOU!
Unfortunately they aren’t thinking about us. They’ve always talked about how THEY want to make more highly-produced stuff. They either are completely oblivious or actively ignoring what viewers say they like about their content
Disney Plus with MEGA franchises such as MCU and StarWars are only charging $8.99USD with promotions of the first 3 months free…let that sink in…
You know you’re greedy when fucking DISNEY has more rational and affordable pricing.
@@superflashyariel3835 😂😂😂😂 I mean DISNEY. The company who is the best candidate to win an irl Monopoly game
@@superflashyariel3835 This.
In Chile Disney+; Star+ and another platform that I don't remember have an agreement with the MercadoLibre There are 3 streaming platforms for 7 dollars plus discounts on MercadoLibre😅
and they are still not making a proffit on d+.
Also something to remember: Watcher’s fanbase tends to skew on younger side (a la broke college student), and one of the members, Shane, has been very vocal on his disdain for like major companies and a very much “eat the rich” mentality. This whole thing just feels like a slap to the face of a majority of their audience (a lot of whom are struggling to make ends meet) and complete hypocrisy.
Only said eat the rich when he was ready to ditch buzzfeed in the hopes for more profit then when they realized oh shit we cant make worse content and get 30 million views every video still they turn to a subscription model lmao
Did we expect anything other then blatant hypocrisy from former Buzzfeed employees?
Never trust a commie.
That explains why he avoids mirrors; he sees himself on a dinner plate.
"Eat the Rich" mentality?
You probably mean an "Eat the Richer than me" mentality
The worst for me is that people already on their patreon do NOT get free access - they get a discount. So they are being asked to pay TWICE for one channel
Bro they don’t give it to their patrons automatically?💀 what a slap in the face to them
Now that is scummy. As someone who knows nothing about the channel but, and this is an unpopular opinion, can understand how they would want more income for bigger and better projects, that makes sense. If it were me, I would keep those projects separate from the the stuff already being published on YT, but I'd get it.
But having a Patreon should already be the subscription based product. And to make those people pay twice? All understanding flew out the window.
i think in the apology video that they said that Patreon supporters will get a free code for the site
Edit: "All current Patreon members will receive a free subscription code to the platform. If you've already purchased a subscription, please contact us and we will issue you a full refund."
not sure how much i trust this, but im definitely interested to see how they handle everything
Geez, talk about ungrateful. These guys are extremely out of touch with their fans to pull that wool over their eyes. "Pay to support us, but also pay us again if you want to keep watching our stuff, because it's no longer free!" I'm glad I never heard of them before, because I'd be so disheartened if a channel I cared about tried pulling a stunt like this
Now that's horrible move , like what?? Dude the patron should get free because their already backing
It's really refreshing to see someone as big and well off as Charlie, still able to still recognize $6 month is a big ask of people.
Facts. Man is still humble even after all his success.
Hope he stays this way forever… pls be for the people 😭
Crazy I just now commented the same thing before I seen your comment. Nice to see Frfr
@@thecov3n the starforgesystem drama definitely wasn't "for the people"
Ya, coz like what even? Steven goes off saying $6 is nothing.. Ya to him prolly. That's enough for the country I'm in for 1 week of groceries.
Sometimes, that $6.00 is the difference between getting to eat that day, and just not eating. $6.00 is a lot for many of us.
No it isn't, idk where you getting this info. A lot of people who are living in paycheck-to-paycheck still buy subscriptions like Netflix, gym membership, etc. Which means they see it as affordable and beneficial. The problem is that their content is just not worth 6 dollars. Literally I can find better RUclipsrs than them with high quality production that can make videos way better than them FOR FREE.
@@lenny7822Where are you getting your info?
@@lenny7822 uh actually ,yes it is...... I was homeless for three years living in a damn flea bit hotel with twin little girl's in tow up till a year ago. So yes there are some people who don't have Netflix or 50 subscriptions or cable tv or buying $12 cups of Starbucks every day there are those of us that don't have any of that because we have to feed our kids we quite litt live on youtube because its free at least till I am on my feet !
@@lenny7822
The people scraping by and having to fight between eating or not eating are definitely not paying for subscriptions. You're comparing two different kinds of people.
I definitely can't afford food if I subscribe to anything. Lol
@@lenny7822you're so fucking out of touch you're comparing people who don't have disposable income to those who can't afford to buy groceries and rent so they pay rent and go to bed hungry.
Things I, a broke college student, can buy for six dollars:
-Six-twelve (depending on where I go) bags of microwave Mexican rice. SIX TO TWELVE MEALS.
-A printing pass good for 60 copies.
-A small box of pads.
-twelve packs of notecards
-my shampoo and conditioner
-overnight shipping for a textbook
-student doordash
-student paramount for myself and my friend, with all of our favorite tv shows (we are scifi nerds).
-one to five novels that are required reading depending on what thrift store I go to
-access to an academic paper
Six dollars is not “nothing” for a lot of people, especially those who are part of their viewer base.
this is completely unrelated to your comment but you should pirate academic papers, researchers don't get paid for their articles it's literally just journals ripping people off
microwave rice is no joke I used to live on that and ramen. also fuck your college for not giving free access to academic papers
Potatoes.
I lived off potatoes and whey protein for all 4 years of college. Its an unbeatable combo
where do you live where shampoo and conditioner are only 6 dollars😭
“They went for a kick flip and ended up breaking both their ankles” is the perfect description
6 bucks is cheap for a subscription, but it’s VERY EXPENSIVE for content from a single channel 💀
It's not for international viewers. Even Netflix and Prime only costs 2.76 USD without any ads and with HBO charging 1.72 USD, it's wild for Watcher to charge $6 + tax when that's the kind of market they're competing with, with so little to offer.
Legit, on average they posted 8 videos a month (4 of those being TRAILERS). That is no where near $6 worth.
6 bucks is what I pay for netflix
6 bucks is what I pay for my family's youtube premium subscription (converted from my currency). That's ad-free access to ALL channels on this site for the same price a month for 5 individual accounts. That price is ridiculous but a lot of the big creators have been moving behind paywalls these past few years.
@@genericplantlifeplus RUclips Music, if you use it!
Saw someone say "Left buzzfeed to become buzzfeed" and honestly, real.
''You can take the boys out of Buzzfeed but you cant take Buzzfeed out of the boys''
@PWRGEUTTP Cool beans, i hope you never get a single penny out of RUclips :)
Oh thats why they look like that
@PWRGEUTTPshut up bozo
@@ImSaneeeI hope RUclips charges them atm
@PWRGEUTTPyou have one video big dog
A crossover I never wanted to see, because when Charlie covers someone it usually means they done fucked up
no.
I'm better than charlie cry about it ,,,,,,
I was so disappointed in them
It's like watching them for 7 years means absolutely nothing anymore
is it grippy
@@Delandus Fr... Like, why not just promote their Patreon?? I've been watching them since 2017 and didn't even know they had one. They also have sponsors on every video, and their merch sells well. So yeah, this just makes no sense to me.
I'll say it - I preferred the Unsolved format they had when they worked at Buzzfeed. It was low-budget and what drew people in was the chemistry between Ryan and Shane acting like a Mulder and Scully 2.0 for true crime / paranormal investigations and cases.
THIS. I felt bad about saying it before but I don’t now. Ghost Files is boring and the spark is long gone, Unsolved was 10x better and I miss it so much.
i genuinely stopped watching them shortly after they left BF lmao
@@meowmew444ghost files is just for us coping. It’s alright but it’s not the same.
It worked better at Unsolved because Ryan played the straight man who got scared at a moment's notice while Shane played the goofy side character. Now they're both the goofy side character.
