Their newest video had them to go South Korea to eat spicy food. I counted I think 7 people who it looks like all went on this trip. It's no wonder Watcher needs the money. They don't seem to be well managed.
I was never going to be a fan of Watcher, but the “$20,000 steak of airline seat” BS lands flat when I’m comparing price per ounce for pasta at the grocery store.
@@dnddetectivetheyre absolutely not. Steven did not realize that the previous Buzzfeed show was successful because they were spending corp. money. Now hes bringing it back but the fans will be paying.
To be fair RUclips hit a singularity when they allowed advertisers to decide the rules like the doctor who episode oxygen in a constantly narrowing slippery sloop in the first apocalypse, advertisers needed RUclips for the target audience which only watched RUclips you can't sell inventory to no consumers but RUclips gave in, at that point RUclips stopped being web three at and became web two, in a cycle of banning content and losing a chunk of audience forcing creators to host their own web two platforms for uncensored content and straight up banned content now, just cause you ban content to keep Manderley food group, Vanguard, BlackRock and Berkshire Hathaway happy doesn't mean people won't pay to see it and type in a different link, RUclips the main web two video host platform now it's just the place good creators host their basic content on now as a tease to their real content, we don't know if they were planning on changing up there content in ways banned by RUclips just because dropout does things right doesn't mean it's the only way watcher might have started doing 4k highspeed rated R content all around the world all we know.
To be fair RUclips hit a singularity when they allowed advertisers to decide the rules like the doctor who episode oxygen in a constantly narrowing slippery sloop in the first apocalypse. Advertisers needed RUclips for the target audience which only watched RUclips you can't sell inventory to no consumers. At that point RUclips stopped being web three at and became web two. In a cycle of banning content and losing a chunk of audience forcing creators to host their own web two platforms for uncensored content and straight up banned content now for RUclips lost audience don't know a single Irl who doesn't watch banned and or censored content on a different video hosting platform. Just cause you ban content to keep Manderley food group, Vanguard, BlackRock and Berkshire Hathaway happy doesn't mean people won't pay to see it and type in a different link. We don't actually know if they were planning on changing up their content in ways banned by RUclips just because dropout does things right doesn't mean it's the only way.
To be fair RUclips hit a singularity when they allowed advertisers to decide the rules like the doctor who episode oxygen in a constantly narrowing slippery sloop in the first apocalypse. Advertisers needed RUclips for the target audience which only watched RUclips you can't sell inventory to no consumers. At that point RUclips stopped being web three at and became web two. In a cycle of banning content and losing a chunk of audience forcing creators to host their own web two platforms for uncensored content and straight up banned content now for RUclips lost audience don't know a single Irl who doesn't watch banned and or censored content on a different video hosting platform. Just cause you ban content to keep anderley food group, anguard, lackRock and erkshire Hathaway happy doesn't mean people won't pay to see it and type in a different link. We don't actually know if they were planning on changing up their content in ways banned by RUclips just because dropout does things right doesn't mean it's the only way.
To be fair RUclips hit a singularity when they allowed advertisers to decide the rules like the doctor who episode oxygen in a constantly narrowing slippery sloop in the first apocalypse. Advertisers needed RUclips for the target audience which only watched RUclips you can't sell inventory to no consumers. At that point RUclips stopped being web three at and became web two. In a cycle of banning content and losing a chunk of audience forcing creators to host their own web two platforms. Just cause you ban content to keep Manderley food group, Vanguard, BlackRock and Berkshire Hathaway happy doesn't mean people won't pay to see it and type in a different link. We don't actually know if they were planning on changing up their content in ways banned by RUclips just because dropout does things right doesn't mean it's the only way.
Saying "everyone can afford" reminded me of when school went completely digital and having the teacher act like im lieing when i said "i dont have a home computer or printer"
Same. I was going to the public library to complete every online assignment for years, and very few of my teachers were forgiving about deadlines despite libraries closing way before midnight (which is usually when things are due)
Thats terrible! At my school (i already was at uni, but a friend of mine is a teacher there) they installed the computers from the it-lab at the homes of poorer students so they could join class.
@@englishatheartseeing as that mistake showed up in a comment sharing how education was made inaccessible to them and how the teachers didn't do anything to help, I don't think paying attention was the problem. You knew what they meant anyway, and being condescending doesn't help anyone learn anything.
@@englishatheart you're being an asshole , sounds like *you* weren't paying attention in school too. kindness is one of the first things they teach us as children.
Dropout said “you’ll get more if you pay”, thats a value add. Watcher said “pay us or say goodbye” thats a value remove. The arrogant tone of the announcement sure didn’t help. Im sure they could have made something sustainable out of this if with minor adjustments and some humility. Too late now though.
@@wahahabuh And don't forget! Everyone can afford it, straight up their words. When the comments were literally chock full of people from the US, and NOT just the US, about how unaffordable it actually is. And given how little they've actually put on the streamer since, which, barely anything (it has a lets play through lmfao), its the most unaffordable streaming service I have ever seen.
Dude...the Watcher guys are just trying to live the Hollywood lifestyle, and be in the parties. They can't afford it, so they need to make a much bigger chunk of money to be able to hang out with bigger Hollywood players. Look at how they dress, and how much that stuff costs. They are burning money on screen every video, with dozens of "employees". Then they want you to pay for that lifestyle without offering you shit. These guys are totally in the ideology. They spew it in every video. AT least in how they talk about things. Always trying to virtue signal, and have weirdos on that are their friends talking about things like 20 year olds that learn about some Gnostic ideology.
They basically said they aren’t making enough money while the first couple shots are of the Hollywood sign visible in their office, a reintroduction of a fancy food series, more members of staff, all wrapped up in a simple video somehow produced by 15 people. It just screams mismanaged money.
How can they cry that they aren't making enough money when out of the 3 channels featured in this video, they are the one with the most views per video? The story time format and the low budget ghost hunting works very well for them, do they really need the expensive food contents? They really fumbled the bag on this one.
also it’s worth mentioning - when Sam reich put his own money behind dropout, he’s a nepo baby! He jokes about it often! He’s the son of Robert Reich! He could support dropout through its growing pains stage until it became successful enough to make money. Dropout wasn’t dropout overnight.
He even talked about why he made Dropout. After College humour let a lot of its workers go, including Grant O'Brian, Sam used his own money to create Drop Out so his friends would have revenue. Dropout was to continue until they had steady income (he originally thought they'd find other jobs) or Dropout became successful enough to be their full time job. Luckily for us it was the second
Also Dropout nearly went under several times and they certainly had their share of difficulties. They got really lucky that their cast and crew are amazing and that they had a supportive audience. And they managed all of that incredibly well to get to the point they're at.
@@abithefallenhuman921 being reminded of Grant losing his job reminds me of the True Facts 3 story where after losing his position at College Humor Grant offered to take Sam out for drinks to cheer him up because Sam was having a rough time with everything going on.
WATCHER mismanaged money. They had a EXTREMELY successful pateron. They had RUclips memberships. They WERE extremely ad friendly. There was zero need for this. They could have downsized their office. Found a cheaper place for their office other than LA. They could have let go of some of those redundant employees. There's so many other options and the chose the WORST ones.
@@edgaralanfrog So much for being “anti-capitalist”, most of these commies are comedically hypocritical. It doesn’t surprise me that Shane is one of them.
@@edgaralanfrogShane can suck a dick, I’m so done with him. I can’t watch anything with him in it anymore. The final straw was him being fine with an arsonist burning down “rich” people’s houses. Like maybe don’t spend recklessly so you can buy a house? And don’t live in CA? He makes more than enough to be considered “rich”. Wtf.
In an episode of Breaking News on Dropout we found out that the day CollegeHumor went under, Grant (who just lost his job) took Sam Reich out for drinks to cheer him up. Like idk, I think it says a lot about you, they way you run your business, and your character when your employees care for you that much.
@@chryststarline1931nope, in one of the True Facts About Grant O’Brien episodes (maybe the last one?) that’s one of the facts given. His only explanation when everyone was saying how nice that was, was “he was sad.” Tbh it really is a sweet episode with everyone saying just the sweetest things about Grant. Like how he taught Rehka how to drive and there’s even an encouraging message from his dad :’)
That's very sweet. I only know the story from the drawfee side who were also let go in the company going under. They talk rather highly of Sam trying to save stuff and still collab with dropout. Also reminds me a little of Ian saving smosh after the defy shutdown. He was paying for stuff, using his house, shielding the cast from the roller-coaster of trying to save it. Similar with try guys taking a pay cut to get this thing up and running! They are leaders
One thing Watcher got VERY wrong: we didn't stay for the "television caliber content," we stayed because of YOU. Watching all of YOU interacting and feeling like we were hanging out with our friends down the street on a Friday night.
Also who cares about this old ass cerca 2017 "5$ food vs 500$" food thing anymore? I don't think the ppl who watch Watcher care about that. Maybe it's just me but any time I see anything with Steven and/or Andrew eating s*** I always think "god, I don't care about this". Does anybody care about the taste test content anymore? What am I supposed get from that? I can't eat the foods you're showing and eating so what's the point?
Exactly. The reason Watcher early on was still fun despite being such a stark departure from their usual stuff was their banter. Are You Scared was a lot of fun because I loved seeing Ryan and Shane interact and just read stupid internet stories. That's part of the reason why the ghost hunting shows were easily my least favorite part of their buzzfeed and watcher stuff. It felt too overproduced. Less like two guys hanging out and more like a TV show.
The reason Dropout is successful is because it wasn’t made to make a successful company more money but because their corporate owners dropped them and Sam actually was invested in seeing the company continue so he put up his own money, reduced the staff to a core team, and they were all hands in to build it up into what it is today. It’s a story that no other RUclips channel (or very, very few channels) can compare themselves too. Dropout wouldn’t have survived without pivoting like they did.
Dropout got started in 2018 when the company was still Collegehumor. IAC, Collegehumor’s parent company, dropped them in 2020. Dropout was never intended to be the only place that CH’s content could be found, until they lost their funding and had no other option but to go all-in on streaming. Dropout is a once-in-a-lifetime business turnaround. Its story needs to be told accurately so that no one starts to believe they can repeat what Dropout did, because even the clearly very competent folks at Dropout likely couldn’t do it all again, let alone wouldn’t do it all again.
There's an episode of Game Changer where the prompt is to give someone a sincere compliment, and Brennan talks about how Sam has made a space for his friends to have fun and show their talent and how glad he is to work with him and have him as a friend, which just makes me feel so many things
@@TheNomnomnommerI love the way they space out the new shows too! When you think you’re gonna get another game changer season you instead get an entirely different show that initially you’re sceptical about, but end up being thoroughly entertained.
@@tim.noonan Exactly! Dropout was a revival story, and they are constantly thankful for it. Dropout also fully understands their audience, and thinks audience first. Look at how Dropout does an auction for the mini's after each dimension 20 season, look at their long running show "Um Actually," Remember when all the streaming platforms where raising prices? Sam put out a video talking about it, and gave everyone a DISCOUNT, a large one too, for a year long subscription! Not to mention, their shows are fantastic, and they make you want to pay for their shows. Its the one subscription I have that I never regret.
Another reason Dropout has worked so well is Sam was willing to sink a lot of his own personal nepo money into the streamer until it started turning a profit. He's mentioned numerous times that he viewed Dropout as a way to keep his friends employed until either they had other sustainable income or the streamer worked. His trust fund money made a huge difference in how that turned out imo
This! This is a huge part. You have to have the money in some way. But also do it right. Sam has that luxury. Ian from smosh did the same after defy shut down until he could sell it to mythical. Keith and Zach took pay cuts to save their employees and make this happen. That says a lot in how you run your company
@@hernameispekka_Rebecca Eugene too! He's still an owner, just not a cast member. When you want people to care about something, you walk the walk and make sacrifices for the benefit of your team and audience
The best part about Dropout is even though it is comedy, its not malicious. You can tell everyone is friends, everyone is laughing, and they don't make the punchlines of their jokes "haha our friend is miserable/scared". Its such a wholesome version of comedy that i can actually enjoy
My favorite video of theirs is the third True Facts about Grant O'Brien. After the first two in the series of ambush-roast comedy videos got too close for comfort (from the viewer side of the screen at least, only the Gods know what happens at Dropout) they rounded off the series by setting him, and the audience, up to think he was in for another roasting and then just shared heartwarming stories that illustrated what a great guy they thought he was. It still works as comedy because the subversion of expectations is where comedy lives, but it is also one of the most genuine and heartwarming things I've ever seen.
@Kylel0519 Hope this doesn't spoil the magic, but Brennan is fully in on the joke. There's a kernel of truth in his breakdowns but his actual feelings are closer to mild annoyance, which he amplies to 11, for his fun and ours.
They probably would've been fine if they hadn't said they were going to put EVERYTHING behind a paywall. That's just looking at their audience and saying, "Thanks guys! We're gonna go hang out with people that can afford us now. Bye!"
What irritated me was they said they were going to put everything behind a pay wall and then back tracked and said everything on RUclips would still be free. It felt like they were scrambling right away.
one of the many issues i had with this was like at least 20% of their content has fan submissions. whether that be stories, fics, q&as, videos, or art. you cannot just make people pay to see the content they submitted in the first place. it’s just 50 shades of fucked up. it’s so disrespectful to those artists, commenters, and writers. and i’m no lawyer but i could see a lawsuit with some merit, especially when it comes to free online fan-fic content or art being turned for profit. not sure if they ever read anything off wattpad or ao3 but they could’ve defo been sued by those platforms.
It was clearly a grift right from the start. Steve Lim talked about wanting to start up his travel-the-world-and-eat-fancy-stuff show, then this happened. THEN a month after they started the streaming service, they let subscribers know they are adding ads to the platform.
They told their low income audience we weren't worth having, so most of us unsubscribed 🤷 which tells me they were so out of touch they didn't realize the rest of us are in a fucking recession
Their shorts are what drew me into paying for their streaming service. To this day I still watch the shorts even after I've watched the full episodes because it's fun to revisit the bits in the episodes. Even though they've stopped making sketches, they still post a ton on RUclips giving people who don't want to pay an option that works.
They have a fantastic shorts game. I see them all the time, their comments are always engaging (except the short that said something along the lines of "don't mention this in the comments or I'll quit" and they turned off the comments 😂😂😂). They just get meme culture and RUclips shorts perfectly. I was already subbed before I got served their shorts (mentopolis episode 1 grabbed me and I needed to watch the season. I've been subbed since).
The full content is 100% worth my money, but when I couldn't afford it, all the shorts and free videos were more than enough to make me happy. I do highly recommend (if and only if you can only afford it) getting Dropout Tv because it's truly a ton of entertainment I actually enjoy compared to lots of stuff on Television or even RUclips these days.
My favorite part of all of this is the Watcher "apology" felt soooo forced, like you told a little kid to say sorry for something they absolutely do not regret
let’s not forget that Watcher’s patreon subscribers had to beg for a free subscription to the streaming service. they were initially gonna make people pay for BOTH. insane
Try Guys was basically: yeah, we don't have enough money, we took paycuts to support our staff, the majority of which you know bc they have appeared on-screen and we don't wanna fire anyone, look at the views, RUclips has really fucked us over and thats why we need to do this. Watcher was like: we need MORE of your money so we can travel to expensive places to try fancy food and keep our staff of whom you know nothing about, besides it's not like you can't affor to help us lmao. Oh, and if you don't, then say goodbye to all of our content, even old videos.
and the one staff member that is getting the most expensive new show is Steven Lim who a LOT of people don't vibe with already. The most popular shows they have are the ones that are Ryan and Shane together.