Yeah.. i still like the watchers true crime series and the "discussion in a basement" concept of it, but ghost files doesnt hit the same as unsolved but I couldnt pin down why. One of my biggest issue is the episodes are too long for nothing, not enough interesting things are happening, no funny banter, but they insist on it being a longer video where it wouldve been better to cut it shorter
“Anyone and everyone can afford it” is a crazy statement at a time like now where basically if not literally the entirety of the country is struggling to survive 💀
right lol, its not even just subscription services either, like basic needs like food is way more expensive than it was 3-4 years ago
not just America, all 7 continents are struggling rn. the conversion rates are different for each country, 6 dollars is not the same thru and thru
The whole world actually is in a cost of living crisis
The world is struggling.
fam...its 6 bucks a month...80% of their viewers are commenting their hate while sipping their $7 daily starbucks... for the rest of us they literally said account sharing is fine. Get 5 friends to split and now its $1 a month...
So according to them, the production costs for a single one of their ghost hunts gets in the hundreds of thousands. Film crew, flights and lodging, editing payroll, booking locations, I can believe that the episodes get expensive. However, they seem to forget people didn’t ask for, “oh you should totally do high quality TV production stuff.” People just asked for more Ryan and Shane. The early days of buzzfeed unsolved was literally just them walking around haunted locations asking questions, very barebones stuff, and these videos have millions and millions of views. They’ve complicated things themselves.
Exactly. They're trying to up the production value for their own egos and give all their homeboys jobs, which is admirable, but not if you expect your audience to directly pay for it.
The early vids were the best
Buzzfeed was famous for unrealistically quick turnaround time and almost zero production costs. It’s nice that they’ve upped their production value, but it’s bizarre that the lesson they’ve learned from getting big on buzzfeed is to spend more and more money and screw over your audience to do it.
The entitlement in thinking asking to be paid for their output is “screwing their audience” is absolutely absurd.
its something that happens to like 80-90% of youtubers. they keep wanting to expand constantly and "build a brand/business" they expand and expand, when they would keep the audience if they went back to their solo no employee style from when they started. the glint of greed and success blinds them to the reality that nobody cares. and even some viewers like myself, stop watching most of them once the production value gets so high. i want the streamer in their moms basement, not some disingenuous production company churning out crap. its why you see some channels with several million subs but only like 15k views per video
Look at the setting.. they’re in tailored suits, expensive furniture, in a studio; just going “muehh, this is just so we can make ends meet. Muehh”
Giving big Bezos “give us extra $3 a month for no ads on prime” energy
Never watched their stuff. The first shot of the video is the Hollywood logo. That place must be costly when they live there
watched 'are you scared' for a long time, have been waiting for a new season so so long. Then hear they are making a new season, I get excited. Next thing I know, they are paywalling it all, including the 'are you scared'. Now I'm sad 😢😢
People like that made me a marxist
@@DiogenesUlyanov cringe
Not to mention they fostered a community of skeptics who question everything then expect that same community not to question their own greedy business venture?
What we should have questioned was their good nature. They are obviously just grifters.
Yeah that skeptic mindset of people actually being allowed to think was one of the reasons I liked them. It wasn't about blindly following a celebrity
How is it a greedy business venture when they’re trying to escape the corporate hellscape that is servicing under RUclips? RUclips fucks over creators and they want to be able to make their own rules and that requires money. Idgi don’t you want more for independent creators trying to make a name for themselves?
As someone who used to watch Buzzfeed Unsolved religiously, this is a HUGE disappointment
the watcher community would’ve supported shane and ryan until the fucking wheels fell off, we just didn’t expect them to shove us out of the car moving full speed
This comment is too real
We got wheeled. :(
To be honest though we don't know the full story or who decided on what. I'm sure we'll find out soon enough but at the end of the day the CEO (Steven) deserves all the blame and backlash for this greedy decision. Ryan and Shane may have been obligated by contract to agree to whatever the CEO said or risk losing their career.
I really hope so at least because that would make them total freaking posers and greedy clowns if not.
@@TheAnthonyG. oh for sure, i wasn’t meaning to sound like they’re the only ones to blame cause i have no idea what happened leading up to this moment behind the scenes- all i know is i got dumped lmao 😭
Who asked. My content is far better lol..
Looking forward to the "What happened to Watcher Entertainment?" video essays like a year from now
They’ve already started
Internet archives, Turkey Tom, Sunny v2, J aubrey, and TRO waiting in the wings be like:
Internet anarchist also
@@matthewcron8842 yeah, this is the first. not a very good essay but hey, true vulture my man
Are you kidding? SunnyV2 already made a video about this 3 days ago.
like this actually breaks my heart they have been some of my favourite youtubers since they started at buzzfeed. like i saw on tumblr: "old shane would want us to pirate it"
Fr! There is nothing that makes sense to me about puppet history being behind a paywall. The professor would give us a step by step guide to how to watch for free :(
I've heard this reaction from a ton of people: "I liked their content with Buzzfeed. It's really high quality work. I didn't know they had moved to their own channel."
This tells me they never really maximized their RUclips audience so people even knew about them. And that's staying on the same platform. I'm not sure how they expected to create a whole new platform while keeping their audience.
I actually watched them on BuzzFeed and Watcher and while their production was much better on Watcher, the content was way better on BuzzFeed unsolved imo. They were still decently entertainin, but they started taking themselves way too seriously and really lost what made them special to me.
Buzzfeed??? Fucking gross I'm out
@@Clooger- they were the only good part of BuzzFeed Original Content, they ran the BuzzFeed Unsolved True Crime and Supernatural series, which had absolutely nothing to do with BuzzFeed for the most part, which made them so great
@@Clooger- Right reaction, one everyone had, and while we all ran to the hills they carried those f*ckers on their backs while not earning that much money, they are the reason why those guys are still afloat at this point, I swear.
@@MyNameIsRow01 Fair enough
People got sick of paying for cable TV ..... so, everyone has started their own cable TV enterprise. The fucking irony.
Then people got sick of paying for subscription services and started pirating everything 🤭
now, idk how it's in the US but digital tv(that's what's cable it's called here) is usually paid to one provider and for a package of channels. with all the streaming services, each doing their own thing it's like paying for each channel on cable seperately and with additional costs(like Disney having people pay addition 15 or so bucks, to watch their Raya when it first came out.) and all of them being the cost of an entire package. I sincerly hope that it all crashes down bc they killed the goose laying golden eggs.
@@negligible_reality Literally anyone that's a fan of Watcher and has a brain is just going to wait until someone pays for the subscription to upload elsewhere like xhamster. It's how people watch Vlog Creation's paywall BS for free too.
I still pay for cable even though I rarely watch TV these days. If a girl wants to come over and watch any of the movie channels, they're all available. Your house has to provide 5-star hotel service if you want to get those 9s or 10s.
_"So, since y'all absolutely hated paying for even ONE cable bill... How would you like to pay for 257 BILLION cable bills instead? It's a certified steal!"_ - Corpo Suit Number 20'054 probably
THEY FULLY INTENTED TO TAKE DOWN ALL THEIR OLD VIDEOS. They only backtracked when they saw the backlash.
Where did they say that? Not saying I don't believe it, I just want to see what they said specifically.
That's cowardly beta behavior. A strong man stands behind his convictions, even if science and social justice groups prove him wrong.
@@goblinkyVariety article that Ryan shared. There you can find an edit that the guys originally told them that they're gonna delete all of the vids from youtube, but then Ryan wrote a tweet that they're not gonna do that.
Also 11:40 and 12:45 on their vid - Ryan says things like - now we can access the vids on yt, but later the whole shows and new releases are gonna be available only on their site.
Aaaand - they edited their own comment under the vid at least twice now. At first they said that people misunderstood them and they're not in fact gonna delete the videos. And then they deleted a word "misunderstood"
@@coinwater8511 The Variety article by Todd Spangler claims that they originally told Variety they were going to be removing the old videos, so people are guessing they changed that decision because of the backlash. There are no quotes to back up any claims, but people aren't really going to be giving the guys the benefit of the doubt right now.