And the TryGuys do continue on YOuTube and upload the videos, just at a later time. YOu don't necessarily miss things, you'd just gain an advantage without other people having a disadvantage. I really liked their take on it. It made sense and it supported EVERYONE
Watcher really dropped a Goodbye RUclips video, then apologized, and their first video after that was a gameplay. Absolutely infuriating to me as a big supporter of them as PEOPLE. Like, my dudes, watching two guys play video games or read stories (SENT IN BY THEIR SUPPORTERS) around a campfire getting drunk is NOT television quality. They genuinely hurt my feelings.
i feel like the 'fan submitted content' part isnt talked abt enough. maybe its in th second half of th video, i got distracted so ezcuse me if im jus repeating jimmy, but a fair amount of watchers content is reliant on their fans. too many spirits practically wouldnt exist without fans submitting shit, and even ghost hunt (or whatever they called it Tbh the quality jump made it less appealing for me so i just dropped it) features fan submitted testimony and evidence. for them to paywall content that directly takes from free fan submissions is insane, and its a factor i will never get over
Great point. Alot of their content included viewer submissions. I saw someone say they were upset because they wouldn't even be able to see their submission in the new season.
Another huge difference I’ve learned from listening to the Try Guys podcast is that they doubled their production schedule for an entire year leading up to launching the streaming platform so that there would be lots of exclusive content ready to go at launch. Like several different shows. While STILL maintaining their RUclips release schedule. Watcher initially released a “beta version” with no new content and the promise of *one* new show that no one cared about. And no new RUclips videos. Wild.
plus 2nd Try did internal beta testing with Patreon fans to break the system and debug on different platforms. It's available as an app on mobile, roku, etc. along with the website. But Watcher is just the website. Dropout and 2nd Try is just more accessible than Watcher, with more content of higher quality, and at the same price (Dropout) or cheaper (2nd Try)
i also think the try guys context is essentially: you guys seem to like our high production, tv show style content the most. so in order to give you more of that, we feel the most sustainable way forward is to put *some* of that content onto an app. and they have also stressed since forming 2nd Try that one of their goals is to be a more ethical incubator of talent than Buzzfeed. so, for me it's also sort of a matter of put your money where your mouth is? i cycle through entertainment subscriptions. my budget is 25 a month for all entertainment, full stop. for a few months, i can toss money at a production company that is trying to platform the representation i want to see. especially knowing they are paying their staff fairly and providing a good working environment.
And they were pulling from yt completely even if that "was a misprint" (sure Jan) And they weren't going to upload any content here for free which try guys still are. And they said explicitly they wanted to be able to not be in new content ( watcher did ) and they played like they were either doing this OR shutting down the channel complete which is obvious bs. Try guys have been honest "we're struggling but we're doing ok." Watcher ( who I have followed since bf days) were trying to play poor. And least when try guys milk the food channel for their friends they're obvious about how they used ut for the whole team instead of like watch Steven ( with the personality of a potato) eat a 20k stake while flying first class to other countries. Ugg the boys just tanked what should have been a great thing so hard. They should have let try guys announce first and followed. But they wanted to go first ... and they got slammed.
People also neglect a major concern with Dropout: CollegeHumor went fucking bankrupt as their streaming service was getting off the ground. Everyone lost their jobs, save for 8 people who remained full-time. Sam Reich bailed it out with his own money, which is why he's now the CEO.
Dropout and The Try Guys understood what our immediate kneejerk reaction would be, then helped us climb down to "Eh really? Yeah okay that seems pretty fair" Watcher walked into the room, flipped us the bird, pissed in the corner and walked out.
@@Anze99 Not just that, but then trying to gaslight you about how they NEEDED to shit and piss in the corner, while sad music plays in the background.
The fact that Watcher had the audacity to do what they did despite how dependent they are on fans for their content is what pisses me off more than anything else. A fact that was conveniently not acknowledged in their apology. Their flagship show, Ghost Files, has key segments that feature fan submitted evidence. They've got two shows - Are You Scared and Too Many Spirits - that are literally just them reading fan written stories and interjecting with banter. They put out submission requests for these shows without telling the fans who submitted that they were intending on putting those new seasons behind a pay wall. Nothing says "we appreciate our fans" like Shane "eat the rich" Madej and Company taking their fan's free labour for granted. Smh
I saw a comment of someone who said they were devastated because they wouldn't be able to see their submission because they couldn't afford to pay. If they were gonna do this they should award people who submitted with a three months membership or something. Essentially a payment for the submission and the use of it
All I can think of is Shane's video showing him making the props for Puppet History in his living room with materials you can get from any crafts store. I know there's a lot of dedication and work that goes into it, but saying you want to afford "TV quality" when your passion project is mostly homemade feels incredibly tone deaf.
@@TheRogueCommand Not only the passion project, but arguably the best thing Watcher ever put out. All the rest is just mid or a downgrade from their Buzzfeed stuff.
One thing that irritates me most about this entire situation is that Watcher has made some of the most immature financial decisions possible, and rather than learn from them, they blame the viewers and tell us to cough up money! If I want to watch people eat food that I could never afford, or travel to places I could only dream of, I'm going to watch Safiya Nygaard and Tyler travel to Las Vegas or Europe! The fact that they produce hour long videos of their travels with the help of no more than 1 staff member on the trip, and pull in millions of views proves that you don't need million dollar budgets! All you need is a likeable personality, a love for your work, and the ability to responsibly manage your finances -- all of which, the members of Watcher now lack entirely.
If you listen to some of their podcasts it’s a completely different story, ESPECIALLY “For Your Amusement.” Usually starts with about 3, or even like five ads in some cases, continue, about 15 minutes in, another 2 or so ads, continue, more ads… it’s just packed and the content isn’t actually adjusted to match it, so sometimes they’ll be mid sentence- AD AD AD- continue sentence. I think Ryan’s “me” personality is very on display here too. There’s been times I’ve physically had to turn it off because he’d just ramble and ramble and ramble, tell a story about himself, which is fine..! If you don’t cut off everyone to add another long ass story after.. then again, like 10 minutes later do the same thing.. “this is what I would’ve done, for me personality, my favorite,” it’s fine in moderation but 80% of the podcast is purely Ryan’s yapping. Love the guy, happy he has an outlet but you have GUESTS man.
@@geckopeckoThats the hard part, how much would a watcher subscription cost in your countries equivalent currency? For a lot of people I’ve heard its damn near a month of pay.
@@knight1706Others mentioned it in their comments on the video. It IS a month of pay for some people. For them to say it's "affordable" is wildly inaccurate. Especially given a lot of folks have multiple subscriptions. Ugh. It's frustrating 😭
Dropout is the perfect example of a website I want to pay for. The content is top-tier, they treat their talent amazingly well, they've got some of the greatest people in their entire industry doing stuff and getting paid well, they work closely with the unions, they constantly put out new shows, they still maintain a good amount of content as free content on youtube, and the subscription fee matches what they're offering. Not to mention that they're incredibly transparent about their business model. When I was just a free viewer, I was incredibly clear about what I was getting access to and what I wasn't, and they have never changed that. They've only expanded on it over time. All of these things make it so easy to justify paying the annual for me.
@@lauriechan1426that is a fantastic episode, Sam said once in an interview that Brennan doesn’t let him close the door to the green room while he’s inside anymore
So I think something to add is that Too Many Spirits doesn't recognise that the content is largely written by others. Ten days after the apology video, they asked their tumblr to submit stories. I was in the trenches outlining the explicit arguments for why this was a stupid fucking idea. They wanted people to write and provide stories so that they could put them behind a paywall?? A few hours after the last comment (which was mine), I noticed I had stopped getting notes... because the post disappeared.
Yeah, I'd been meaning to submit a story for a while, but I ended up deleting it after this shit. Fuck those guys, they don't deserve the story of the Haunted Ducky Bathroom.
IMPLIED? WATCHER DID INTENTED TO TAKE DOWN THEIR ENTIRE CATALOG. But after backlash they LITERALLY tried gaslighting everyone. With that pinned comment. Saying they never said that. When in reality ITS IN THE VIDEO.
It was also in the interview with vogue I think. The backlash was so terrible, they backpedaled so quickly that they changed their minds. I’m still not happy with them, even months later 😒
Yeah like what the hell do you think the word exclusive means???? If you said "future watcher content will be exclusively on the platform" that'd be different, but it was "in the future, the platform will be the exclusive place for watcher content" Either clear up your writing mistake or admit you said it.
Yeah, Variety magazine confirmed that the Watcher crew came to them before the backlash and told them that was the plan, but then backpedaled when they realized basically their entire audience was going to jump ship.
I actually unsubscribed from Watcher over this. We didn't ask for tv style production. The way they did it comes across as greedy. It's like, "Hey, we're a multimillion dollar corporation, but we want to hire our friends to come live a bougie lifestyle that you could only ever dream of, but we want you to bankroll it. And if you can't afford to pay us for the content you don't really want anyway then get out!" We loved Ryan and Shane's banter in a basement with comic sans font for crying out loud. They can do what they want I guess, but I do not owe them my time or money to do it.
exactly. i honestly think putting steven in charge as the sole head of the company fucked them over, NOT to say that shane and ryan have clean hands in this, but steven is the one used to the big expensive shows and hes the one running their budget afaik
I just learned recently, that for their series "are you scared" Watcher makes everyone who submits a story, submits, not gets chosen, has to sign over all rights pertaining to that story. Once you so much as send it, you are barred from even publishing it for free. There is no payment either. They promise "exposure". So much for supporting artists lol. Like sorry, but thats not who Ithought they were. I unsubscribed immedeatly.
Their branding was spooky. They should have stuck to the ghost/ true crime brand. Nobody really cared about Steven's travel food show. It felt too self indulgent tbh. If they really wanted to they should have just launched a different channel.
That's what really gets me. The bulk of the people who first subbed and boosted the channel were following Ryan and Shane from the Unsolved series, a true crime/ghost hunting show. Throwing in cooking content with that really muddied the brand. The only time I really enjoyed Steven was when he was joining Ryan and Shane for Too Many Spirits, they bounced off of one another really well. Steven's content on its own was never a big draw, so its insane that they're banking so much on Worth It 2.0.
Used to sail the high seas, then stopped when Netflix was the only thing available due to it convenience. Now back to high seas as its more convenient than all these different platforms.
Dropout actually has enough custom content to be worth paying for, while the try guys are fun and free. I don't see how they messed up that bad it's actually laughable
That's the thing. Well I get that Watcher may have needed this the most, it made less sense for them than anyone else. Especially with how they went about it
Try Guys and Dropout both at announcement launched with several new shows so it was worth at least getting the free trial or 1 month to see if the new stuff was something you'd want to see. Meanwhile Watcher had 1 flagship show they even mentioned. No one is going to pay 5.99 to watch 1 show. A travel show when there's hundreds of thousands of travel youtubers. It was truly confusing
unfortunately for Watcher it’s one of those things you can’t come back from - it displays aspects of their characters and values that don’t align with probably the majority of their viewers. in what world what you so confidently make your content inaccessible to the same people that make it possible? there’s no care, grace, humility or thoughtfulness. i’m continuously impressed by the try guys for the opposite reasons lol. they’re SO thoughtful with their audience and you can feel it every time.
It’s kind of crazy how ever since Watcher announced that they would be creating a paywall, I haven’t been to the channel and have no idea what they’ve posted since. That’s how badly they turned me off of their content, even subconsciously.
@@Garsnoos out of curiosity I checked a little bit ago, and they’ve TANKED in viewership. They went from a cozy 1/2Million views to barely scraping 500k. One of the videos only got about 60k. Eeesh.
Honestly yeah they wrecked their rep and i dont think its salvageable now. They screwed up so bad that i considered putting on some old Unsolved on the buzzfeed chanel (because i was absolutely NOT going to give ghost files/watcher chanel any more views or even a search) and i couldnt make it through one episode before i decided "nah fuck this and fuck them im watching literally anything else." The aftertaste of their actions still burns like petrol fumes in the back of the throat and theres nothing they can do to make themselves seem sweeter now, theres no redemption from this imo
It doesn't help that their shows were getting worse before the announcement. Mystery Files stripped everything charming from Buzzfeed Unsolved and made it impossible to follow. They completely misunderstood what they were good at.
i also want to know why watcher made a dramatic sitting on the couch “goodbye to youtube” video rather than a trailer to advertise the new service like dropout did? completely changes the tone of the announcement
The Try Guys/2nd Try definitely took notes from Dropout. They’ve been refreshingly transparent about the hows and whys during the introduction of their streaming service. Recently on their Instagram stories, they shared that some of the top performing videos on their streaming service so far are their worst performing on RUclips. It really illustrated the shortfalls of working around the RUclips algorithm.
The problem with this isn't just that they're paywalling their stuff. It's the "why" that REALLY made this sting. They are guys that came from Buzzfeed. An online entity that was destroyed by over hiring, inefficient spending, and mismanagement. They have over 20 employees, in a MASSIVE office space, in one of the most expensive cities on earth, all to make shows that are literally two guys in a room goofing off the VAST majority of the time. They mismanaged their business, and instead of sucking it up, admitting they didn't learn their lesson from Buzzfeed and downsizing, they decided to paywall all their content after having a patreon, adsense, a merch store, live events, and literal 5 minute ad reads on every video. Rather than accept the obvious conclusion, which is that they need to completely rethink their business model; they keep asking the audience to enable them.
That's a big part of it. Most of their content was just a few guys messing around (like the video points out their drunk santa video). They could have kept a pretty skeleton crew and still produced similar content. It kinda felt 'low effort' but with a high production value. For the periods where they were needed more help (like ghost files that had more planning and organising) they surely could have sourced freelancers. There'ss nothing inherently wrong with temporary employment if everyone is in agreement and the freelancers are paid fairly for their time. It's just extra funny to consider their 20+ employees when I watch some youtubers with more ssubscribers and viewers who STILL do the majority of work completely alone (edit their own content, create their own thumbnails etc), or jusst have like 1 person helping them script and edit.
@@mime514 Lol! There is actually! The S key chatters pretty badly and I've become too lazy to constantly backspace when it does it so I've just allowed my keyboard to occasionally give me an online lisp :P What I need to do is give it a good disassemble and clean, but I'm too lazy for that too atm heheh
The office space really bugs me. Not only is it big -- too big, really -- its one they can get for a fraction of the price elsewhere. But the prestige of the location is what they care about the most and thats just so wasteful. And everyone who is struggling to afford so much as a rented room KNOW how wasteful that is. I lived in LA county (not LA, but the boonies where all the poors roam), so I know the kind of people who put prestige so far above common or even business sense, and these guys fit it to a t
@@impposter560 it really is the most egregious and wasteful thing. Followed by hiring employees from the LA talent pool, meaning they all get paid probably 20% more than an employee almost anywhere else in the country. Followed by being located in California at all. They could move to literally any other area in the country except for MAYBE certain parts of New York, and be paying 1/2 of their total operating budget, even while keeping their outrageously stupid headcount
They WERE going to pull their old videos, according to a news article where they talked about their transition from youtube to paid streaming. Them saying that was never the plan is laughable because they already admitted it to a site that's whole job is to share news.
this is what pissed me off the most and honestly i’ll probably never watch them again. you guys said that nothing except trailers would be available on youtube. like 3x over. then they try to imply the audience is stupid and being in bad faith for indeed thinking that they’d be removing all their content? nahhh. as a casual fan, i could’ve gotten over the streaming service mistake. it happens. we’re dumb, we overestimate our reach or money. but when they pulled the walkback of that statement, that was the end of like tbh
@@reaganb6173AND it’s obviously just so they can keep hiring family, friends and traveling on our dime. They didn’t NEED to do this at all. They wanted to, because greed. I can’t even look at them anymore, I’ve lost all shred of respect for them.