Did they? I don't remember that on their video but I may have just forgotten
"We need more money!" they cry, while their CEO drives a tesla and flies first class to different countries to make videos of himself eating thousand dollar gold leaf steak. 🙄 It's the equivalent of multi million dollar companies telling poor people to just stop getting coffee and eating avocado toast and you won't be poor anymore.
This is basically why everyone is blaming Steven.
But I mean, Ryan & Shane had voices too but they choose to go along with this hair brained scheme.
@TwiggyHetfield27 this is a good point. I see a lot of people only mentioning Steven. did he hold them at 🔫 point and make them agree to this?? we gotta question their motives in this too.
@@auntiem0thmanMotives? The ONLY motive in this is to make more money. There’s no other reason to do this. Ever.
Greed is ugly, and no one likes it.
@@Frost.7xx you're right, I guess it's just weird to see people that would have told us to pirate it now acting corporate.
Damn when you put it that way, that is frustrating 🥲
What hurts is that we never showed up for the “big production”. We just wanted more ryan and shane, and then they decided we weren’t giving them enough anymore
Couldn’t have said it better
The estimated $15,000-$35,000 they would get per brand deal would absolutely change my life.
half of one of those brand deals could change my life forever lmao
That's a fourth of the cost of a brand new one bedroom flat where I live.
@@Nadia1989then move tf
Same. I'd sell my soul for 5k, just to break my lease 😅
I mean they’re a business with lots of employees lol it doesn’t just go into one of their pockets
My favorite take from this video was " I'm not paying them to travel the world and eat food covered in gold while I can barely afford to buy organic groceries"
This one comment also said "It was funny when they took Buzzfeed's money to do it, but not funny when it's our money"
Saw someone on Twitter talk about watching Ghost Files while in line for food stamps, and now they’re expected to pay $60 to do the same damn thing
Charlie breaking his OWN curtains down just to elucidate the greed brought a f*kn massive smile to my face. What a legend.
To be fair, watcher is also pulling back curtains. They are being transparent. Transparently greedy. Three multi-millionaires sitting on a very expensive set being filmed with expensive equipment with their 500 dollar haircuts, thousand dollar jackets sitting in antique Victorian chairs. The transparently greedy pompous image they are putting out is only missing the hairless Siamese cat being pet in a menacing fashion and a cigar.
They do not pump out enough content to be worth 5.99 a month, when streaming services with 1000x their content costs the same or a bit more, and put out new stuff everyday.
What level of insane delusion and greed is this. Never expected this from Shane and Ryan, but I guess I was delusional as well
The worst part is Watcher has at least 2 shows where they literally require fan submissions to function and now theyre CHARGING for you to watch those future "seasons" of the show. So you expect me to submit something for you to use for free but i have to pay to watch? No. Theyve shown how little their fans truly mean to them :(
EXACTLY this is what people are not getting! So much of their content is based off of stuff the FANS SUBMIT and now they can’t even watch the stuff that features their content ??
The fact that they asked fans to submit new stories for the new season literally a couple days before posting their “Goodbye RUclips” video is so icky to me
yep. i’ve been working on a story for the past year to submit for an “are you scared” episode, but then the news dropped. the series was what got me into writing again and i really wanted to submit something as a thank you for that
@@drizzuI They've disappointed so many people. I hope you and the other creative fans can find new motivation for writing.
@@jessicat2149
Ya, that’s incredibly gross. They will use stories from people who can’t afford to subscribe and watch their stories being told.
Remember kids, the Professor would want you to pirate WatcherTV
sup anti troll (idk who you are just wanted to say hi :D)
@@mr.lizard666 Hello friend
@@theantitroll hi
@PWRGEUTTP the wonder's of the world wide web
My parents said if I reach 10k, they'd buy me a professional camera for recording... Pls guys Im
literally begging you.
“watcher?? i can barely afford her!” that comment killed me
please do not respond to the spammers in the reply section
@PWRGEUTTPbruh you are not fighting cyber bullying when you say “THIS CONTENT FUCKING SUCKS” like stop
@boogers69420if it isn't funny to then don't reply
@@mr.lizard666it’s a bot, ignore it
@@kysellI just wanted to add that cuz I was bored, I’ve been reporting these while watching the video
🦎
all this subscription bullshit is getting out of hand. Most of us already pay for things like netflix, hulu, hbo etc. and on top of that youtubers and instagramers really expect people to pay for even more subscription services? its wild.
I cancelled Hulu, Netflix, Disney plus etc. I'm tired of streaming services. I've bought merchandise, subscribed etc but I'm not getting another monthly expense for entertainment. The cost of living is too high and I don't care to see my money be used for Sara rubin's 100 dollar tote bags or Stevens 300 dollar avocado toast.
It’s genuinely predatory, subscription services exists because they hope people will forget about them (they do) so they can keep charging them. And the more that exist, the harder they are to keep up with if you’re subscribed to a lot
Indeed before you got full tv channel for 50 now you get only a part for the same price. Even more if you buy all subscription on prime video.
The begging by nearly every RUclipsr for Patreon money gets really annoying.
right, and the fact that apps for simple things like mood journal, exercise, recipes, and meditation are all subscription based now. what happened to the days when there was FitnessApp Lite and then FitnessApp for $9.99, a one time purchase on the App Store to unlock all extra features.
The "it's $5.99 cause everyone can afford it" line destroyed all my positive perception of them
Right, like I'm sure they all huddled in an office to watch the final video before posting it - and not a single one of them commented on that line, which is so wild to me. Maybe they didn't really pick up on it.. but I doubt it
Right!? what a slap in the face to people who don't have as much, a tv subscription is a privilege
right, that's 70 dollars per year
Right?! Not one soul is willing to pay that just to watch some youtube videos
literally. no regard for international fans either. It's not cheap for us either
“$5.99 is something anyone can afford” feels like that one twitch streamer that got bashed for being pissed that people weren’t subscribing to her twitch
Pokimane's cookies comes to mind
@@KenjiAsakura09 why? having slightly overpriced (branded) merch on OFFER is not the same thing as someone feeling entitled to your money.
@@peachy_lilibro she literally was going off on the people who wouldn’t buy her cookies saying they’re broke and degrading them if they don’t. Stop simping.
@@peachy_liligotta defend you mindless girlboss huh?
@@peachy_lili”if yo broke just say that”
Who tf is actually going to remember to keep up with their website? Theres a lot of content I love that I would completely forget about if RUclips didn’t put it in front of me
thats so real, even if i love the creator, i forget unless its in front of me
Same!@@sublimepenny5309
Dropout TV has entered the chat
@@Donovarkhallumi feel like they're just kinda built different...i hope they last longer than rt did tho
@@sublimepenny5309 SAME this is so true
And I have to add, as I see almost no one comments from this perspective, if some people struggle to pay 5.99 + every other services they pay in USA, that move was a really big *fuck you* to every fan from other, less economically avanced country, for whom those 6 dollars can be LITERALLY days of food.
6 US dollars can actually get me a weeks worth of food if im smart abt it like 😭😭😭 *edit for spelling
6 USD IS ABOUT 100,OOO IDR in indonesia, and their minimum wage is about 29,000 an hour, which is $1.79 in USD. God forbid they have any fan in indonesia or phillipines or somewhere else that has a smaller dollar value
@@Conceptually_yours As a Filipino not living in the capital, $6 would literally get me groceries to last half or even up to an entire week if I'm the only eating it.
@@Randomositiesswherr are you from?
YES! 6$ can feed me for a week literally!!!!
I saw somebody write that they are doing a "bankruptcy speedrun" and I lost it 💀
LMAO
👀
😂😂😂😂😂
I cannot even begin to comprehend by what metric they thought this would be worth it.
They literally spat on their audience, many of whom are already supporting their patreon, and told them to give over more money to fund their expensive cars and jet trips.