I'm sorry but 20 staff to film two guys sitting and drinking is CRAZY to me. I've only ever seen this much staff and more in television shows like Korean variety shows.
To be fair that 20 should include sound, production design & assistants, camera, script supervisor, several editors, producers, graphic design, a social media manager - that's not even counting the owners and any other onscreen talent as employees. That's if they're running their company properly, though.
@@PrimadonnaSouLaI'll gently push back. Their variety isn't that great, but that's by design. I'm not saying that they don't have variety, but the vast majority of it is just comedy improve with certain themes. Thing is, that's the whole point. If you want that, here you have a service that gives you that. It's not a service for everyone, and it isn't trying to be. It's meant for the people who like that type of content. It's not trying to be Disney+, or Netflix or Hulu or whatever, which have a greater variety of shows and movies (as in, if you divide the amount of content in those platforms by what they cost, they are "better" than dropout), but it's a more scattered approach because it's trying to cast a wider net for a more fickle audience, and a more costly one at that. With all the licensing agreements and big budget productions, it's all a gamble. Dropout? Smaller productions, smaller budgets, more targeted audience, they don't have to try and cater to every taste.
I love how also in the little documentary of getting their streaming service going zach and keith talk about how they took pay cuts to make sure that their employees were taken care of during this
Plus, Zach and Keith have talked multiple times about trying to please the YT algorithm and how it works against creator. They've also talked about working directly with YT for a video (High Stoned Obstacle Course) and it stills got demonetized. So they had to delay the release to do a lot of creative editing (great job Skyler!). Then, they made the uncensored version available for free! (Love that version!!). They have even got demonetized for saying b*tthole.🤨🙄 So, their explanation made more sense than Watcher. And, they almost always film in their studio or greater LA area.
Meanwhile they probably got raises. They had so many options. Like downsizing, taking less money, they could've let go of redundant employees. They could have moved office locations to somewhere other than LA. They had RUclips memberships, they had pateron they are extremely ad friendly. They could have started actually using pateron tbe way it was intended. Because apparently they stopped giving early access and got lazy. They made around 60k A MONTH or MORE for that
One thing that I feel they overlooked is that, many of their fans DID enjoy Worth It... when it was on Buzzfeed's dime. Not only was it a well-produced show, but we all didn't mind the cost because it was amusing that these middle-class men could live in disgusting luxury as part of their job (paid for by a huge media company). We felt like we were at least on the same level as them, where luxury for all of us had the same definition because they themselves were not rich. And honestly, their send off for Worth it was already good; 5+ years of that may have meant it has run its course. Now, they're trying to bring back that hype, but they're asking money from their fans. Which, duh. No one's gonna like that. We used to laugh and be in awe with you but then you're turning around and asking for our wallets. Jimmy’s right in saying they are acting like they're doing us a favor by making us content we never really asked for either. And Steven already eats luxury food regularly on their channel. The novelty of 100+ dollars for a dish has worn off.
Even with the "going international" thing. If they said they wanted to do Ghost Files in new places it would have gone over way better than "we wanted to go on vacation, but we don't want to pay for it". We want you pay all this extra money so we can bring back the show where I hang out with my friend and eat food you could never afford. Why don't we eat some steaks in front of some homeless people while we're at it? I am all for less advertiser interference, but this was not the move.
The food and drink mixing shows were ridiculous, and so frequent. They could have put that man power and money into things people watched, not stuff one specific employee wanted to make so they could be the star of that branch of the show.
From what I took of the food content now having Andrew and Adam included, it never came off to me as them asking us to foot the food bill for their extravagant dinners that they’d be comparing to other places like a Worth It revival. I saw it as the trio coming back to play the same character dynamics from Worth It but now have the content be more akin to that of the channel About To Eat (beloved former buzzfeed chefs collab channel) or even Bon Appetit. Viewers instantly assumed it would be just more Worth It and the money to fund it would fall on the viewers. Even the direct hate to Steven was a bit excessive when the people who’d get a majority of the money would be Ryan and Shane because they wanted to elevate the quality of their ghost hunting videos.
This! I enjoyed Worth it the most in their early days. Because even the most expensive ones weren't ridiculous. They were expensive but still in the realm of boujee not $1000 ice cream covered in gold. Those dishes where like a clickbait of a restaurant. No one's really eating that but it's on the menu to draw curious people. I prefered when it was legitimate luxurious restaurants. And it was two guys living their average life getting to eat something most of us would never consider. Later it became 1) an ad for restaurants 2) not relatable
What Watcher failed to realize was that people weren't watching for the production quality, we were watching for *the personality.* I was huge Buzzfeed Unsolved fan and the show is why I followed Shane and Ryan to Watcher. I didnt care that they had new toys to ghost hunt with or better cameras. I just wanted to see the guys play off each other in a way that they could do. If I wanted television quality, i would have turned on the TV. Simple as that. So many RUclipsrs are obsessed with getting to TV that they dont consider that certain content styles are better fit for RUclips. Not podcasting, not streaming, and not TV.
Not even that, just buy the basic equipment and mix it yourselves! That or just hire one, I could have sworn I saw two bartenders credited. One bartender isn't enough for like two people? In a non-bar/restaurant setting? How slow are they?
@bekaz13 I thought that that might be the case too, and I honestly hope you're right. There's mismanagement, and then there's just spending money frivolously.
Watcher buried themselves. They embraced the risk of losing subscribers until it was too much and stopped uploading until they backtracked. Losing subs and pausing uploads for as long as a month destroys your chances of getting recognized by the algorithm.
Apparently they are putting out Too Many Spirits again, which was one of my favorites, but I've got no inkling to watch it after being recommended it once
I used to think I was the only Steven hater and then when that video dropped 70% of the comments expressed how much they hate Steven and I felt so seen
It was such a slap in the face when they said that they couldn't support their content with ad revenue and patreon, and this is why they need to leave RUclips. But then literally the third video after their apology its a video of Steven doing luxury traveling. Yes it was a series they had before but it's ridicules that they decided to bring that back now of all things especially when they're supposed to be "struggling" with what they have now.
The bit about launching "Travel Season" was particularly egregious. Like, "thanks to your generous support, we can now continue to live in luxury like the rich assholes we used to pretend not to be." And this sucks, right? Because Shane and Ryan especially had such good onscreen chemistry. They were like the only Buzzfeed people I regularly watched, and I was genuinely sad when Buzzfeed Unsolved stopped. But ever since then they seem to have been trying to forget their roots.
I felt Shane and Ryan talked to us like we were ppl, i felt, the dude sitting next to them who i truly don't find important (steven?) sounded like pr robot. Apologies aren't easy, shame is a real thing. people do and will back pedal when they realize, oh, we f*cked up big time. that's the whole point of taking back what you said. I've had people talk down to me my whole life, I've had abusive parents and partners who has gaslit me and made me feel like I was nobody.. and when people use it in these comments, it's hard for me to know if they actually understand what that word means. I felt their apology was sincere. Ryan & Shanes anyways. i never really seen many youtubers do that. most grovel and beg, and cry and or ignore and never address it. they told us why theyr thought this was best and realized itg would hurt their community and they back pedaled and took back the changed they thought would be successful. how will people know they are wrong unless we voice it ( which we did) but how can people show change if no one lets them. The made poor financial choices and it's on them to figure out the next steps for themselves. Their visions didn't align with us, so it's their job to figure things out and change. Not doing the things they were set out on doing is the start. and which they did, they took it back and ignore fans. they expressed how they messed up and that was the first step into fixing things. admitting you're wrong. To each your own though, we all have different opinions on the matter. i only hope they thrive, because i've watched since first episode and I'm not going to give up on them so easily. take care and have a good day!
Dropout was very transparent about where the customer's money was going, launched at a time where the market wasn't completely saturated by streaming services, and hard launched with A LOT of new content to incentivize viewers to pay the price of admission WITHOUT affecting their normal content flow. A lot were willing to do it for d20 alone, but soon enough plenty of new shows like Total Forgiveness and eventually Game Changer popped up to retain those viewers, without affecting how non-subs can consume their content. Watcher had already sold their Buzzfeed Unsolved backlog to Hulu, don't upload very often and only hard launched with Travel Season, which, by the way, pitching a show where you travel to exotic places and eat expensive food during an economic downturn to your "broke college kid" audience is... uh... bold. Watcher TV was fighting a losing battle from the beginning, and the way they pitched it didn't do the platform any favors either.
And they didn't even have Travel Season ready at launch! It was over a month before they released it. They had *nothing* new at launch, and for the first month only released a couple let's plays.
Yeah. Most people won’t subscribe for one show. But some will if it is a must. But two? Three? Now we are talking. I see shorts of Breaking News. Game changers. Very Important People. I see shorts of shoes I didn’t even know about that I want to watch. I haven’t caved yet. But I might.
I remember a friend was literally offering to pay for a month for multiple people so they could give the dnd show more viewers and hopefully people would want to keep paying after more or less being given a free trial by my friend.
I definitely noticed their Too Many Spirits episodes becoming unnecessarily over-produced and it really irked me because its entire vibe changed into this big production when it started out with this casual premise of two guys sitting down, getting drunk, and reading silly scary stories with some chatter to the guy behind the camera.
I used to get together with a friend to watch too many spirits, but when it got over-produced we didn't care anymore, I haven't watch an episode in a long time
There is a theory going around that Watcher heard of what the try guys were doing and tried to get to it first, without putting in the work that the try guys did to understand how to create a platform properly without alienating their fans. It was rushed and thus why they had such a sloppy announcement and subsequent backlash
Sounds unlikely. That would make sense if Watcher and the Try Guys were fierce competitors, but they aren't. The Try Guys are significantly more popular, there isn't a lot of overlap in the types of content they're known for, and there isn't a huge overlap in their audiences either. Ultimately there's no real benefit to "doing it first." There certainly isn't enough benefit to being first to be worth taking such a risk. And honestly, it's unlikely they knew anyway. The two groups don't seem to have much - if any - contact with each other.
@@kelandryyemrot1387 That's not entirely true; they're both buzzfeed offshoots and watcher REALLY thinks theyre the bees knees so by comingi nfirst they get first dibs on viwerships wallets "well Im already paying for watcher... im not gonna pay for a second" which to be fair would have given them a slight advantag if they hadnt fucked it all up since everyone that is willing to pay will be prioritizing try guys since as you said theyre bigger.
@@kelandryyemrot1387 like I said it’s a theory. I don’t know if it’s true or not. I just heard it a couple places and thought I could add it to the discussion. Especially considering that a lot of times the creators do talk to each other behind-the-scenes it wouldn’t be out of possibility. But the truth is will never know.🙂
Keith and Shane are very good friends IRL. I believe they both wanted to do the same thing, then the Try Guys saw how badly it went for Watcher and they wisely decided to pivot and not put everything behind a paywall.
God, that original Watcher announcement video was so cringey. It seemed like they thought they were much bigger successes than they actually were, and that people cared about their journey a lot more than they actually do. The interviews, them recounting the history of the channel and their own individual journeys. "We hope you'll follow us again, one last time." The whole thing was so tonedeaf and masturbatory.
Yeah, the number of people who followed them from Buzzfeed (a free RUclips channel) to Watcher (another free RUclips channel) is not indicative of the number of people who will pay cash to watch the same content
It's still boggles the mind that watcher has almost as many employees as Smosh when watcher is a single 3 million subscriber channel that hardly puts out any content, while Smosh runs 3 separate channels. One has 28 million subscribers and the other two each have 8 million, and each channel individually puts out more content than watcher.
Hell, even the Try Guys don’t have content half as good as dropout’s and I’m saying this as a fan of all three. Dropout is in a league of its own right now for so many reasons, and these small fry channel platforms will likely never be able to compete
The only show of Watcher’s that I could see justifying a streaming platform is Puppet History, and even then it’s barely making it into that category. The vast majority of watcher’s content is very dependent on fan interaction and submissions that makes no sense for a streaming platform
@@chanashira8570I agree with this but I also do think the try guys have some wonderfully creative and fun shows under their belt. Without a Recipe and Phoning It In are absolutely delightful to watch and I could see those shows on an actual streaming service and make sense. I actually trust their ability to make tv quality shows, meanwhile Watcher relies heavily on fan interaction/submissions for most of their shows, which makes zero sense for streaming
It's almost like Ryan is still trying to compensate for the insecurity he felt when he found out Buzzfeed was exploring the idea of selling Unsolved to a network that would have replaced him with a different host, and now he's constantly striving to be "good enough" for TV so that he'll never get replaced in the future, and it's backfiring on him.
@@theredqveen Probably both. I was mainly referring to his constant use of "TV quality" when referring to their content. It reminded me that story. The rest is just narcissism and greed for sure.
one can never use success to outrun oneself, indeed. Ryan was my favourite Watcher before I stop supporting them completely. i relate to him the most being a scaredy cat (kinda) Asian, but now, in retrospect, i can see how much Ryan had changed from the goofy, scared Unsolved guy to... this. i wish everyone a smooth journey into oneself.
Just a side note. If your comfort shows are Friends, the Office and How I met your mother. Just buy the box sets for them. You can get them for pretty cheap online and can watch them anytime
If you have a Blu-ray/DVD player, which isn't a given. You're also tied to said player instead of being able to watch it on your phone, laptop or smart TV halfway around the world on a trip. I get the overall sentiment though, and there are ways to handle it by setting up a media server or whatnot, but the steaming option is simply more convenient. You pay and boom, there it is.
The problem with making your own paid streaming service is that you instantly give your audience an ultimatum between paying for you or affording rent, food, communication, transport, etc...which is why the first thing you cut when budgeting is any luxury and that includes entertainment.
The Try Guys filmed most of their content in their studio or in the greater Los Angeles area. The most expensive shows were W.A.R. series and the live finale . Only Drop In the City required airplane fare, transportation etc. And, they only went to Las Vegas which is not that far from LA. So far all the 2nd Try TV content that has been aired had been filmed In their studio or nearby.
@@greyblueme9711 Now compare that to the one video of terrible CEO Steven and his friend taking $48,000 flights. By the numbers alone, the CEO is to blame. How could the Watcher guys be this foolish and disconnected?
Bro literally it’s so embarrassing when ppl come over and they’re like “Oh what are we watching?” And I’m like “Uh whatever is interesting on RUclips” bc it’s LITERALLY the few platforms where viewing is completely free
Watcher was dissapointing bc they know they would be cutting off a lot of dedicated fans but decided that it wouldn't be much bc 6 dollars for them is pocket change. As an international fan, 1 dollar is currently 58.87 my currency, so 6 dollars is 353.22. That's a little more than half the minimum wage so it's really disheartening.
Critical Role did something similar to the Try Guys recently, but they pretty much are like "yeah, it's because we're doing new projects and it'll help." we still get everything we have for free. it didn't feel NEARLY as bad as watcher
And Critical Role produces literally 4 hour long actual play shows, they have staff they legitimately need (even before they moved to their new amazing AF set) and they have highlighted several times that for the average critter, nothing will change. The CR crew put out so much content, and there is a decade of backlog, and choosing subscribing to Beacon over Twitch isn't that much of a financial difference
@@kiddy1992that was a bit of a programming fail, but as someone who watched the after darks, it very rarely had anything besides parasocial flirting and stuff that in retrospect is very telling
Yeah I have been one leg out this campaign because I’m busy so I missed the announcement and I didn’t even realize they owned it for a while I just assumed it was some other service for content pre-releasing or something. Hasn’t changed my experience in the slightest
dropout and the try guys both have a large, diverse cast that participate in video making, whereas watcher has three guys, they're actually incapable as a company of producing the same quantity and quality of videos for a streaming service also there was a leaked episode from the watcher streamer about the making of ghost files, their biggest shows, and they talked about how they brought a TON of people, spent an extra day touring wherever they were, and overproduced the show to hell. real bad look for one of the ONLY new shows on the streamer when it launched
RUclipsrs forget that their videos are a commodity in a site that lets you watch millions of (varying) quality videos for FREE I ain't shelling out my increasingly valuable cash towards some glorified cable package when there are a thousand other upstart channels that can take your place in my regular entertainment consumption
@@OlPalJoe I love how the RUclipsrs I follow regularly admit how grateful they are for their gigs and can poke a lot of fun on their production ("Sorry I vanished, editing takes a lot of time and I have to work, LOL") no matter the size. I suppose sometimes number can drive people a little insane - it's like a drug of power; look, there are 10,000 people subscribed to my channel, y'know?
@@OlPalJoe Yep. Thousands a month from basic Google ad revenue, then the thousands a month they make from shilling shitty products with ad-reads, then thousands _more_ via Patreon, and then they decided to throw a paid streaming service on top of that because the tens-of-thousands they make each month already just isn't enough for them.
As a (former) huge Watcher community member the staffing/“television caliber” issue was the main issue. People flocked to the channel to basically watch Ryan & Shane hang out in different circumstances and all this other nonsense just felt pushed on to them by Steven Lim to fund his aspirations to be a professional influencer.
Yeah, I was one of the people who flocked to watch Ryan and Shane. I dont know anything about that Steven guy, only surface level stuff, but I got that feeling that this was something he was pushing for. Then again what would I know as a casual Watcher? I looked at the comments for Stevens new show and it was mostly positive but the show itself sounded like it was in poor taste. And when there were genuine criticisms made the commenters were labeled as trolls by the same 2-3 people defending every aspect of Watcher. But they always come off as condescending and sometimes even advocating for opinions to be silenced. They were saying a bunch of hypocritical stuff and would mostly avoid being called out on it. They are go great lengths to defend them. Idk it just feels off. I think they need to change their content pipeline again and perhaps take some notes from paywalled content like Corridor, from what Ive seen their model is great.
I think the reason places like Smosh, Try Guys and Dropout can justify the increase in staff is because of growing demand. You don’t add 20 people just to add 20 people. You have to see the need for the position and the necessity of it being filled at that moment in time. The Try Guys basically started off in the same position as Watcher breaking off and starting their own company, the difference is, they knew when to start growing their company and how much they could support it compared to the success of their content. Im going to be honest here, I was a big fan of Buzzfeed Unsolved. It’s sorta what got me into True Crime. So of course I went over to Watcher. In the time since they left Buzzfeed, I have watched maybe 3 videos. It just no longer really spoke to me the same way it did when they were on Buzzfeed. And I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of people felt the same way. Heck there were comments that you showed that said people were there from Buzzfeed days. Sometimes you can tell when someone’s ego goes to their head….and Watcher unfortunately is that.
Exactly, when CollegeHumor went under, Dropout reduced themselves to a literal skeleton crew. I believe Brennan was the only on screen cast member to be fully employed at that point and everyone else was freelanced. Sam invested his own money to keep it going, he said he wanted it to be at least long enough for all of the others to find work. It’s just, hearing stories like this make it sooo obvious Watcher just completely mismanaged their money, I’ve seen that the Try Guys took pay cuts to keep from laying people off and all of these companies essentially had the same goal- to keep their friends employed, except Watcher wasn’t willing to make the same type of investment/sacrifice, it seems.
“Watcher … wishes they could produce for TV , so they think they’re doing the internet a favour by gracing us with their presence.” 23:29 OMG, YES. This exactly. Yeah, this video is one of the very few that really understands the issues Watcher fans have had with their decision. My husband and I were patreons. We are all for supporting creators. But we were angry. We’re still angry. And that quoted comment is exactly how we felt. They seem to think they’re above their own audience.
Lol yes Dr Todd Grande also shoots down the Watcher's aspirations to make "TV Quality" content in his analysis of this debacle & expresses an opinion that their content is not TV quality. iirc the 'TV quality' statement came from Ryan, & it just seemed like his ambitions exceeded that platform he was producing for & perhaps he & Steven don't want to be YTubers anymore, that they have the perception that they should be at the level of a TV production company. Which made me wonder if possibly their own concepts or content just weren't 'good' enough to be pitched or sold to an existing streaming service or terrestrial network. The Try Guys 'Without A Recipe' series did have a separate run on the Food Network, which afaik they were executive producers with a freelance crew, so not sure why The Watcher guys could not have done the same thing eg a ghost hunting 'special' or doco for one of these niche platforms. Both Steven & Ryan were said to be difficult to work with at BF, but managed to develop popular shows by forming strong working relationships with particular coworkers who became close friends to produce their shows. Am guessing the key problem for Steven & Ryan is that it appears they haven't worked out how to replicate that success by working with others, but are relying on the format that had worked for them at BF, by casting themselves at the 'main talent' on screen & as producers. The Try Guys have recognised that they needed to expand their cast & evolve their format, however time will tell if they also fall into the same trap of bring contemptuous of their audience. All imo
Meanwhile, Quinta Bronson, a former BuzzFeed peer is actually producing (& acting) for TV. Sadly, I'd barely heard of Watcher until this snafu of theirs. & I watch & subscribe to a TON of YT - including Try Guys, Dropout content, GMM, MrBeast, etc., yet the algorithm put _this_ and similar vids _about_ Watcher on my homepage exponentially more frequently and sooner than any _actual_ Watcher vids.
@@notorioustori it also helped that Quinta had the acting and producing approach pretty much from day one. I remember the Buzzfeed Original series she did called Broke. She did do some of the challenges but not as often as her peers
@@JuriAmari no argument here, lol. It's just that you'd think after so many many years removed from BuzzFeed that Watcher crew would have picked up a few dos and don'ts, production-wise.
The fact that watcher isn’t reaching the millions of views they’d get before their apology video is insane 😭 I was so hurt when they pulled that move and can’t bring myself to watch them without being salty
I’m surprised this video didn’t mention the borderline-unhinged Tumblr post made by Shane’s wife/frequent Watcher guest star Sara Rubin where she tried to address the backlash. Just a complete disconnect from the audience they cultivated on all levels
@@Sunidhi2706she basically said that they’re artists and artists need to eat too and that the price is to support them and folks called them out for their big wedding and sara having a designer bag
@@Garsnoos Because the only people who can afford to be an 'artist' living for over 10 years in one of the most expensive cities in the world are those who had established family to support them in the first place. I agree that artists should be paid for their work but her husband and his fellow partners in business appeared to be grossly mismanaging money that most people do not have and instead of cutting back and honing the company to stay alive, they went for an egotistical quick money scheme.
@@robp5469 meanwhile watcher's shows mostly involve... imitating or reviving the old content from their previous company but with the serial numbers filed off
There’s literally so many shows i’m interested in watching. Gamechanger, make some noise, VIP, thousandaires, Dirty Laundry, Play it By Ear. I keep being amazed by the new shows popping up, such high quality. I’ll get a subscription one of these days, and i have a feeling i may never terminate it once i do.
and yet Watcher set their prices the same as Dropout with a lot less backlog and a lot less coming out of the pipline, yet still has a bloated crew and budget for each show... hm..... meanwhile, 2nd Try has just a slightly smaller following than Dropout and still a big backlog (included backlogs of exclusive content to rerelease) and 2 years of being an independent prod company over Watcher, and they priced themselves cheaper too!
I found their whole announcement video so disconnected from their audience. They complain about lack of revenue. They state $6 a month is affordable. Steven announces return of Worth it where they get to experience luxury on our dime. This was such a bad move. I don’t even think the React brothers announcing the ownership of the word “react” was this bad.
If noone understands why I laugh so hard every time I see the clip of them saying "going to the UK and Scotland" it'd be like me saying I'm going to go to the USA then Illinois.
Phasing out the television caliber was so smart. It irked me so much. It means nothing. TV makes reality tv, silly shows, poorly written shows, great stuff. Tv quality means nothing. It just feels like they look down on RUclips because of the medium. There was someone who talked about how the streaming service sustainable because of the garenteed payment no matter how much the subscriber watches. Which I could get... But that's what patreon is for. As a subscriber, I'm disappointed. Im also frustrated at fans trying to push the blame just on one person on the team. There are so many ways they could've made it work and so many things that could've done before getting to this point (such as not hiring as many ppl).
fr and also, just bc one is a CEO doesn't change the fact that there's 3 co-owners. they all have equal say. not to mention, hiring your buddies from the same company just means you all know how to make the same style and level of content. you're going to need to hire ppl from traditional media to emulate that content. 2nd Try did that from the start of their company with Rachel Cole and a few others while also getting to hire their friends. IMO as someone in traditional media (post-sound for film/tv and producer for indie shorts),,,,, Watcher wasn't set up for success from the jump...
They worked on me too 😂 but I think part of the reason is that Sam was honest: Watchers stuff is NOT tv calibre, most of their series are cheap in every way EXCEPT video production. Two guys playing games? Reading stories? For $6.99 USD a month? To support their 50 employees 🙄 But some of the stuff on Netflix is made with a smaller budget and still fun/enjoyable. Sam was setting realistic expectations and we were cool with it. Watcher was trying to pull the wool over our eyes and we weren’t.
It's easy to fund a trip to the motherland when you clock it as a work expense. Flights to Korea can be $2K or more, but they're free if you make your patreons pay for it!
I’ve watched them since their early buzzfeed days, and because of this one mess up, I honestly lost trust in them…. Even after their apology video, I still haven’t regained that trust either. This really showed their true colours and it’s hard to ignore, imo
this is so interesting to me cause i only watched their ghost show, and never watched them on buzzfeed. so it was so easy for me, after this debacle to just be like “fuck it don’t care. never watching again lmfao” but to see y’all, the real OGs, feel the same way really makes one realize how severe they fucked this up
@@reaganb6173 I don’t consider myself to have a parasocial relationship with them or anything, but after watching them for 10(??) years, seeing them do something like this felt so out of character for them, so it was a huge shock. I think it confirmed in a lot of peoples minds that they’re just like any other company who will do anything for money
@@reaganb6173 I also watched them early on. The sad thing was that it felt a lot less clean than Buzzfeed's other crap. It felt fun and it had some genuinely iconic and quotable moments. But after this fumble it even sours rewatching their old videos. It feels scripted now. It makes one ask "Was it always just about the money?" And the sad thing is the answer is clearly yes. Sucks.
It's the same thing as what happened in early Hollywood: the filmmaking studios owned the cinema theatres. The US government had to make law to dismantle this kind of system. I think studios shouldn't be allowed to stream their own movies, especially in an exclusive manner. Streaming services should independently compete to stream movies. This is how we can watch any and all movies in the same theatre. We should be able to watch any and all movies and shows on the same streaming provider. Competition shouldn't be about what content is allowed, it should be about the quality of the service: the bitrate, the resolution, the convenience, etc.
It's getting out of control. Especially Disney+, paramount etc. Hulu and Netflix are cool because they have everything. But I totally agree. It's like they are holding their content hostage
I’m curious to see what happens long term now that the Paramount Law has been repealed. With Sony buying Alamo Drafthouse, it’ll be interesting to see how that goes in ten years…(although, with streaming killing cinema, maybe it won’t be worth it to studios to make that another problem…)
honestly? ive stopped following what happened with watcher after they said goodbye, a comment that stuck with me specifically is that someone was watching it in line at a food bank, i used to help stock those places and man, acting like everyone can afford something is such a stupid short sighted executive move effectively stating loud and clear "EVERY PENNY MATTERS NOW I DONT CARE HOW BAD IT MAKES US LOOK JUST FEED THE MACHINE" and i really wish they'd have just. not been bad people with this.
Dropout is worth every penny, and adds so much quality content all the time. Plus I LIKE everyone on Dropout. None of that is true for Watcher. And the transparency thing… watcher lied about the original plan to remove everything on RUclips, lied about the advertiser thing as they’re talking about doing entire branded episodes on the streamer, and all they’ve put out so far is some half-assed let’s plays (very tv caliber) that they clearly don’t care about, and yet another iteration of Stephen eats fancy food, which has already failed on Watcher when it was free. (To be clear though, this is not Stephen’s fault, they all made this decision). On top of ALL of that, their shows are all worse than they were on buzzfeed, like you covered. They seem to have fully misunderstood what was successful about their shows and focused entirely on production, but then they use AI art so… what’s actually left that makes Watcher worth it? A lot of people think the reason Watcher seemed so rushed and terrible was that they wanted to beat the Try Guys, and it’s really the only theory that makes their many bad decisions make sense.
The irony around the "banned" words us that it is far less respectful to use phrases like "self-deletion" or some other twee euphemism rather than the actual word.
"Kermit sewer slide" and "unalive" make it seem like a joke But apparently these platforms find those less offensive than just saying the actual word itself
Eh I'm sewerslidal and i think its clever some of the stuff they come up with to get around censors. Sorta like when forcing yourself not to cuss, you can come up with some pretty good substitutions on the fly after a while. Idk, people that are actually depressed and going through it for real couldnt care less how youtubers avoid being demonetized. You need to work on taking offense on behalf of people you know.
@@tairneanaich I never said it was...? If you can find a single person that has attempted deletion, and is actually hurt by word substitutions of self deletion _(on youtube)_ well, then they aren't taking enough care of themselves psychologically.
Making all the old content paywalled is insane. People will always feel scammed when you pull that, it makes something that was free before paid now, it feels like a loss psychologically.
This! And the old content still makes money. Even on just egotistical business levels it doesn't make sense. Smosh has talked about how they can run the company and risk buying it because the backlog views keep the lights running in the company. Yes, watcher has way less backlog, but it's still throwing away money
Something I don’t see people commenting about, y’all know that Steven Lim is the CEO of Watcher, right? A media personality with ZERO company management experience is running the entire business. I can guarantee that he severely mishandled their money. They need to hire a professional company manager if they want to actually stay afloat.
Another detail that made me respect the Try Guys crew more and kind of clued me into the budget mismanagement in Watcher was this: when the Try Guys saw that they were losing money and were told "you need to fire people to stay afloat" Keith and Zach said "we don't want to fire people, we are going to take a pay cut instead until we are doing better". Maybe they didn't hire some freelancers back and only kept the core staff employed, but to me that speaks volumes about their integrity and how they understand the responsibility they have towards their employees, especially with how dire the job market is right now (ESPECIALLY in media and entertainment). I respect the Hell out of Watcher for also not wanting to fire anyone and give jobs to talented people they know, but they seemed to lack the knowledge the Try Guys had when making their streaming service, and definitely lacked the tact in communicating their decision. Both Watcher and Try Guys suffered from RUclips's ever changing algorithm and restrictions and the fickle advertisers, I don't blame them for seeking out a more stable source of income that allows them to make the media they want to make... but only the Try Guys have gone on to explain the obstacles YT has put them through; first through their announcement and in much deeper detail in interviews across the platform (once you hear them explain all the hoops they have to jump to get a video out, and how to keep that video monetized... your brain will melt). Watcher's message read as "We always wanted to make TV, for a TV audience. RUclips was just temporary, you were our training wheels, and we don't need you anymore (but give us your money)". I haven't seen any of the Watcher guys be interviewed about this matter on podcasts outside of their channel like the Try Guys have, so I think they're coming off as less transparent than their fellow ex-buzzfeed coworkers. Time will tell what happens to them.