This is a FineBros React World level bag fumble.
yeah it sucks
@PWRGEUTTPanti cyber bullying but also spamming comments insulting someone’s channel on their channel, checks out
@@ihateualsoI just reported the channel, hopefully it’ll get taken down. I’m aware that it’s a hydra, but still.
My guess is that the steven guy thought up the idea, and ryan and Shane went along with it because he's their lifelong friend. Coffeezilla made a point about his language and how it's very tech-broish, which makes me think he was the devil on their shoulder
@PWRGEUTTP boo womp now I'm gonna cyberbully harder
I genuinely cannot emphasize how crazy it is that WATCHER did this. Whoever gave them this advice needs to be fired or removed from there inner circle asap
unfortunately i do think this is steven's idea
@@JackieDaytona0000idk what the point of this comment is. Like, advisors can't be adults?? Adults can't make bad financial decisions???? Watcher takes advice from children????? 🤦🏻♀️
@@JackieDaytona0000 the ceo is allegedly very money hungry. a ceo’s job is make/approve choices for the betterment of the company, so it’s kinda common sense that steven lim is responsible. even if it wasn’t his idea he signed off on it, weird. i don’t think it was an advisor that made this decision lmao
@@tatarashimost definitely!
So you mean *Boring 3rd Wheel Steven LAME* ofc. He wanted to keep funding his Tesla rides to expensive restaurants even though *nobody watches his videos.*
Dude's so jealous of Ryan and Shane's success that he decided to just napalm the entire company 😬
Shane and Ryan were my comfort RUclipsrs and I have watched them since I was legit a teen and now I am in university.
I always said that they were the least problematic buzzfeed group and now I feel completely betrayed. I can't afford yet another service on top of everything.
I sometimes forget Charlie is a legit business man behind that laid back demeanor
hes an enigma
ong
Real talk tho
I never realized how much of one he is until this video , impressive
what is a "legit business man"?
Let me tell you, as a watcher fan, I have never seen the community so unified until now
The only time where Shaniacs and Boogaras agreed on one thing.
@@lunaredgraveif it helps, we also seem to agree that none of us ever liked Steven Lim 🙊 but we were all politely being quiet about it until now 😂
@@OpalLeighI feel like this is a safe space to express myself here about Steven, never liked the guy, he really tries too hard to be funny and his "vibes" really throw off the chemistry of Ryan and Shane. Imo! He's like the obnoxious third wheel that was dragged along out of pity.
I wouldn’t call myself a fan of the whole channel. I only watch their ghost hunter show and then the follow-up videos. They are great. But I’m not paying to watch it 😂
@@peaches44 This comment section makes me so happy to know I'm not the only one who never liked Steven Lim. I came for Ryan and Shane and I always felt like Steven just kinda threw himself in there, he never really fit in and stood out like a sore thumb. It's a shame that my dislike for him is now justified due to his scumbag decisions.
In addition to calling out the rampant greed here, I’d like to thank Critikal for being upfront and transparent on some of his costs as well and revenue as well. This kind of discussion only helps workers, while hiding it helps the employer only.
couldn't agree more!
I really liked that take on the inside business of things! Really opened my perspective
And that 5.99 is in US Dollars…in some currencies that’s a shit ton of money to spend for ONE SINGLE CHANNEL. A total slap in the face for their supporters from other countries
lmao if you cant afford than why complain
@@JurassicManiactake ya meds kids
@@avery-u1w what come back is this bro
@@JurassicManiac Meds
I’m in the service industry and one thing we are told is never think for someone’s budget. Telling someone they can afford something is insulting that’s ridiculous
Feels so weird being apart of this in real-time. After watching the Watcher video, I thought to myself, “I wonder if Charlie’s gonna cover this.” Sure enough, here we are.
Totally agree. I saw the watcher video and was still thinking, "they just killed their brand," when all the reaction videos started popping up.
I was hoping Charlie would cover it because I couldn't bear to watch the entire video myself lmfao
At first I thought it was a joke. Still can't believe how they thought it was a good idea and to make a video acting like it was a good idea
Yeah :( @@zergeistrush460
I’m such a huge fan but this is sad
Wanted to add, also, for people that aren't in the community:
1. In the video, they absolutely imply that they were going to take away all videos from youtube. Also, Ryan Bergara (one of the members) told Varsity that this was their decision. After the backlash, they backpedaled; but instead of going the route of "we hear you, and we're going back on this decision", they decided to pretend that it was all a misunderstanding (also known as gaslighting: lying in a way that makes you second-guess your understanding of things). If you read the Varsity article now, they say that "originally, Bergara told Varsity that they were going to remove the videos from youtube, but now they recanted that decision" (paraphrased).
2. This announcement was hyped up as a cool, big thing for weeks. It had a countdown. For those of you who don't know, countdowns are usually used to hype up fun, new things like a new show, or a comeback of an old favorite, NOT to announce that your content is no longer free. It was EXTREMELY tone-deaf.
3. This announcement was also prefaced by them bringing back the staff of Worth-It. Worth-It was a Buzzfeed show (whose host was Steven Lim, Watcher's CEO) where they flew around the country eating extremely expensive food (think gold leaf and caviar). All of this implies that Lim wants to bring back Worth-It (which wouldn't be out of character for Watcher- They brought back Buzzfeed Unsolved Supernatural as Ghost Files, and Buzzfeed Unsolved True Crime somewhat as Mystery Files). The community is not happy with their whole discourse of "needing the money" to continue their careers when they're planning on making a show all about expensive food.
right they don't need money they just need to budget better. we ate UP buzzfeed unsolved true crime when it was a black screen with text and pictures for most of the episode. I still prefer some of that content to the new mystery files. the set is beautiful- but so unnecessary. they are also totally overhiring- which is funnily enough why buzzfeed failed. they could be so lucrative if they didn't go so extreme, it seems like they think they're above ... idk.. being youtubers.. and have unrealistic expectations of what we want to see. it sucks bc I loved them sm, I would have watched Ryan and Shane banter if it was recorded on an iPhone 4
I thoroughly enjoyed the old Unsolved crimes with the black screen and silly animations. I haven’t watched them in years. It is kind of sad they have gone in such a direction.
Steven Kim seems like a catalyst to this. Bed influence?
@HaYlEeXx19 even if this was Lim's idea, ryan and shane still went with it. If both of them disagreed, it wouldn't have happened at all.
It was a count down to a birthday party no one attended.
Also important point, one of them just had a ~250k wedding
actually the wedding was more expensive than that 55k was on their venue alone! not to mention the bride wore at least 3 different dresses that day too. their wedding i heard estimated around 250k
@@shymoonswhere do yall see this info? Do they post all of this on their socials?
@@yvonnecortes_ Shane's wife is blocking everyone on Tumblr who even dares to address this video, she made some really nasty comments that all sounded like "not my fault if you're poor and this is the best decision" when she flaunts her 100 tote bag for her honeymoon, and keep reminding us about how much she spent on her wedding. I never liked her, and now I know why.
@@tmalaklaryka damn really?! that's horrible.
@@shymoons wow, what a businessman - men usually go broke after a divorce, he spent all on the wedding night...
5.99 is crazy for 1 product when Netflix, Disney and Amazon is only a couple $ more for thousands of movies and shows
Damn, even just RUclips premium is a couple bucks more and that's millions of videos ad free. It's insane to pay 6 bucks for one channel that isn't even producing content at least once a week.
@@plumbunnii A couple bucks?! More like double that price, granted there is thousands if not millions of hours of content at all times.
@@plumbunnii youtube premium is literally theft you guys are wild for putting money just in youtubes pocket but complain about a creator wanting to expand their career and rake it more seriously from now on. Im so sick of people complaining if you dont wanna spend the money dont and get over it.