@10:22, Watcher didnt 'imply' all their youtube content was moving to their streamer. They actually privated all their videos and it was stated in the Viriety article about the move. When they got the swift backlash they backpedaled quickly and tried to imply that it never happened, essentially gaslighting their audience. The proof however was there.
No, they launched dropout in 2018. IAC dropped them in late 2019 or Jan 2020, so they had a bit more support at the beginning but when they were dropped it got a ton of sympathy.
@@chanashira8570they launched Dropout following the massive layoffs at College Humour, so by that point College Humour was considered dead, even if it hadn't been dropped
I have a feeling employees are friends and they dont have the heart to let them go so they give them work on everything to justify them and not make them feel like they are not needed or are a part of projects.
I love to pay for people to go to places I'll never go, show me B roll that is lesser than marketing footage that is freely available, and then I get to see their eyes glaze over as they tell me it's "indescribable".
Before Try Guys even announced their change, they slowly started phasing the new members into their new videos while activiely upping production value. For the series finale for season 1 of phoning it in they had Duff from Charm City Cakes as a guest judge and they started publishing the new all-star season of phoning it in with really high profile and high caliber chefs before they officially announced their streaming platform. They have also been pushing RUclipss demonitization policy for a while, epsecially with Zach's attempt at starting Smoke Show. Their content was getting bigger and better and was still up for free on youtube when they announced this pivot. We could see where the koney was going and it was to make these high quality shows. They even did try to pivot to television which was totally blown up by the whole Ned thing. They are actually making videos with huge overheads and require special sets or filming on location or huge crews. A lot of watchers content could literally be filmed in their bedrooms with the cheapest alcohol they could find while still using their nice cameras and microphones but the quality of the videos would be the same. The dichotomy here is crazy
2nd Try has been SO transparent in their business model on YT and their declining attitude toward it. They speak so openly about it and involved some fans to help beta test and break the streaming app / platform before launch. They have a whole video about how it's been a year in the making and had a thorough social media plan and schedule for everything. I find that from the jump, 2nd Try has been higher caliber management and I think a lot has to do with hiring Rachel and other people, who've worked in traditional media, rather than solely your friends who you want to help keep employed. You see how much they care about their team. Like Miles, he was a PA to podcast producer (cuz they fostered that growth) to former employee to cast member. The energy and attention 2nd Try gives their audience vs Watcher kinda says it all...
When this happened, I didn't even know they had a Patreon. The moment I did, and realised they weren't giving any perks to them, it was anger from me and I'm not even a Watcher person
I have a strong feeling Watcher got wind of The Try Guys' plans (or even were offered to join) and they really rushed their process. Then they tried to steal Second Try's thunder by launching first. Reminder that Steven has always tried to ride their coattails from the very inception of Worth It.
The thing that immediately leapt out to me as an intriguing difference between Dropout and Watcher was staffing: Dropout has been very vocal about their determination to keep staff numbers down, to focus on profitability and sustainability. This is no doubt in large part due to the terms of the deal by which Sam acquired the company, but it also gave them a sense of the scrappy underdog. It was only *this year* that they hit 25 staff members, with everyone else being independent contractors. (And they also dodged criticism by making them truly independent; with many also doing outside work.) By contrast, Watcher began by bragging how big they were out of the gate. There's this sense of arrogance in that.
you know, drop out has a show about a whole group of people getting drunk and playing a game together, they only had 1 bartender who was in on the game as well. why did watcher need 2 to get 2 people drunk? it seems like watcher is less of a company/corporation and more of just a group of friends trying to get their friends jobs and work together, but they're doing it at the expense of their audience.
The "TV quality" thing grated on every last one of my nerves, so its validating to know I wasn't the only one bothered by that. I'm an elder millennial at this point, in the twilight of my life in internet-years, but I feel confident saying that using TV as a benchmark for quality and prestige feels incredibly outdated. TV/cable is the whole reason our current streaming model looks the way it does,. It's why streaming took off, and it's why online media occupies the space that it does.
"Pay me money and I'll tell how you it feels to eat a $20k steak." Sounds more like a joke than an actual marketing tactic.
HONESTLY
Adding the tour season schtick felt like a slap in the face. Absolutely tactless
Their newest video had them to go South Korea to eat spicy food. I counted I think 7 people who it looks like all went on this trip. It's no wonder Watcher needs the money. They don't seem to be well managed.
I was never going to be a fan of Watcher, but the “$20,000 steak of airline seat” BS lands flat when I’m comparing price per ounce for pasta at the grocery store.
@@dnddetective They were drying up of material, so they had to do the same but more expensive instead of actually giving new ideas
@@dnddetectivetheyre absolutely not. Steven did not realize that the previous Buzzfeed show was successful because they were spending corp. money. Now hes bringing it back but the fans will be paying.
Everyone saw Dropout do it and assumed they could do it too, ignoring the reason Dropout works.
sounds a lot like media. They see a trend and think, OH WE CAN COPY IT AND DO IT without any real research why it worked and it crashes and burns.
To be fair RUclips hit a singularity when they allowed advertisers to decide the rules like the doctor who episode oxygen in a constantly narrowing slippery sloop in the first apocalypse, advertisers needed RUclips for the target audience which only watched RUclips you can't sell inventory to no consumers but RUclips gave in, at that point RUclips stopped being web three at and became web two, in a cycle of banning content and losing a chunk of audience forcing creators to host their own web two platforms for uncensored content and straight up banned content now, just cause you ban content to keep Manderley food group, Vanguard, BlackRock and Berkshire Hathaway happy doesn't mean people won't pay to see it and type in a different link, RUclips the main web two video host platform now it's just the place good creators host their basic content on now as a tease to their real content, we don't know if they were planning on changing up there content in ways banned by RUclips just because dropout does things right doesn't mean it's the only way watcher might have started doing 4k highspeed rated R content all around the world all we know.
To be fair RUclips hit a singularity when they allowed advertisers to decide the rules like the doctor who episode oxygen in a constantly narrowing slippery sloop in the first apocalypse.
Advertisers needed RUclips for the target audience which only watched RUclips you can't sell inventory to no consumers.
At that point RUclips stopped being web three at and became web two.
In a cycle of banning content and losing a chunk of audience forcing creators to host their own web two platforms for uncensored content and straight up banned content now for RUclips lost audience don't know a single Irl who doesn't watch banned and or censored content on a different video hosting platform.
Just cause you ban content to keep Manderley food group, Vanguard, BlackRock and Berkshire Hathaway happy doesn't mean people won't pay to see it and type in a different link.
We don't actually know if they were planning on changing up their content in ways banned by RUclips just because dropout does things right doesn't mean it's the only way.
To be fair RUclips hit a singularity when they allowed advertisers to decide the rules like the doctor who episode oxygen in a constantly narrowing slippery sloop in the first apocalypse.
Advertisers needed RUclips for the target audience which only watched RUclips you can't sell inventory to no consumers.
At that point RUclips stopped being web three at and became web two.
In a cycle of banning content and losing a chunk of audience forcing creators to host their own web two platforms for uncensored content and straight up banned content now for RUclips lost audience don't know a single Irl who doesn't watch banned and or censored content on a different video hosting platform.
Just cause you ban content to keep anderley food group, anguard, lackRock and erkshire Hathaway happy doesn't mean people won't pay to see it and type in a different link.
We don't actually know if they were planning on changing up their content in ways banned by RUclips just because dropout does things right doesn't mean it's the only way.
To be fair RUclips hit a singularity when they allowed advertisers to decide the rules like the doctor who episode oxygen in a constantly narrowing slippery sloop in the first apocalypse.
Advertisers needed RUclips for the target audience which only watched RUclips you can't sell inventory to no consumers.
At that point RUclips stopped being web three at and became web two.
In a cycle of banning content and losing a chunk of audience forcing creators to host their own web two platforms.
Just cause you ban content to keep Manderley food group, Vanguard, BlackRock and Berkshire Hathaway happy doesn't mean people won't pay to see it and type in a different link.
We don't actually know if they were planning on changing up their content in ways banned by RUclips just because dropout does things right doesn't mean it's the only way.
Saying "everyone can afford" reminded me of when school went completely digital and having the teacher act like im lieing when i said "i dont have a home computer or printer"
Same. I was going to the public library to complete every online assignment for years, and very few of my teachers were forgiving about deadlines despite libraries closing way before midnight (which is usually when things are due)
Thats terrible! At my school (i already was at uni, but a friend of mine is a teacher there) they installed the computers from the it-lab at the homes of poorer students so they could join class.
Lying* Sounds like you weren't paying attention in school. 😝
@@englishatheartseeing as that mistake showed up in a comment sharing how education was made inaccessible to them and how the teachers didn't do anything to help, I don't think paying attention was the problem. You knew what they meant anyway, and being condescending doesn't help anyone learn anything.
@@englishatheart you're being an asshole , sounds like *you* weren't paying attention in school too. kindness is one of the first things they teach us as children.
Dropout said “you’ll get more if you pay”, thats a value add.
Watcher said “pay us or say goodbye” thats a value remove.
The arrogant tone of the announcement sure didn’t help. Im sure they could have made something sustainable out of this if with minor adjustments and some humility. Too late now though.
It's not even "pay us or goodbye", it was more "your wallet is our wallet, because we own you"
It's an ultimatum, which is typically received as a threat. People don't react well to that lol
well said!
@@wahahabuh And don't forget! Everyone can afford it, straight up their words. When the comments were literally chock full of people from the US, and NOT just the US, about how unaffordable it actually is. And given how little they've actually put on the streamer since, which, barely anything (it has a lets play through lmfao), its the most unaffordable streaming service I have ever seen.
Dude...the Watcher guys are just trying to live the Hollywood lifestyle, and be in the parties. They can't afford it, so they need to make a much bigger chunk of money to be able to hang out with bigger Hollywood players. Look at how they dress, and how much that stuff costs. They are burning money on screen every video, with dozens of "employees". Then they want you to pay for that lifestyle without offering you shit.
These guys are totally in the ideology. They spew it in every video. AT least in how they talk about things. Always trying to virtue signal, and have weirdos on that are their friends talking about things like 20 year olds that learn about some Gnostic ideology.
They basically said they aren’t making enough money while the first couple shots are of the Hollywood sign visible in their office, a reintroduction of a fancy food series, more members of staff, all wrapped up in a simple video somehow produced by 15 people. It just screams mismanaged money.
Just like how buzzfeed and the rest of digital media died/is dying.
And the patreon subscribers where also gaslit
A fancy food series no one even wanted back...like no one wants to watch a rich person flaunt their wealth
@@waynecampbell3853 Yeah it seems like they're bankrolling the other guy's stuff with the popular series.
How can they cry that they aren't making enough money when out of the 3 channels featured in this video, they are the one with the most views per video? The story time format and the low budget ghost hunting works very well for them, do they really need the expensive food contents? They really fumbled the bag on this one.
also it’s worth mentioning - when Sam reich put his own money behind dropout, he’s a nepo baby! He jokes about it often! He’s the son of Robert Reich! He could support dropout through its growing pains stage until it became successful enough to make money. Dropout wasn’t dropout overnight.
He even talked about why he made Dropout.
After College humour let a lot of its workers go, including Grant O'Brian, Sam used his own money to create Drop Out so his friends would have revenue.
Dropout was to continue until they had steady income (he originally thought they'd find other jobs) or Dropout became successful enough to be their full time job.
Luckily for us it was the second
Well, steven lim is their nepo-baby. And unfortunetly for them, he's a robot-boy who desperately wants to seem human
Also Dropout nearly went under several times and they certainly had their share of difficulties. They got really lucky that their cast and crew are amazing and that they had a supportive audience. And they managed all of that incredibly well to get to the point they're at.
Well, not really a nepo baby, just a rich baby
@@abithefallenhuman921 being reminded of Grant losing his job reminds me of the True Facts 3 story where after losing his position at College Humor Grant offered to take Sam out for drinks to cheer him up because Sam was having a rough time with everything going on.
WATCHER mismanaged money. They had a EXTREMELY successful pateron. They had RUclips memberships. They WERE extremely ad friendly. There was zero need for this.
They could have downsized their office. Found a cheaper place for their office other than LA.
They could have let go of some of those redundant employees.
There's so many other options and the chose the WORST ones.
Also, Shane and his wife spent $50K on their wedding lol that was what tripped me out when I first heard about it
@@edgaralanfrog So much for being “anti-capitalist”, most of these commies are comedically hypocritical. It doesn’t surprise me that Shane is one of them.
@@edgaralanfrog Most of these anti-capitalists are comedically hypocritical, so I am not surprised Shane is one of them.
Correct, not our responsibility to pay for their poor financial decisions
@@edgaralanfrogShane can suck a dick, I’m so done with him. I can’t watch anything with him in it anymore. The final straw was him being fine with an arsonist burning down “rich” people’s houses. Like maybe don’t spend recklessly so you can buy a house? And don’t live in CA? He makes more than enough to be considered “rich”. Wtf.
In an episode of Breaking News on Dropout we found out that the day CollegeHumor went under, Grant (who just lost his job) took Sam Reich out for drinks to cheer him up. Like idk, I think it says a lot about you, they way you run your business, and your character when your employees care for you that much.
I thought it was Sam who took Grant out for drinks when he had to lay him off when CollegeHumor was going under (I may be misremembering though idk)
@@chryststarline1931nope, in one of the True Facts About Grant O’Brien episodes (maybe the last one?) that’s one of the facts given. His only explanation when everyone was saying how nice that was, was “he was sad.”
Tbh it really is a sweet episode with everyone saying just the sweetest things about Grant. Like how he taught Rehka how to drive and there’s even an encouraging message from his dad :’)
That's very sweet. I only know the story from the drawfee side who were also let go in the company going under. They talk rather highly of Sam trying to save stuff and still collab with dropout. Also reminds me a little of Ian saving smosh after the defy shutdown. He was paying for stuff, using his house, shielding the cast from the roller-coaster of trying to save it. Similar with try guys taking a pay cut to get this thing up and running! They are leaders
@@moni-w9o Well after True Facts 1 & 2 I'd say Grant earned it!
@@TheWingustbh those are rough but are definitely my favorite episodes. I think of Brennans “Hello, I’m 50!?” reaction a lot
One thing Watcher got VERY wrong: we didn't stay for the "television caliber content," we stayed because of YOU. Watching all of YOU interacting and feeling like we were hanging out with our friends down the street on a Friday night.
Ghoul boys forever. Balancing the corporate and para social is a career choice I DO NOT envy. Watcher clearly mismanaged this and it's an awful shame.
Ghoul boys forever. I am just not into steven lims content
Also who cares about this old ass cerca 2017 "5$ food vs 500$" food thing anymore? I don't think the ppl who watch Watcher care about that.
Maybe it's just me but any time I see anything with Steven and/or Andrew eating s*** I always think "god, I don't care about this". Does anybody care about the taste test content anymore? What am I supposed get from that? I can't eat the foods you're showing and eating so what's the point?
Exactly. The reason Watcher early on was still fun despite being such a stark departure from their usual stuff was their banter. Are You Scared was a lot of fun because I loved seeing Ryan and Shane interact and just read stupid internet stories. That's part of the reason why the ghost hunting shows were easily my least favorite part of their buzzfeed and watcher stuff. It felt too overproduced. Less like two guys hanging out and more like a TV show.