@@kristenmckinniss5517 people are allowed to criticize their horrible business decisions lol
@@kristenmckinniss5517 YT Premium gives creators MORE money, not less. For videos with monetization enabled, creators are paid out much more per user if they are on YT Premium than if a user isn''t. The problem here isnt that people dont wanna spend money, the problem is that youtubers like themselves are taking previously free content and making it paid. If this becomes a trend for mid-sized youtubers, then it could trend to have many many channels behind a paywall.
Remember when Netflix was 6.99 and you got, just, EVERYTHING?
Easier to get a job back then, too. And feed a family for a week on $100.
I'm literally watching myself get older as I type.
I remember going grocery shopping with my mom, as a child, and our weekly grocery bill was always sitting around $100, and that was to feed a family of FOUR. Now my weekly groceries, alone, are roughly $70. It's absurd.
It was not easier to get a job when Netflix came out. Right now literally everywhere is hiring and they pay more than they ever have. If you're struggling it's no ones fault but their own. There's plenty of money to be had out there.
@@youtubebannedme4207You have no idea, you’re just making assumptions based on casual observation cuz you need to feel self-righteous in lieu of having any healthy self-esteem.
And Netflix almost had everything on there?
@@youtubebannedme4207 then why, when I was looking for a job, did I apply to so many places and no one got back to me? And the few who did rejected me, because I didn’t have enough experience to be a barista or a cashier at a pet store. If you don’t have 5 years experience in the relevant field, no one wants you, even for entry level jobs. It’s ridiculous.
I did finally find a job after about 4 or so months of searching, but my boss literally told me I wasn’t her first option because I didn’t have experience ;-;
Also my brother, who was a supervisor at his last job, got rejected by TARGET. For a regular cashier position. So no, it’s not easy to get a job, and you’d know that if you talked to literally anyone who has recently been or is still on a job hunt.
I think some people are being too nice to Ryan and Shane here, saying it’s almost single handedly Stephen who is wanting higher budget and funding these big videos but they’re all adults, they all must play some role in this. It is sad to see Mr “i hate capitalism” Shane Madej doing something like this but we can’t try to save their image by giving the benefit of the doubt when they don’t deserve it.
I strongly suspect Stephen is the ringleader, but 100% they are all still full-grown adults who agreed to this shit.
I recognize that but let me be delulu ;-; I'm already heart broken let me be delulu and pardon the ghoul boys.
they're adults but also cofounders. so even if maybe just shane "eat the rich" Madej said no, it was still a 2:1 vote. Its a shame to see this roll out. I've been a fan since buzzfeed and am sad to see them leave and be rather tone deaf saying "its 5.99 so everyone can afford it" while in a cost of living crisis. we all start somewhere and as someone who is ~ the age shane/ryan were when they started at buzzfeed unsolved (early 20's) I'm struggling to even pay for groceries let alone save to move out, its a damn shame to see this move. The added touch of the first series they're rolling out on watcher tv being about expensive food is really, REALLY tone deaf. I'm not saying they shouldn't be allowed to bring in more profit, but they could have handled it better. I mean Keith from the try guys is eating EVERYTHING on the menu at Michelin star restaurants right now, and second try LLC defiantly has more employees than watcher, but they continue to put out FREE long form content on their channel while having their patreon and merch for profit along with sponsors. Even Good Mythical Morning is continuing to put out amazing FREE content after a decade on the internet. I just dont see the need to put all future content behind a pay wall even if they are "cool" with people password sharing so its "more accessible". The most accessible content is free content.
@@jade2014 yes exactly 🙏🙏 the entire thing is tone deaf, i am not even in america but there is cost of living crisis everywhere, i feel their fans are all young adults who are just trying to stay afloat in this economy. to say everyone should be able to afford it is just crazy ignorant, i myself am just starting university and there is no way in hell $6 a month is viable for me for what it is
stephen bringing back "worth it"? this subscription service is in fact not worth it
What I think happened is a couple of things that just made them go a bit broke faster then they we're expecting. They all got married recently right? I am assuming they paid for all of their weddings with Watcher money and maybe they didn't expect the wedding bills to make they go that in debt. But I mean the wedding photos looked boujie as hell, and a small wedding is still making you pay out the ass. All their weddings looked big and hella expensive. Plus Steven has a Tesla and wants a second one and he wants his own coffee shop to run. I think Steven was hoping this service was gonna give him enough money to fulfill his wildest dreams but they all forgot that they aren't funding anything and are nothing without fans. Hope they figure this shit out or they gonna be the fry cooks at McDonald's
It's important to note that what they're doing is that they're trying to do the Dropout model, where they move their content to subscription-based for more funding and release free episodes to keep them relevant on youtube.
The difference though is that Dropout is not solely one group. It's genuinely a ton of shows run by many different comedians, each with a ton of variety and flavor, alongside accessing their old content, all for free, also alongside accessing behind the scenes content as well. While Dropout's subscription is about the same price, Dropout essentially guarantees that not only are you accessing all their content, but also getting at least 4 ongoing new shows every week, and more. They guarantee more content than what you paid for. These guys aren't doing any of this, so while it's understandable why they're doing this, the way they're doing it is really poor.
plus iirc dropout started because so many people were being let go by collegehumor, them moving to dropout wasn't about making more money it actually gave stability and opportunities to a lot of comedians and artists. i got dropout for d20, which alone has 21 independent seasons featuring a huge cast, dedicated art team, customisable subtitles, audio only versions, trigger warnings with time stamps and three separate behind the scenes series. again, this is ONE show. you can see where their production budget goes because it adds significant value to their content
Yea this sounds very similar to dropout. But their context was different as you guys point out. Also, it's a huge backlog of content that dropout has. But it is the same business model, except patreon.
Long-time Watcher Patron here. A few things:
- They actually have four membership tiers: $5, $10, $25, and $100. They’ll be cutting it down to three in the near future.
- Patrons are getting a 40% discount on the streaming service. We’re not getting free access.
- Watcher has a long history of making promises to their Patrons and not fulfilling them.
If I had to guess, the issue here is that the folks at Watcher don’t know how to appropriately budget their shows. And they’d rather take a giant risk on streaming than actually rethink their production model.
I'm pretty sure Steven is the reason they can't "budget". as in, the "budget" is his pocket money and they have to try and find even more of it -- it'll never be enough.
@@peachy_lili personally, I don’t think this is the case. Ghost Files in particular is, IMO, massively overproduced. They could have canned the flashy visuals and fancy set and the audience would stick around for the ghoulboys alone, but alas, they choose to aim higher than was reasonable.
What a bargain
What were some of the promises they said they would do?
@@peachy_lilitbh I don't get why Steven is making so many of his own shows, he's not as popular as Ryan and Shane. They could have cut back on the shooting costs by cutting some of the less popular shows.
Everyone has been comparing this attempt to Dropout. Dropout is the same price per month, HOWEVER, Dropout releases 5 videos a week and have so many seasons of different shows to watch. Watcher is nowhere near big enough of a production to justify the cost.
I truly hope Dropout’s name doesn’t get even a speck of mud I LOVE DROPOUT and they even have a more affordable option on RUclips and release SO MUCH AMAZING CONTENT and every episode they share has been touched by amazing artists and set design and sound design teams it is all so worth it. They are literally the only source of media I’ve consumed all year till now and I still have an ocean left to explore.
@@ananyaa2001 this!!!!!!!!
Dropout is actually worth the price though
@@trina8255 100%
Also dropout is $2 a month with various shows and series with already established content to look at. This is a subscription for the hope for more content
Love how in the middle of watching this they drop an apology video
😂😂😂
And it was a piss poor excuse filled with “oh no you are mad we are sorry please feel bad for us we are poor and our employees are poor” wah wah
@@CyonTrollZdoesn’t one of them own a Tesla?