The reason Dropout is successful is because it wasn’t made to make a successful company more money but because their corporate owners dropped them and Sam actually was invested in seeing the company continue so he put up his own money, reduced the staff to a core team, and they were all hands in to build it up into what it is today. It’s a story that no other RUclips channel (or very, very few channels) can compare themselves too. Dropout wouldn’t have survived without pivoting like they did.
Dropout got started in 2018 when the company was still Collegehumor. IAC, Collegehumor’s parent company, dropped them in 2020. Dropout was never intended to be the only place that CH’s content could be found, until they lost their funding and had no other option but to go all-in on streaming.
Dropout is a once-in-a-lifetime business turnaround. Its story needs to be told accurately so that no one starts to believe they can repeat what Dropout did, because even the clearly very competent folks at Dropout likely couldn’t do it all again, let alone wouldn’t do it all again.
Dropout just, like, continues to put out absolute fucking bangers one after the other
There's an episode of Game Changer where the prompt is to give someone a sincere compliment, and Brennan talks about how Sam has made a space for his friends to have fun and show their talent and how glad he is to work with him and have him as a friend, which just makes me feel so many things
@@TheNomnomnommerI love the way they space out the new shows too! When you think you’re gonna get another game changer season you instead get an entirely different show that initially you’re sceptical about, but end up being thoroughly entertained.
@@tim.noonan Exactly! Dropout was a revival story, and they are constantly thankful for it. Dropout also fully understands their audience, and thinks audience first. Look at how Dropout does an auction for the mini's after each dimension 20 season, look at their long running show "Um Actually," Remember when all the streaming platforms where raising prices? Sam put out a video talking about it, and gave everyone a DISCOUNT, a large one too, for a year long subscription! Not to mention, their shows are fantastic, and they make you want to pay for their shows. Its the one subscription I have that I never regret.
Another reason Dropout has worked so well is Sam was willing to sink a lot of his own personal nepo money into the streamer until it started turning a profit. He's mentioned numerous times that he viewed Dropout as a way to keep his friends employed until either they had other sustainable income or the streamer worked. His trust fund money made a huge difference in how that turned out imo
This! This is a huge part. You have to have the money in some way. But also do it right. Sam has that luxury. Ian from smosh did the same after defy shut down until he could sell it to mythical. Keith and Zach took pay cuts to save their employees and make this happen. That says a lot in how you run your company
@@kittikat4124 using his nepo money to help out his friends and create art is pretty honourable
@@hernameispekka_Rebecca Eugene too! He's still an owner, just not a cast member. When you want people to care about something, you walk the walk and make sacrifices for the benefit of your team and audience
I didnt realize he had a trust fund. What an awesome dude
@@fightvale57 Yeah, his dad is Robert Reich, lol. Dude worked for Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, plus secretary of labor for Bill Clinton
The best part about Dropout is even though it is comedy, its not malicious. You can tell everyone is friends, everyone is laughing, and they don't make the punchlines of their jokes "haha our friend is miserable/scared". Its such a wholesome version of comedy that i can actually enjoy
You described it beautifully ❤
Except for when it comes to torturing Brennan, but even when it is Brennan he still turns it into something over the top hilarious
My favorite video of theirs is the third True Facts about Grant O'Brien. After the first two in the series of ambush-roast comedy videos got too close for comfort (from the viewer side of the screen at least, only the Gods know what happens at Dropout) they rounded off the series by setting him, and the audience, up to think he was in for another roasting and then just shared heartwarming stories that illustrated what a great guy they thought he was.
It still works as comedy because the subversion of expectations is where comedy lives, but it is also one of the most genuine and heartwarming things I've ever seen.
@Kylel0519 Hope this doesn't spoil the magic, but Brennan is fully in on the joke.
There's a kernel of truth in his breakdowns but his actual feelings are closer to mild annoyance, which he amplies to 11, for his fun and ours.
Except for total forgiveness
They probably would've been fine if they hadn't said they were going to put EVERYTHING behind a paywall. That's just looking at their audience and saying, "Thanks guys! We're gonna go hang out with people that can afford us now. Bye!"
What irritated me was they said they were going to put everything behind a pay wall and then back tracked and said everything on RUclips would still be free. It felt like they were scrambling right away.
one of the many issues i had with this was like at least 20% of their content has fan submissions. whether that be stories, fics, q&as, videos, or art. you cannot just make people pay to see the content they submitted in the first place. it’s just 50 shades of fucked up. it’s so disrespectful to those artists, commenters, and writers. and i’m no lawyer but i could see a lawsuit with some merit, especially when it comes to free online fan-fic content or art being turned for profit. not sure if they ever read anything off wattpad or ao3 but they could’ve defo been sued by those platforms.
this whole ordeal made it clear they’re surrounded by yesmen cause no one said this is a bad idea?
It was clearly a grift right from the start. Steve Lim talked about wanting to start up his travel-the-world-and-eat-fancy-stuff show, then this happened.
THEN a month after they started the streaming service, they let subscribers know they are adding ads to the platform.
They told their low income audience we weren't worth having, so most of us unsubscribed 🤷 which tells me they were so out of touch they didn't realize the rest of us are in a fucking recession
Also drop out puts out enough free content that even as someone who doesn’t pay for their content, I still love all the bits and shorts
same- i honestly have only seen their shorts
Their shorts are what drew me into paying for their streaming service. To this day I still watch the shorts even after I've watched the full episodes because it's fun to revisit the bits in the episodes. Even though they've stopped making sketches, they still post a ton on RUclips giving people who don't want to pay an option that works.
They have a fantastic shorts game. I see them all the time, their comments are always engaging (except the short that said something along the lines of "don't mention this in the comments or I'll quit" and they turned off the comments 😂😂😂). They just get meme culture and RUclips shorts perfectly. I was already subbed before I got served their shorts (mentopolis episode 1 grabbed me and I needed to watch the season. I've been subbed since).
The full content is 100% worth my money, but when I couldn't afford it, all the shorts and free videos were more than enough to make me happy.
I do highly recommend (if and only if you can only afford it) getting Dropout Tv because it's truly a ton of entertainment I actually enjoy compared to lots of stuff on Television or even RUclips these days.
@@writeonshell Vic just owning in the VIP comments that her name is now vehicular was absolute gold!
The "everyone can afford it" was spot on the same energy as "you all have phones right?"
Is this a out of season April's fools joke
Funilly enough Diablo immortal was Blizzards largest financial success in recent times.
My favorite part of all of this is the Watcher "apology" felt soooo forced, like you told a little kid to say sorry for something they absolutely do not regret
"I'm sorry I got in trouble" vibes instead of "I'm sorry we tried to hold our existing content hostage"
They do regret... that it didn't work out
Literally 💯
Their only regret is that they was called out by the likes of coffezila
They probably did predict the backlash but was confident their main audience would be loyal enough to sign up. Completely out of touch…
let’s not forget that Watcher’s patreon subscribers had to beg for a free subscription to the streaming service. they were initially gonna make people pay for BOTH. insane
Yeah, that part was a bit wild. At that point either rework the tiers or just go "if you want to support us directly, go to our service"
Yes! I feel like this is a bullet point missed often is how bad it was on Patron for all that. 😢
Try Guys was basically: yeah, we don't have enough money, we took paycuts to support our staff, the majority of which you know bc they have appeared on-screen and we don't wanna fire anyone, look at the views, RUclips has really fucked us over and thats why we need to do this.
Watcher was like: we need MORE of your money so we can travel to expensive places to try fancy food and keep our staff of whom you know nothing about, besides it's not like you can't affor to help us lmao. Oh, and if you don't, then say goodbye to all of our content, even old videos.
and the one staff member that is getting the most expensive new show is Steven Lim who a LOT of people don't vibe with already. The most popular shows they have are the ones that are Ryan and Shane together.
And the TryGuys do continue on YOuTube and upload the videos, just at a later time. YOu don't necessarily miss things, you'd just gain an advantage without other people having a disadvantage. I really liked their take on it. It made sense and it supported EVERYONE
Watcher really dropped a Goodbye RUclips video, then apologized, and their first video after that was a gameplay. Absolutely infuriating to me as a big supporter of them as PEOPLE. Like, my dudes, watching two guys play video games or read stories (SENT IN BY THEIR SUPPORTERS) around a campfire getting drunk is NOT television quality. They genuinely hurt my feelings.
ur so right actually, like that is not a 20people job thats like a friendgroups job that is not worth anything tv worthy
i feel like the 'fan submitted content' part isnt talked abt enough. maybe its in th second half of th video, i got distracted so ezcuse me if im jus repeating jimmy, but a fair amount of watchers content is reliant on their fans. too many spirits practically wouldnt exist without fans submitting shit, and even ghost hunt (or whatever they called it Tbh the quality jump made it less appealing for me so i just dropped it) features fan submitted testimony and evidence. for them to paywall content that directly takes from free fan submissions is insane, and its a factor i will never get over
Hey I love those videos 😡
@@koalaplays8855 I do too! Never said they aren't entertaining, but to put them behind a pay wall and call them television caliber is nuts.
Great point. Alot of their content included viewer submissions. I saw someone say they were upset because they wouldn't even be able to see their submission in the new season.
Another huge difference I’ve learned from listening to the Try Guys podcast is that they doubled their production schedule for an entire year leading up to launching the streaming platform so that there would be lots of exclusive content ready to go at launch. Like several different shows. While STILL maintaining their RUclips release schedule. Watcher initially released a “beta version” with no new content and the promise of *one* new show that no one cared about. And no new RUclips videos. Wild.
plus 2nd Try did internal beta testing with Patreon fans to break the system and debug on different platforms. It's available as an app on mobile, roku, etc. along with the website. But Watcher is just the website. Dropout and 2nd Try is just more accessible than Watcher, with more content of higher quality, and at the same price (Dropout) or cheaper (2nd Try)
i also think the try guys context is essentially: you guys seem to like our high production, tv show style content the most. so in order to give you more of that, we feel the most sustainable way forward is to put *some* of that content onto an app.
and they have also stressed since forming 2nd Try that one of their goals is to be a more ethical incubator of talent than Buzzfeed.
so, for me it's also sort of a matter of put your money where your mouth is? i cycle through entertainment subscriptions. my budget is 25 a month for all entertainment, full stop. for a few months, i can toss money at a production company that is trying to platform the representation i want to see. especially knowing they are paying their staff fairly and providing a good working environment.
And they were pulling from yt completely even if that "was a misprint" (sure Jan)
And they weren't going to upload any content here for free which try guys still are. And they said explicitly they wanted to be able to not be in new content ( watcher did ) and they played like they were either doing this OR shutting down the channel complete which is obvious bs.
Try guys have been honest "we're struggling but we're doing ok." Watcher ( who I have followed since bf days) were trying to play poor.
And least when try guys milk the food channel for their friends they're obvious about how they used ut for the whole team instead of like watch Steven ( with the personality of a potato) eat a 20k stake while flying first class to other countries.
Ugg the boys just tanked what should have been a great thing so hard. They should have let try guys announce first and followed. But they wanted to go first ... and they got slammed.
People also neglect a major concern with Dropout: CollegeHumor went fucking bankrupt as their streaming service was getting off the ground. Everyone lost their jobs, save for 8 people who remained full-time. Sam Reich bailed it out with his own money, which is why he's now the CEO.
I'm also pretty sure it was around the time their parent company dropped them as well
Dropout and The Try Guys understood what our immediate kneejerk reaction would be, then helped us climb down to "Eh really? Yeah okay that seems pretty fair"
Watcher walked into the room, flipped us the bird, pissed in the corner and walked out.
Not just pissed in the corner, they also shat in it too
@@Anze99 Not just that, but then trying to gaslight you about how they NEEDED to shit and piss in the corner, while sad music plays in the background.
That about sums it up
@josephinehowell5280, the gaslighting and entitled attitudes from Watcher was annoying
Just like how the pissed on Cincinnati Style Chilli (my favorite kind) by words
The fact that Watcher had the audacity to do what they did despite how dependent they are on fans for their content is what pisses me off more than anything else. A fact that was conveniently not acknowledged in their apology.
Their flagship show, Ghost Files, has key segments that feature fan submitted evidence.
They've got two shows - Are You Scared and Too Many Spirits - that are literally just them reading fan written stories and interjecting with banter. They put out submission requests for these shows without telling the fans who submitted that they were intending on putting those new seasons behind a pay wall.
Nothing says "we appreciate our fans" like Shane "eat the rich" Madej and Company taking their fan's free labour for granted. Smh
I saw a comment of someone who said they were devastated because they wouldn't be able to see their submission because they couldn't afford to pay.
If they were gonna do this they should award people who submitted with a three months membership or something. Essentially a payment for the submission and the use of it
That didn't even occur to me. Oh my god.
All I can think of is Shane's video showing him making the props for Puppet History in his living room with materials you can get from any crafts store. I know there's a lot of dedication and work that goes into it, but saying you want to afford "TV quality" when your passion project is mostly homemade feels incredibly tone deaf.
@@TheRogueCommand Not only the passion project, but arguably the best thing Watcher ever put out. All the rest is just mid or a downgrade from their Buzzfeed stuff.
Way to slap Shane's name on it!! I'm sure this entire 'leech the fans dry' thing was totally his idea 🙄
One thing that irritates me most about this entire situation is that Watcher has made some of the most immature financial decisions possible, and rather than learn from them, they blame the viewers and tell us to cough up money! If I want to watch people eat food that I could never afford, or travel to places I could only dream of, I'm going to watch Safiya Nygaard and Tyler travel to Las Vegas or Europe! The fact that they produce hour long videos of their travels with the help of no more than 1 staff member on the trip, and pull in millions of views proves that you don't need million dollar budgets! All you need is a likeable personality, a love for your work, and the ability to responsibly manage your finances -- all of which, the members of Watcher now lack entirely.
You can take watcher out of buzzfeed but you can't take the buzzfeed out of watcher
If you listen to some of their podcasts it’s a completely different story, ESPECIALLY “For Your Amusement.” Usually starts with about 3, or even like five ads in some cases, continue, about 15 minutes in, another 2 or so ads, continue, more ads… it’s just packed and the content isn’t actually adjusted to match it, so sometimes they’ll be mid sentence- AD AD AD- continue sentence. I think Ryan’s “me” personality is very on display here too. There’s been times I’ve physically had to turn it off because he’d just ramble and ramble and ramble, tell a story about himself, which is fine..! If you don’t cut off everyone to add another long ass story after.. then again, like 10 minutes later do the same thing.. “this is what I would’ve done, for me personality, my favorite,” it’s fine in moderation but 80% of the podcast is purely Ryan’s yapping. Love the guy, happy he has an outlet but you have GUESTS man.
"everyone can afford!!" brother my country is literally in recession rn
Majority of the world is screwed rn.
Even America. They only people who feel the economy is great are those who are directly benefiting from it.
“Everyone can afford” I can’t even afford a cup of noodles 😭😭
we're probably not from the same country but my country is in recession too 😔 6 usd a month is pretty huge for me
@@geckopeckoThats the hard part, how much would a watcher subscription cost in your countries equivalent currency? For a lot of people I’ve heard its damn near a month of pay.
@@knight1706Others mentioned it in their comments on the video. It IS a month of pay for some people. For them to say it's "affordable" is wildly inaccurate. Especially given a lot of folks have multiple subscriptions. Ugh. It's frustrating 😭
dropout was the first time i was ever comfortable actually paying for content I wanted, never looked back
100% agreed. I'm pretty sure they're the only non-mainstream streaming that I've paid for
I was happy just watching the shorts until 'escape the greenroom'...i had to watch the full thing 😅 and keep on paying for it, no regrets
Dropout is the perfect example of a website I want to pay for. The content is top-tier, they treat their talent amazingly well, they've got some of the greatest people in their entire industry doing stuff and getting paid well, they work closely with the unions, they constantly put out new shows, they still maintain a good amount of content as free content on youtube, and the subscription fee matches what they're offering.