@TheHauntedFarm ya, but aren't those common in LA 🤔
What I'm trying to say is unless it's a cyber truck or model X or S I don't think that means much
My best friend said it best: no price is going to be more affordable or accessible than free
It’s worth noting that when their announcement video first launched, they absolutely were planning on paywalling their already posted RUclips content. They had already started taking down older episodes of shows that got them big like Puppet History from the Watcher channel, and it was reported by Variety, who they did an interview with that was released as part of an article on the same day that the video dropped, that this was the plan. It wasn’t until the massive backlash following the release of the “Goodbye RUclips” video that Variety claimed this was an error and that Watcher made a public statement that they were not paywalling old content.
Regardless of whether you want to give them the benefit of the doubt on this or not, it’s still scummy, but to me, it really looks like they thought they could get away with paywalling the content that made them, but then they caved to the public outcry.
My parents said if I reach 10k, they'd buy me a professional camera for recording... Pls guys Im
literally begging you.
Variety actually called them out on that whenever they updated their article: "The company originally told Variety that Watcher would eventually remove all of its videos from RUclips... However, according to Bergara, Watcher is not fully exiting RUclips"
They definitely wanted people to know that they backtracked on that decision and essentially lied to them about removing their older episodes and content.
Who asked. My content is far better lol..
Who asked. My content is far better lol..
Who asked. My content is far better lol..
The most out of touch thing about this is that Steven (the CEO) has a show where he travels the world to eat very expensive food. So they are literally asking their low income subscribers to pay for that show instead of multibillion dollar companies.....
Oh and I forgot to mention that Steven's shows do the worst on their channel. They literally don't need a show for poorer people to watch rich people eat wildly expensive food
Yeah, I tried watching Steven's shows when I first subscribed to Watcher, but I never liked him. He just didn't have the same charisma and entertainment value as Ryan and Shane. I think Steven is just an out of touch tech bro honestly, he used all the big tech bro buzzwords when describing their shitty streaming service.
This. They’re having money/production issues? Gee, wonder what series they could stop that would save them hundreds, if not THOUSANDS of dollars with meals, travel, and production that was never the biggest draw for the channel?
I looked the only popular Steven episode was the one with the actor from Marvel. Ppl watched to see the actor not Steven
Steven himself is not very entertaining I had to force myself to watch him, seriously do people actually like his content??
Right? I was super confused how he went from that awkward bartender dude behind the scenes to CEO..........like dude respectfully we're not here for you.
“Anyone and everyone can afford” I’m a broke ass college student who can barely afford FOOD, much less a streaming service. I’m so upset. I loved their content.
SAME
@TwilightGirl2341 ...your profile pic says the opposite? You're at Disneyland or Hogwarts or something? Pretty sure you can afford things.
@@chrislevack405..... You know people can save up for vacations and trips or get taken there by their parents as a gift or something????? doesn't mean they have money.
My parents took me to Disney when i was 19 and then had me figure out myself how to afford to eat when i started college a month later
@@chrislevack405 what a weird thing to assume based off a picture that could possibly be years old LMAO
@@chrislevack405 you do realize once every few years or so vacations are a thing?? Or even went with friends or family??? What a stupid comment and assumption to make about someone just bc they're at an amusement park
Within the past year my card declined for a $3 bag of chips while I was at lunch at work. It's a "low price" but when living paycheck to paycheck it a big deal.
Keep in there!
bro if you cant afford it than spend it on yourself its that easy. its not the end of the world because a show is now being behind a pay wall everyone in the comments are just stupid
The main issue is Steven - their ceo. That guy was never popular compared to shane and ryan and recently has been pushing a show where he travels the world and spends ridiculous sums of money on food and international trips. Its really bad and frankly he should step down.
Exactly
I don't like him either.
We put up with Steven because of Ryan and Shane. Steven has a vision, and it does not include relatable content.
I always had bad vibes about him
it was always these two so when a dude you don't know gets involved its weird you know?
and its not like mr bartender on the show, he's himself and not that present, but steven is always kinda there, no?
like if you're gonna bring a third party, they should be involved?
like trixie mattel and her editor, its not a fake relationship, he's not just there once.
I’d like to point out re their back catalogue, they’ve totally changed their story. Their article with Variety now says ‘The company originally told Variety that Watcher would eventually remove all of its videos from RUclips’. They were totally going to remove it. This is fire fighting plain and simple
fire fighting?
am I looking at the wrong article or smth? I don't see that
@@gaygayhomosexualgay5858 maybe. It’s the article Ryan linked to on x. It’s after one of those ads that take up the whole screen so you think it’s the end of the article. I just checked and it’s still there.
@@nunpho yes. Trying to put out the dumpster fire they started yesterday that got way out of control.
@@jenh101 ahhh I see what you mean, I agree. I've just never seen 'fire fighting' used like that before, I just assumed you meant gaslighting
The fact that Charlie recognizes 6 dollars can even be a financial burden on people these days is all the more reason to love his Charlie brain and thoughts
Agreed
For a wealthy man he is very down to earth.Not many RUclipsrs wears cheap gas station tee-shirts for every video
Charlie's one of the best rich creators out there cause he still knows what it's like to be poor/medium income and isn't a dumb bitch about it
Using the cost of paying employees as leverage to justify the new platform was such a gross reach on their part
They say that $5.99 a month isn't a lot while people are literally canceling their heath insurance because they can't afford it while also paying for rent. food, and other more important insurances.
😭😭😭😭😭 6 dollars a month. 6 dollars is not even a beer where i am broke ass 😂
@@lafireteamplx3400 stupid asl
Best president ever
Yeah while they also buy their cigarettes and energy drinks and weed and whatever else. $6 is not a lot, for anyone, full stop. That said, asking everyone to pay for your content when you make youtube videos is never gonna go well. There will never be a youtuber who can get away with that. It is absolutely not a problem with being able to afford it, it's the principle.
@@Gotenks_90 Ah yes, the president famously sets the price of beer.
I have to hand it to the people of the Watcher community.
The comments section for that announcement was blunt but respectful in explaining why they could not support the decision.
I saw the video yesterday, and the disappointment was high.
Whoever told them that people could afford any more cost is an idiot.
I agree, I saw most people point out that they've stayed because they enjoy the chemistry between them and that the high production value just made things more complicated, and wasn't what anybody wanted. It was giving "I'm not mad, i'm just disappointed" energy.
I think if they listen to the fans and back track quickly enough, the criticism will remain towards the decision itself rather than them as people. And if so, maybe it will become this self aware inside joke like "lets forget how bad we fucked up". Only time will tell.
the attitudes in the comments on that video were of genuine disappointment and betrayal and it's insane how gently everyone was able to get that across. with the way the internet is you'd expect some insane shit. really shows the quality of the fanbase they built up and how much it sucks that they fumbled that this fucking badly
Yeah, really shows how much the fans love them (Shane and Ryan). A lot of us were basically raised by those two. The whole fan base migrated to Watcher after they left buzzfeed and gave them so much support when they started their company. This whole thing is such a big slap in the face.
The fact that they’re charging for fan submissions is CRAZY. I’m almost 100% sure that the segments that rely on the audience for content are all going to fail miserably. I just don’t understand why they ever thought this would be a good idea
RUclipsrs like jacksfilms who take fan submissions for genuine fan interaction and shoutouts I really respect. Charging for it, when it's giving YOU content, is absolutely stupid
Wait fan submissions for WHAT??? What are they charging for? 😭
@@geegeezlouis86 Well in Too Many Spirits they rate a few short stories submitted by fans, while in Are You Scared series they read one horror anecdote per video, some of them are usually from horror subreddit, and some other are original works written by the fans. If they continue these series in their streaming service thingie, technically the fans have to pay to see their own work, no?
@@geegeezlouis86 for example, my favorite series is Are You Scared. They need recommendations and independent writers so that they can fulfill the series, which is part of the reason why I like it so much. IMO, Are You Scared is the simplest series, and there's no way I'm gonna pay 6 bucks to watch like 5 stories, unless I'm just that desperate for that content (which I'll admit, is possible, and I'm thinking that they're hoping people will crack under the same circumstances).