Not to mention that they're incredibly transparent about their business model. When I was just a free viewer, I was incredibly clear about what I was getting access to and what I wasn't, and they have never changed that. They've only expanded on it over time. All of these things make it so easy to justify paying the annual for me.
@@lauriechan1426 ahhh the torture of brennan
@@lauriechan1426that is a fantastic episode, Sam said once in an interview that Brennan doesn’t let him close the door to the green room while he’s inside anymore
So I think something to add is that Too Many Spirits doesn't recognise that the content is largely written by others. Ten days after the apology video, they asked their tumblr to submit stories. I was in the trenches outlining the explicit arguments for why this was a stupid fucking idea. They wanted people to write and provide stories so that they could put them behind a paywall?? A few hours after the last comment (which was mine), I noticed I had stopped getting notes... because the post disappeared.
Yeah, I'd been meaning to submit a story for a while, but I ended up deleting it after this shit. Fuck those guys, they don't deserve the story of the Haunted Ducky Bathroom.
@@InfiniteAnvil I kind of want to hear the story of the Haunted Ducky Bathroom, ngl.
@@InfiniteAnvil I'd love to hear it!
Let me know where you post it because I am intrigued.
@@InfiniteAnvilcommenting since this sounds like a story I’d love to see/read.
I believe in you! Fill us in if you ever post it.
IMPLIED? WATCHER DID INTENTED TO TAKE DOWN THEIR ENTIRE CATALOG. But after backlash they LITERALLY tried gaslighting everyone. With that pinned comment. Saying they never said that. When in reality ITS IN THE VIDEO.
It was also in the interview with vogue I think. The backlash was so terrible, they backpedaled so quickly that they changed their minds. I’m still not happy with them, even months later 😒
Yeah like what the hell do you think the word exclusive means???? If you said "future watcher content will be exclusively on the platform" that'd be different, but it was "in the future, the platform will be the exclusive place for watcher content"
Either clear up your writing mistake or admit you said it.
Yeah, Variety magazine confirmed that the Watcher crew came to them before the backlash and told them that was the plan, but then backpedaled when they realized basically their entire audience was going to jump ship.
@@KatieTheKraken I don't even feel like watching Puppet History videos anymore, tbh...
@@olive92and I think they didn't even reply to the magazine when they reached back to them
I actually unsubscribed from Watcher over this. We didn't ask for tv style production. The way they did it comes across as greedy. It's like, "Hey, we're a multimillion dollar corporation, but we want to hire our friends to come live a bougie lifestyle that you could only ever dream of, but we want you to bankroll it. And if you can't afford to pay us for the content you don't really want anyway then get out!" We loved Ryan and Shane's banter in a basement with comic sans font for crying out loud. They can do what they want I guess, but I do not owe them my time or money to do it.
Same...it didn't seem 'worth it' 😂
@@Eilvain heeeyyyy *buh dum tiss*
Same here
exactly. i honestly think putting steven in charge as the sole head of the company fucked them over, NOT to say that shane and ryan have clean hands in this, but steven is the one used to the big expensive shows and hes the one running their budget afaik
I just learned recently, that for their series "are you scared" Watcher makes everyone who submits a story, submits, not gets chosen, has to sign over all rights pertaining to that story. Once you so much as send it, you are barred from even publishing it for free. There is no payment either. They promise "exposure". So much for supporting artists lol.
Like sorry, but thats not who Ithought they were. I unsubscribed immedeatly.
Their branding was spooky. They should have stuck to the ghost/ true crime brand. Nobody really cared about Steven's travel food show. It felt too self indulgent tbh. If they really wanted to they should have just launched a different channel.
That's what really gets me. The bulk of the people who first subbed and boosted the channel were following Ryan and Shane from the Unsolved series, a true crime/ghost hunting show. Throwing in cooking content with that really muddied the brand. The only time I really enjoyed Steven was when he was joining Ryan and Shane for Too Many Spirits, they bounced off of one another really well. Steven's content on its own was never a big draw, so its insane that they're banking so much on Worth It 2.0.
100%. I was there solely for the spooky content
Used to sail the high seas, then stopped when Netflix was the only thing available due to it convenience.
Now back to high seas as its more convenient than all these different platforms.
Aye matey
YOHO matey ⛵
🏴☠️
We shall meet in the bay❤
Arr 🏴☠️
Dropout actually has enough custom content to be worth paying for, while the try guys are fun and free. I don't see how they messed up that bad it's actually laughable
That's the thing. Well I get that Watcher may have needed this the most, it made less sense for them than anyone else. Especially with how they went about it
Well, someone had to stumble, I guess.
Don’t the try guys have their own streaming service now too?
@@GoldRusherz my oversight, yet they're still doing better anyway
Try Guys and Dropout both at announcement launched with several new shows so it was worth at least getting the free trial or 1 month to see if the new stuff was something you'd want to see. Meanwhile Watcher had 1 flagship show they even mentioned. No one is going to pay 5.99 to watch 1 show. A travel show when there's hundreds of thousands of travel youtubers. It was truly confusing
unfortunately for Watcher it’s one of those things you can’t come back from - it displays aspects of their characters and values that don’t align with probably the majority of their viewers. in what world what you so confidently make your content inaccessible to the same people that make it possible? there’s no care, grace, humility or thoughtfulness. i’m continuously impressed by the try guys for the opposite reasons lol. they’re SO thoughtful with their audience and you can feel it every time.
I miss the glory days of the ghoul boys.
@@ShesquatchPineyme too😢
It’s kind of crazy how ever since Watcher announced that they would be creating a paywall, I haven’t been to the channel and have no idea what they’ve posted since.
That’s how badly they turned me off of their content, even subconsciously.
Same. I haven't looked for any of their videos ever since I heard about this fiasco. I was so turned off of them and their content
@@Garsnoos out of curiosity I checked a little bit ago, and they’ve TANKED in viewership. They went from a cozy 1/2Million views to barely scraping 500k. One of the videos only got about 60k. Eeesh.
Honestly yeah they wrecked their rep and i dont think its salvageable now.
They screwed up so bad that i considered putting on some old Unsolved on the buzzfeed chanel (because i was absolutely NOT going to give ghost files/watcher chanel any more views or even a search) and i couldnt make it through one episode before i decided "nah fuck this and fuck them im watching literally anything else." The aftertaste of their actions still burns like petrol fumes in the back of the throat and theres nothing they can do to make themselves seem sweeter now, theres no redemption from this imo
I immediately unsubscribed because i didnt want to watch a bunch of trailers. I had forgot about them until this video popped up
It doesn't help that their shows were getting worse before the announcement. Mystery Files stripped everything charming from Buzzfeed Unsolved and made it impossible to follow. They completely misunderstood what they were good at.
i also want to know why watcher made a dramatic sitting on the couch “goodbye to youtube” video rather than a trailer to advertise the new service like dropout did? completely changes the tone of the announcement
probably “parodying” the try guys couch video
The Try Guys/2nd Try definitely took notes from Dropout. They’ve been refreshingly transparent about the hows and whys during the introduction of their streaming service. Recently on their Instagram stories, they shared that some of the top performing videos on their streaming service so far are their worst performing on RUclips. It really illustrated the shortfalls of working around the RUclips algorithm.
The problem with this isn't just that they're paywalling their stuff. It's the "why" that REALLY made this sting. They are guys that came from Buzzfeed. An online entity that was destroyed by over hiring, inefficient spending, and mismanagement. They have over 20 employees, in a MASSIVE office space, in one of the most expensive cities on earth, all to make shows that are literally two guys in a room goofing off the VAST majority of the time. They mismanaged their business, and instead of sucking it up, admitting they didn't learn their lesson from Buzzfeed and downsizing, they decided to paywall all their content after having a patreon, adsense, a merch store, live events, and literal 5 minute ad reads on every video. Rather than accept the obvious conclusion, which is that they need to completely rethink their business model; they keep asking the audience to enable them.
That's a big part of it. Most of their content was just a few guys messing around (like the video points out their drunk santa video). They could have kept a pretty skeleton crew and still produced similar content. It kinda felt 'low effort' but with a high production value.
For the periods where they were needed more help (like ghost files that had more planning and organising) they surely could have sourced freelancers. There'ss nothing inherently wrong with temporary employment if everyone is in agreement and the freelancers are paid fairly for their time.
It's just extra funny to consider their 20+ employees when I watch some youtubers with more ssubscribers and viewers who STILL do the majority of work completely alone (edit their own content, create their own thumbnails etc), or jusst have like 1 person helping them script and edit.
@@Spamhardis there something wrong with your s key 😂 I read your comment in the voice of Kaa from the jungle book/j
@@mime514 Lol! There is actually! The S key chatters pretty badly and I've become too lazy to constantly backspace when it does it so I've just allowed my keyboard to occasionally give me an online lisp :P
What I need to do is give it a good disassemble and clean, but I'm too lazy for that too atm heheh
The office space really bugs me. Not only is it big -- too big, really -- its one they can get for a fraction of the price elsewhere. But the prestige of the location is what they care about the most and thats just so wasteful. And everyone who is struggling to afford so much as a rented room KNOW how wasteful that is. I lived in LA county (not LA, but the boonies where all the poors roam), so I know the kind of people who put prestige so far above common or even business sense, and these guys fit it to a t
@@impposter560 it really is the most egregious and wasteful thing. Followed by hiring employees from the LA talent pool, meaning they all get paid probably 20% more than an employee almost anywhere else in the country. Followed by being located in California at all. They could move to literally any other area in the country except for MAYBE certain parts of New York, and be paying 1/2 of their total operating budget, even while keeping their outrageously stupid headcount
They WERE going to pull their old videos, according to a news article where they talked about their transition from youtube to paid streaming. Them saying that was never the plan is laughable because they already admitted it to a site that's whole job is to share news.
this is what pissed me off the most and honestly i’ll probably never watch them again. you guys said that nothing except trailers would be available on youtube. like 3x over. then they try to imply the audience is stupid and being in bad faith for indeed thinking that they’d be removing all their content? nahhh. as a casual fan, i could’ve gotten over the streaming service mistake. it happens. we’re dumb, we overestimate our reach or money. but when they pulled the walkback of that statement, that was the end of like tbh
@@reaganb6173AND it’s obviously just so they can keep hiring family, friends and traveling on our dime.
They didn’t NEED to do this at all. They wanted to, because greed. I can’t even look at them anymore, I’ve lost all shred of respect for them.
And in that pinned comment they tried gaslighting everyone by saying something like "we never said that actually"
It definitely wasn't just "implied" it was BASHED into our faces
pretty sure they got delisted for a second too
My favorite part of this whole disaster was just scrolling the video's comments and seeing the fanbase go through the 5 stages of grief in real time.
I'm sorry but 20 staff to film two guys sitting and drinking is CRAZY to me. I've only ever seen this much staff and more in television shows like Korean variety shows.
To be fair that 20 should include sound, production design & assistants, camera, script supervisor, several editors, producers, graphic design, a social media manager - that's not even counting the owners and any other onscreen talent as employees. That's if they're running their company properly, though.
They had the same number of people in their leaving youtube video *and* their apology video lmao. Just to film dudes sitting on a couch.
Apology accepted.
@@astarixn lol that's still too much.
@@kos2919 do u know anything about how production companies work? 💀 i assure you it isn't
The difference is that Dropout feels like something that paying $5 for is worth it. But with Watcher, what am I paying for? Regular RUclips videos.
Yeah I was going to say maybe their videos are just worse.
Honestly, 5 dollars feels like a steal for the content they offer.
And they have a "Yes please share your account" policy. We benefited from it, then bought our own sub and are sharing it with others.
this this this - they have so many shows that can cater to so many diff types of nerds (said with love)
@@PrimadonnaSouLaI'll gently push back. Their variety isn't that great, but that's by design.
I'm not saying that they don't have variety, but the vast majority of it is just comedy improve with certain themes.
Thing is, that's the whole point. If you want that, here you have a service that gives you that. It's not a service for everyone, and it isn't trying to be. It's meant for the people who like that type of content. It's not trying to be Disney+, or Netflix or Hulu or whatever, which have a greater variety of shows and movies (as in, if you divide the amount of content in those platforms by what they cost, they are "better" than dropout), but it's a more scattered approach because it's trying to cast a wider net for a more fickle audience, and a more costly one at that. With all the licensing agreements and big budget productions, it's all a gamble.
Dropout? Smaller productions, smaller budgets, more targeted audience, they don't have to try and cater to every taste.
Guess people really forgot that before Dropout walked, Collegehumour crawled to the ground and almost died.
I love how also in the little documentary of getting their streaming service going zach and keith talk about how they took pay cuts to make sure that their employees were taken care of during this
Plus, Zach and Keith have talked multiple times about trying to please the YT algorithm and how it works against creator. They've also talked about working directly with YT for a video (High Stoned Obstacle Course) and it stills got demonetized. So they had to delay the release to do a lot of creative editing (great job Skyler!). Then, they made the uncensored version available for free! (Love that version!!). They have even got demonetized for saying b*tthole.🤨🙄 So, their explanation made more sense than Watcher. And, they almost always film in their studio or greater LA area.
Meanwhile they probably got raises. They had so many options. Like downsizing, taking less money, they could've let go of redundant employees. They could have moved office locations to somewhere other than LA.
They had RUclips memberships, they had pateron they are extremely ad friendly. They could have started actually using pateron tbe way it was intended. Because apparently they stopped giving early access and got lazy.
They made around 60k A MONTH or MORE for that
@@OldManYellsAtClouds about how watcher's approach differed from Zach and Keith. I think.
One thing that I feel they overlooked is that, many of their fans DID enjoy Worth It... when it was on Buzzfeed's dime. Not only was it a well-produced show, but we all didn't mind the cost because it was amusing that these middle-class men could live in disgusting luxury as part of their job (paid for by a huge media company). We felt like we were at least on the same level as them, where luxury for all of us had the same definition because they themselves were not rich. And honestly, their send off for Worth it was already good; 5+ years of that may have meant it has run its course.
Now, they're trying to bring back that hype, but they're asking money from their fans. Which, duh. No one's gonna like that. We used to laugh and be in awe with you but then you're turning around and asking for our wallets. Jimmy’s right in saying they are acting like they're doing us a favor by making us content we never really asked for either. And Steven already eats luxury food regularly on their channel. The novelty of 100+ dollars for a dish has worn off.
Even with the "going international" thing. If they said they wanted to do Ghost Files in new places it would have gone over way better than "we wanted to go on vacation, but we don't want to pay for it". We want you pay all this extra money so we can bring back the show where I hang out with my friend and eat food you could never afford. Why don't we eat some steaks in front of some homeless people while we're at it?
I am all for less advertiser interference, but this was not the move.
That's just it for me. They're asking us to foot the bills for $$$ meals we would literally never buy for ourselves 🙃
The food and drink mixing shows were ridiculous, and so frequent. They could have put that man power and money into things people watched, not stuff one specific employee wanted to make so they could be the star of that branch of the show.
From what I took of the food content now having Andrew and Adam included, it never came off to me as them asking us to foot the food bill for their extravagant dinners that they’d be comparing to other places like a Worth It revival. I saw it as the trio coming back to play the same character dynamics from Worth It but now have the content be more akin to that of the channel About To Eat (beloved former buzzfeed chefs collab channel) or even Bon Appetit. Viewers instantly assumed it would be just more Worth It and the money to fund it would fall on the viewers. Even the direct hate to Steven was a bit excessive when the people who’d get a majority of the money would be Ryan and Shane because they wanted to elevate the quality of their ghost hunting videos.