@@geegeezlouis86 the show ghost files and too many spirits take fan submissions and make content off it
The og comment here just made me realise that this decision of theirs is even stupider.... Where are they gonna get the fan submissions if there's no fans 😂 jokes aside like think of it, what if I submit content but i cant watch the episode I'm in because i need to pay for it...
Netflix with ads costs $6.99 a month. That's a lot more content for only a dollar more.
They have adds??? And people pay 7 dollars for it... Arrr! 🏴☠️
Netflix doesn’t have adverts where I’m from
@@cardboard2nightNetflix added a cheaper option with ads a while ago.
Lol the basic plan of netflix is like $1.8 here where I live. It doesn’t have ads either
@@anti_fascist bro where the fuck do you live where it’s that cheap
“$5.99 is something anyone can afford.”
What something costs isn’t the same as what something is worth.
The worst part is... they release maybe one-three video a month on average and expect us to pay 59 dollars a year for it.
Oh don't worry... from the looks of it, they're already backpedaling on that shit.
Your a Charlie viewer you’d probably already spent more than 60 dollars donating to your favorite streamer
@@clmxxxviiiIt's not mandatory, you are literally watching him, right here ror free
@@clmxxxviii im a charlie viewer, probably for longer than you have been, ive never spent a cent on anybody other than myself in my entire life, like what the fuck are you talking about LOL💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀
@@zyzir never spent money on your significant other or your family? Sounds like a lonely life
The irony is that this has already been done. One of the big selling points of cable was no ads. Then cable got greedy and did ads anyway. Then streaming was no ads. Now streaming has gotten greedy, and ads are there unless you pay more. What do you think will happen if Watcher TV doesn't meet it's revenue goals after a couple of years? Did someone say ADS!?? What a novel concept; but of course, if you pay a smidge more (which everyone can afford) then you can be ad free again. JFC.
Take a hint. No one likes paying for subscription services
Then explain Patreon. Plenty of people make a lot of money through that, which is basically a subscription service.
@@MrKrk221988patreon I’m most peoples eyes is a way to both get exclusive content while also SUPPORTING a creator they like. I have a Netflix subscription because I want the exclusive and consolidated content I don’t give a single shit about supporting Netflix as a company I just want the content. That’s the difference between patreon and regular subscription services
@@MrKrk221988 because it guilt trips people into supporting richer people. They all do it. "your subs keep us going" "we need your help" "ad revenue isnt cutting it anymore". theres 1000s of way to say it, but the end result is the same. People with money guilt tripping people with less money into paying for things they dont need.
@@MrKrk221988 Depends. Patreon for the most part is being used as a donation kind of platform for some people, platform for paid services for some freelancers, and as you said, subscription service. It's not inherently paid subscription because you can always post stuff without locking it behind a tier.
@@MrKrk221988 Its because after covid, people subs to bunch alot of things and some of them forgot to turn it off. Oh trust me yep they are.
Its goin to the point the market are saturated right now and normal people also get Fatigue of subs. I even stop Apple Subs for RUclips subs. Not only its handy but also bigger in scope.
A niche cult like using patreon might be good, but its not as easier than just subs in youtube.
Subs Fatigue is real.
Subscriptions are starting to remind me of school when I had homework. I had teachers who would say, "My homework shouldn't take longer than an hour," and then I had 5 more classes with homework.
Me in college when professors say "You should spend 2 hrs on this subject every day" like I don't have 4 other classes and other activities and a life outside of school
@@mathmagician155dawg this kills me everytime they say it
Not to mention this immediately followed the announcement of a Worth It reboot, where Steven travels and eats the most expensive meals he can find.
We’re expected to pay for this man’s dinner now.
That's actually a good point. And id bet money, 5 bucks I'm not spending on a subscription, that this was Steven's idea. He usually is the financial planner.....Boy just misses eating gold.
Not me. I'm out.
Even dumber, gold doesn't taste like anything. And texture-wise it's like leaving a thin piece of foil on your food. So you're paying this guy to eat expensive, shiny foil so you can watch it.
Also. It would have been different, if the show was about seeking out hidden gems of restaurants -- lesser known or underrated chefs. But instead, actively seeking out the most expensive food for content, while still asking patrons for money? Yeesh.
I always felt uncomfortable about the "I made a $4000 steak for XYZ celebrity" videos. Anyone can use expensive crap in food. How about making amazing food on a reasonable budget, and showcase ingenuity, or skill? Nope. M O N E Y.
@@elhazthorn918 he wants us to pay him, to be the guy who gets to eat useless overpriced shit. and he looked us in the face and asked us to accept that deal.
Thanks for covering this Charlie. Its really disappointing and frustrating with them doing this
"They went for a kick flip and ended up breaking both their ankles" INCREDIBLE
Right!! 😂😂😂😂😂
My Mama says that alligators are ornery because they got all them teeth and no toothbrush.
Something I haven't seen people mention is they've been doing a tour recently that's SOLD OUT. Not only is that more revenue for them, but what baffles me is their timing because they're in the middle of said tour. They literally have a show in London coming up and a part of the show is a live Q&A. I don't know if they originally thought people would be excited and that's why they dropped this bomb beforehand to answer questions about their "exciting" departure from RUclips but needless to say I would be shitting bricks right now if I were them cause fans are 100% going to bring up their disappointments to their faces.
Yeap my cousins are looking forward to asking them about this and most likely get kicked out of the venue or the mass is gonna boo them to oblivion.
seeing them in London and scared shitless as to what the vibes gonna be like :)))
Oh nooooooooooooo9o goddamnit why would they do this??? So suddenly?????? Are Ryan and Shane high all the time and blindly going along with Stevens ideas like what the heck even
Watch them cancel it and keep all the money lmao
Good. They deserve to hear that they fucked up, face to face
the craziest part about this as someone whose been watching them for years is they keep making new series and shows that no one asked for. they make something good then abandon it, only to come out with something new that no one watches out of enjoyment. ive seen so many people admit they only watch some shows out of support for the company. it’s interesting that they suddenly drop this streaming service and then announce steven lim’s new show where he travels the world to eat fancy food. large majority of their audience did not follow them from buzzfeed for that, we dont care about steven lim’s show and dont want to pay for it
Their lack of awareness about the optics of this all has me baffled.
Steven Lim has always been super out of touch with both an inferiority and superiority complex at the same time. Who the hell wants to watch a Steven Lim show? I can barely stand him when he’s with two of my favorite “creators”. Well, at least formerly favorite.
It was bad enough already before I found out all the money they’re making off of pattern, let alone advertising bucks.
Mr. Lim was perfectly fine with gambling the careers of Ryan and Shane if it meant making more money and having more control. They had to have thought it’d be worth it to alienate 92% of their viewers if it means they could constantly milk the teets of their most staunch supporters. The hubris of it all is astonishing!
yup, i wanted to support them so i occasionally watched a video that looked decent like the boysenberry festival food ep at Knotts, but i loved the Unsolved true crime stuff which they stopped p much immediately after leaving Buzzfeed even tho it was very popular
I really never got on board after they left BuzzFeed. I know they had to make changes because of copyright etc but it never had the same feel. The older stuff was more casual and easy going. the more production value they put into it the less fun it was.
Exactly. I started watching those fools when they were doing voice over PowerPoints about ghost lore and aimlessly wandering around in the woods with a camera. I don’t need much more than that. I could give a fuck less about wagyu or whatever Steven lim brings to the table.
I want to think that this came from a place of "We don't want to have to take sponsor deals anymore cause we don't really believe in any of them."
BUT
It was so terribly executed.
There are so many other content services that just give extras rather than take things away.
And also, now that they’ve backpedaled, I wouldn’t be surprised to see some of those old sponsors drop them. If I was buying ad space from them before, I know I’d be like “Oh so you’re too good for my ads now? Guess I’ll go give my money to someone who actually wants it.”
The worst part is their latest season was the highest production but in terms of actual content, it was really low effort and the stars of the shows did not try very hard. So they made the worst season of their most popular show and then decided to put the next season behind a paywall.
I felt that way too; it's like their newest releases for Ghost Files specifically pale in comparison to the old Buzzfeed Unsolved Supernatural videos *gasp* even if they were made on a smaller budget. The newer episodes definitely feel overproduced and lacking actual substance. It's not why a lot of people followed them in the first place, but they've decided that the "quality" of production overpowers the dedication of their long-term fans I guess.
It feels like their heart isn’t in it anymore. Which is fine - they’re getting older, gotten married, maybe ready to start families. They specifically talked about making shows that they aren’t in. But people aren’t watching their channel for other people; it’s for them specifically. Maybe they should have decided to move on instead of doing whatever it is they’re doing if they feel burnt out. Leave with some dignity and not piss off the fanbase that kept them alive after they left Buzzfeed.
Who asked. My content is far better lol..
Who asked. My content is far better lol..
Who asked. My content is far better lol..
Not sure if Charlie mentioned it, but patrons also have to pay for the subscription. They only get a 40 per cent discount. So on top of the patrons , they still have to pay.
That's so shitty omg 💀
And their discount is only 10% more than someone who isn’t already a patron. Really shitty.
Who asked. My content is far better lol...
Who asked. My content is far better lol...
Who asked. My content is far better lol..
They also forget that RUclips is worldwide. USD6 is not the same value for them as to their viewers who lets say from Argentina or India that have lower conversion rates and way lower minimum wage
yes!!! even as a Canadian, $6 USD is almost $9. and groceries are insane right now. I do not have $9 extra a month
Loll that 345 for me dude that can buy me a week of what I pay for lunch at my school (catering at school is a whole different thing than other schools) loll that's like my biggest expense and my canva subscription
exactly! in indian currency, that's about 500 RS. that's like dinner for 2 at a decent restaurant
@@alishaw2454exactly I was shocked when I saw the amount for the first time. Like 500 rupees is still a lot for students like me
This. In the Philippines, $6 is roughly PHP340 - in certain parts of the country, that's like an entire day's allowance (public transportation, lunch, snacks).
Ive been watching the boys since the very first buzzfeed unsolved episode. Disappointed doesn’t begin to explain my feelings towards this. I feel like Ryan and Shane could literally record themselves just doing their old true crime content instead of just paranormal stuff and save all the money they apparently are losing because I still just go back and watch those old episodes. Steven becoming the ceo for watcher was their biggest mistake.
I like "are you scared" - no money, just to guys on zoom call :D
@@agnieszkaadamkiewicz4747 agreed! sad to see them ruin their name with this awful decision but i really hope they figure out that their audience is there for them, not the amount of money they spend!
They’ve now released an apology video lol… but let me comment on one more thing people have been keen to mention on the video: the exchange rate in certain currencies for USD is shit, meaning that international viewers would be paying a lot more in order to buy the $7 subscription. They really did not give a fuck about anyone when they made that decision, now they’re backtracking but I for one will not think of them the same way.
6 dollars a month for one channel it's absolutely insane when the avg spending per day in my country is less than a dollar 💀
@@qin714 6 dollars per month in my country can pay a month of my scooter gas lmao
Ikr? With how weak the currency is where I live, that 6 dollars for Americans would be 32 for me.
6 dollars in my country would let me eat good food 6 times
also i completely agree with not being able to think of them the same way. hell, i couldnt even bring myself to watch their apology video
$8.30 in Canada. Disney, Amazon, Netflix are all upwards of $15-$30 for ad-free subscriptions! Can’t even watch TV comfortably anymore!
They’re on tour right now for Ghost Files too, and they have a live Q&A at the end ….they’re toast
I saw a comment that said "can't wait to see you live and figure out why you were stupid enough to do this." 😭
I'd pay $6 to see a recording of that!
Oh my god that's gonna be brutal lmao, any clue if the q&a is gonna be recorded/streamed?
@@e.vanl.I think most fans gonna record it and blast it on Twitter or Tumblr anyway, so heads up. But I've also heard most of the fans are contemplating whether to get a refund for the show. So yeah, this whole ordeal is sad
@@dragonayre-00 some people might not even be able to get a refund because the venue may not be accepting refund requests, I've seen someone mention the theater one of their shows was going to be at, that they were going to go to, said since the start they were not going to be giving refunds
"Do you guys not have phones?" Its impressive how that quote still resonates to this day to express how out of touch some people can be
No offense but I see even homeless people with phones newer ones than me at that
Is this an out of season april fools joke 😂
Blizzard are to blame for that though, who puts the developer up on stage to promote something like that 😅😂
@@curtisss That just shows that you lack a brain too. Die hard fans, looking forward to the next game, disappointed at not getting an update and you try to make it their fault? Yeah, no.
@@dustinduzgames1276 ok???? they probably got it second hand or had it before they were homeless
I would pay $5.99 to be able to see their reaction to Charlie posting this video.
That is the definition of fumbling the bag. I studied media with a buisness focus for my master and one of the things that is *burnt* into my mind is: Media is consumer-driven, not creator-driven, your audience decides your format for you, anything else will feel like a "breach of trust" and closely tied to that: KNOW your audience. This is a PERSONALITY-first RUclips Channel not a production company, the hosts carry the content through parasocial attachment. This is SCORCHED EARTH now, the trust is broken and it is done. They hit self-destruct on their channel. This went against anything you would learn in a modern media buisness course.
Glad to see that education agrees with the people. This move was delusional.
Wish more companies hired people like you. Seems like many companies are eager to throw their consumers overboard lately.
@@KRAKENKRYPTED Oh yes! At least *modern* courses. I even teach a bit myself here and there. Through media fragmentation people have way more choice which greatly increases their power in supporting and forming content (which is a good thing!) and through easily accessible social media, like Charlie's channel, people are way more in charge and capable of questioning "Hey, this is weird, right? Anyone else?" therefor band together against bad decissions and making their voices heard. The modern communicaton model "empowers" the receiver of a message to respond directly, instant feedback was not a thing in the past like that. So the power of the consumer and their improved media literacy is one thing, the other: Subscription models are OUT. Because 1. There are too many of them, 2. Through bad experiences, debt from loosing subscriptions out of sight, lost media and events like the pandemic people "rediscovered" the value of full ownership. Through the past few years people's desire for security greatly improved. The competiton anywhere is SO huge nowadays due to low "entrance barriers" that your stuff has to be consumer-friendly (as it should be!). So yea, be mad, speak out, do not give money to those buisness models! Companies will have to reconsider sooner or later. "My goal is to print money" does not work anymore, you actually have to care, on average people became *really* smart in the last two decades, they see through the BS.
@@kosmosXcannon One of the things I always try to convey is: Dont maximize income, maximize happiness/entertainment and then communicate *honestly* ...People who really like you will understand a statement along the lines of "Hey, guys. We love creating content with our friends and for our friends. It just gets increasingly expensive and we dont really know where to go from here at this pace, but we want to hear your voice too as we would not be here without you all: Could you guys imagine supporting a more expensive series through patreon or extended cuts or should we scale back some production value? We are open to any ideas". Include the audience, they know that it is hard out there, inflation and all. No sugar-coating. If the "issue" is just wanting to own a bigger sportscar and not actually keep the show going the wrong person is in charge...as often is the case. :/ A good company-to-consumer relationship should not need a slimey monetization model because the users actually have an own *agency* to keep it going: Liking the people involved and their content. Watcher would have easily fit this description. So yea, they straight up fumbled it, people *would* have helped them.
Huh, if only most media companies learned that. Then maybe Marvel wouldn't need Deadpool to save them and American comics wouldn't be digging themselves a hole.