This! I enjoyed Worth it the most in their early days. Because even the most expensive ones weren't ridiculous. They were expensive but still in the realm of boujee not $1000 ice cream covered in gold. Those dishes where like a clickbait of a restaurant. No one's really eating that but it's on the menu to draw curious people. I prefered when it was legitimate luxurious restaurants. And it was two guys living their average life getting to eat something most of us would never consider. Later it became 1) an ad for restaurants 2) not relatable
What Watcher failed to realize was that people weren't watching for the production quality, we were watching for *the personality.*
I was huge Buzzfeed Unsolved fan and the show is why I followed Shane and Ryan to Watcher. I didnt care that they had new toys to ghost hunt with or better cameras. I just wanted to see the guys play off each other in a way that they could do.
If I wanted television quality, i would have turned on the TV. Simple as that. So many RUclipsrs are obsessed with getting to TV that they dont consider that certain content styles are better fit for RUclips. Not podcasting, not streaming, and not TV.
Oh they did NOT hire bartenders and complain about money. Go to Walmart and get a bottle of wine ffs
Nah fr 😭
Not even that, just buy the basic equipment and mix it yourselves! That or just hire one, I could have sworn I saw two bartenders credited. One bartender isn't enough for like two people? In a non-bar/restaurant setting? How slow are they?
The "bartenders" were other cast members, not hired pros. I think making drinks was part of the video, but not sure.
@bekaz13 I thought that that might be the case too, and I honestly hope you're right. There's mismanagement, and then there's just spending money frivolously.
The main bartender is the third main guy for the channel, and for most of the videos, the other bartender gets almost 0 screentime.
I haven’t seen a SINGLE watcher video in my recs since this. It’s like RUclips decided to bury their videos. Lol
Watcher buried themselves. They embraced the risk of losing subscribers until it was too much and stopped uploading until they backtracked. Losing subs and pausing uploads for as long as a month destroys your chances of getting recognized by the algorithm.
lol true, I still get recommendations for Dropout or Try Guys videos even if I haven't watched them in a while
After I unsubbed/unfollowed Watcher on all platforms, YT tried for like a month to make me watch them again lol they've completely given up now
Their numbers have tanked big time
Apparently they are putting out Too Many Spirits again, which was one of my favorites, but I've got no inkling to watch it after being recommended it once
They could never make me like you Steven Lim
I used to think I was the only Steven hater and then when that video dropped 70% of the comments expressed how much they hate Steven and I felt so seen
@@GravitysReach Same it was such catharsis even though I was sad to see all that exposed
It was such a slap in the face when they said that they couldn't support their content with ad revenue and patreon, and this is why they need to leave RUclips. But then literally the third video after their apology its a video of Steven doing luxury traveling. Yes it was a series they had before but it's ridicules that they decided to bring that back now of all things especially when they're supposed to be "struggling" with what they have now.
They didn’t even have Worth It from the beginning. It was all on Buzzfeed’s dime. Not ours.
The bit about launching "Travel Season" was particularly egregious. Like, "thanks to your generous support, we can now continue to live in luxury like the rich assholes we used to pretend not to be."
And this sucks, right? Because Shane and Ryan especially had such good onscreen chemistry. They were like the only Buzzfeed people I regularly watched, and I was genuinely sad when Buzzfeed Unsolved stopped. But ever since then they seem to have been trying to forget their roots.
I miss their roots
i’m ngl losing shane “eat the rich” madej hurt, that was my emotional support parasocial best friend.
Sam always talks to the camera like he's talking to someone. The Watcher dudes talked down to us the entire video. BOTH videos.
for people desperate to make "television quality" videos, they sure don't understand basic cinematography
I felt Shane and Ryan talked to us like we were ppl, i felt, the dude sitting next to them who i truly don't find important (steven?) sounded like pr robot.
Apologies aren't easy, shame is a real thing. people do and will back pedal when they realize, oh, we f*cked up big time. that's the whole point of taking back what you said. I've had people talk down to me my whole life, I've had abusive parents and partners who has gaslit me and made me feel like I was nobody.. and when people use it in these comments, it's hard for me to know if they actually understand what that word means.
I felt their apology was sincere. Ryan & Shanes anyways. i never really seen many youtubers do that. most grovel and beg, and cry and or ignore and never address it. they told us why theyr thought this was best and realized itg would hurt their community and they back pedaled and took back the changed they thought would be successful. how will people know they are wrong unless we voice it ( which we did) but how can people show change if no one lets them. The made poor financial choices and it's on them to figure out the next steps for themselves. Their visions didn't align with us, so it's their job to figure things out and change.
Not doing the things they were set out on doing is the start. and which they did, they took it back and ignore fans. they expressed how they messed up and that was the first step into fixing things. admitting you're wrong. To each your own though, we all have different opinions on the matter. i only hope they thrive, because i've watched since first episode and I'm not going to give up on them so easily.
take care and have a good day!
Dropout was very transparent about where the customer's money was going, launched at a time where the market wasn't completely saturated by streaming services, and hard launched with A LOT of new content to incentivize viewers to pay the price of admission WITHOUT affecting their normal content flow. A lot were willing to do it for d20 alone, but soon enough plenty of new shows like Total Forgiveness and eventually Game Changer popped up to retain those viewers, without affecting how non-subs can consume their content. Watcher had already sold their Buzzfeed Unsolved backlog to Hulu, don't upload very often and only hard launched with Travel Season, which, by the way, pitching a show where you travel to exotic places and eat expensive food during an economic downturn to your "broke college kid" audience is... uh... bold.
Watcher TV was fighting a losing battle from the beginning, and the way they pitched it didn't do the platform any favors either.
And they didn't even have Travel Season ready at launch! It was over a month before they released it. They had *nothing* new at launch, and for the first month only released a couple let's plays.
Yeah. Most people won’t subscribe for one show. But some will if it is a must. But two? Three? Now we are talking. I see shorts of Breaking News. Game changers. Very Important People. I see shorts of shoes I didn’t even know about that I want to watch. I haven’t caved yet. But I might.
@@choreomaniac honestly dropout is the only streaming service I feel comfortable paying for.
@@choreomaniac I’m personally glad I paid at the time I did. Because they won’t change the price for when you jumped on and I only pay $5 USD a month.
I remember a friend was literally offering to pay for a month for multiple people so they could give the dnd show more viewers and hopefully people would want to keep paying after more or less being given a free trial by my friend.
I definitely noticed their Too Many Spirits episodes becoming unnecessarily over-produced and it really irked me because its entire vibe changed into this big production when it started out with this casual premise of two guys sitting down, getting drunk, and reading silly scary stories with some chatter to the guy behind the camera.
I used to get together with a friend to watch too many spirits, but when it got over-produced we didn't care anymore, I haven't watch an episode in a long time
yeah that Dicky dude needs to go
There is a theory going around that Watcher heard of what the try guys were doing and tried to get to it first, without putting in the work that the try guys did to understand how to create a platform properly without alienating their fans. It was rushed and thus why they had such a sloppy announcement and subsequent backlash
Ingenuine reasoning results in ingenuine video.
Shocker
Sounds unlikely. That would make sense if Watcher and the Try Guys were fierce competitors, but they aren't. The Try Guys are significantly more popular, there isn't a lot of overlap in the types of content they're known for, and there isn't a huge overlap in their audiences either. Ultimately there's no real benefit to "doing it first." There certainly isn't enough benefit to being first to be worth taking such a risk. And honestly, it's unlikely they knew anyway. The two groups don't seem to have much - if any - contact with each other.
@@kelandryyemrot1387 That's not entirely true; they're both buzzfeed offshoots and watcher REALLY thinks theyre the bees knees so by comingi nfirst they get first dibs on viwerships wallets "well Im already paying for watcher... im not gonna pay for a second" which to be fair would have given them a slight advantag if they hadnt fucked it all up since everyone that is willing to pay will be prioritizing try guys since as you said theyre bigger.
@@kelandryyemrot1387 like I said it’s a theory. I don’t know if it’s true or not. I just heard it a couple places and thought I could add it to the discussion. Especially considering that a lot of times the creators do talk to each other behind-the-scenes it wouldn’t be out of possibility. But the truth is will never know.🙂
Keith and Shane are very good friends IRL. I believe they both wanted to do the same thing, then the Try Guys saw how badly it went for Watcher and they wisely decided to pivot and not put everything behind a paywall.
God, that original Watcher announcement video was so cringey. It seemed like they thought they were much bigger successes than they actually were, and that people cared about their journey a lot more than they actually do. The interviews, them recounting the history of the channel and their own individual journeys. "We hope you'll follow us again, one last time." The whole thing was so tonedeaf and masturbatory.
Yeah, the number of people who followed them from Buzzfeed (a free RUclips channel) to Watcher (another free RUclips channel) is not indicative of the number of people who will pay cash to watch the same content
I didnt even know their channel existed before this like bro sit down 😂
It's still boggles the mind that watcher has almost as many employees as Smosh when watcher is a single 3 million subscriber channel that hardly puts out any content, while Smosh runs 3 separate channels. One has 28 million subscribers and the other two each have 8 million, and each channel individually puts out more content than watcher.
The boldness of watcher to act like their content was anywhere as good as dropout to get away with this lmao
Hell, even the Try Guys don’t have content half as good as dropout’s and I’m saying this as a fan of all three. Dropout is in a league of its own right now for so many reasons, and these small fry channel platforms will likely never be able to compete
"You're not pretty enough to talk that way"
I don't even think their content was in the same level as the Try Guys
The only show of Watcher’s that I could see justifying a streaming platform is Puppet History, and even then it’s barely making it into that category. The vast majority of watcher’s content is very dependent on fan interaction and submissions that makes no sense for a streaming platform
@@chanashira8570I agree with this but I also do think the try guys have some wonderfully creative and fun shows under their belt. Without a Recipe and Phoning It In are absolutely delightful to watch and I could see those shows on an actual streaming service and make sense. I actually trust their ability to make tv quality shows, meanwhile Watcher relies heavily on fan interaction/submissions for most of their shows, which makes zero sense for streaming
It's almost like Ryan is still trying to compensate for the insecurity he felt when he found out Buzzfeed was exploring the idea of selling Unsolved to a network that would have replaced him with a different host, and now he's constantly striving to be "good enough" for TV so that he'll never get replaced in the future, and it's backfiring on him.
or he's just greedy
@@theredqveen Probably both. I was mainly referring to his constant use of "TV quality" when referring to their content. It reminded me that story. The rest is just narcissism and greed for sure.
one can never use success to outrun oneself, indeed.
Ryan was my favourite Watcher before I stop supporting them completely. i relate to him the most being a scaredy cat (kinda) Asian, but now, in retrospect, i can see how much Ryan had changed from the goofy, scared Unsolved guy to... this.
i wish everyone a smooth journey into oneself.
@@MagisterialVoyager Well stated
@@theredqveen This is the Occam's Razor answer (which means it's the one most likely to be correct)
Just a side note. If your comfort shows are Friends, the Office and How I met your mother. Just buy the box sets for them. You can get them for pretty cheap online and can watch them anytime
If you have a Blu-ray/DVD player, which isn't a given. You're also tied to said player instead of being able to watch it on your phone, laptop or smart TV halfway around the world on a trip.
I get the overall sentiment though, and there are ways to handle it by setting up a media server or whatnot, but the steaming option is simply more convenient. You pay and boom, there it is.
@@Fernando-ek8jp Or just be brave and torrent the entire season. Now you can watch it anywhere, anytime, no matter if you are online or offline
@@Fernando-ek8jpyou can also buy a lot of stuff digitally
The problem with making your own paid streaming service is that you instantly give your audience an ultimatum between paying for you or affording rent, food, communication, transport, etc...which is why the first thing you cut when budgeting is any luxury and that includes entertainment.
Yeah, in try guy's case they worked 60 hour weeks on a paycut to pay their staff and flew spirit airline
The Try Guys filmed most of their content in their studio or in the greater Los Angeles area. The most expensive shows were W.A.R. series and the live finale . Only Drop In the City required airplane fare, transportation etc. And, they only went to Las Vegas which is not that far from LA. So far all the 2nd Try TV content that has been aired had been filmed In their studio or nearby.
@@greyblueme9711 Now compare that to the one video of terrible CEO Steven and his friend taking $48,000 flights. By the numbers alone, the CEO is to blame. How could the Watcher guys be this foolish and disconnected?
@@ellemarr7234 The thing with that video with the flights is that Buzzfeed took on the costs not watcher as it hadn't existed yet
Bro literally it’s so embarrassing when ppl come over and they’re like “Oh what are we watching?” And I’m like “Uh whatever is interesting on RUclips” bc it’s LITERALLY the few platforms where viewing is completely free
Watcher was dissapointing bc they know they would be cutting off a lot of dedicated fans but decided that it wouldn't be much bc 6 dollars for them is pocket change. As an international fan, 1 dollar is currently 58.87 my currency, so 6 dollars is 353.22. That's a little more than half the minimum wage so it's really disheartening.
Omg u should move
@@snart2195 you gonna pay for them to move?
@@nbucwa6621 sure sounds like $15 should cover it, lmao
@@snart2195"if you're homeless, just buy a house."
@@snart2195 Can you pay for my move too? I want out of this shit hole and Im bringing my family, my dog, and the entire neighborhood with me, thanks
Critical Role did something similar to the Try Guys recently, but they pretty much are like "yeah, it's because we're doing new projects and it'll help." we still get everything we have for free. it didn't feel NEARLY as bad as watcher
And Critical Role produces literally 4 hour long actual play shows, they have staff they legitimately need (even before they moved to their new amazing AF set) and they have highlighted several times that for the average critter, nothing will change. The CR crew put out so much content, and there is a decade of backlog, and choosing subscribing to Beacon over Twitch isn't that much of a financial difference
@@blackbird_entropy The fact that you had to pay for half of the lore because it was locked behind talks machina after dark was pretty crap.
@@kiddy1992that was a bit of a programming fail, but as someone who watched the after darks, it very rarely had anything besides parasocial flirting and stuff that in retrospect is very telling
Yeah I have been one leg out this campaign because I’m busy so I missed the announcement and I didn’t even realize they owned it for a while I just assumed it was some other service for content pre-releasing or something. Hasn’t changed my experience in the slightest
dropout and the try guys both have a large, diverse cast that participate in video making, whereas watcher has three guys, they're actually incapable as a company of producing the same quantity and quality of videos for a streaming service
also there was a leaked episode from the watcher streamer about the making of ghost files, their biggest shows, and they talked about how they brought a TON of people, spent an extra day touring wherever they were, and overproduced the show to hell. real bad look for one of the ONLY new shows on the streamer when it launched
RUclipsrs really overestimating how valuable their content is. We watch y’all to avoid ever having a thought don’t get it twisted.
RUclipsrs forget that their videos are a commodity in a site that lets you watch millions of (varying) quality videos for FREE
I ain't shelling out my increasingly valuable cash towards some glorified cable package when there are a thousand other upstart channels that can take your place in my regular entertainment consumption
@@johnernest5843 It’s such an objectively sweet gig they have too, I feel no remorse unsubbing when they get too big for their britches
@@OlPalJoe I love how the RUclipsrs I follow regularly admit how grateful they are for their gigs and can poke a lot of fun on their production ("Sorry I vanished, editing takes a lot of time and I have to work, LOL") no matter the size. I suppose sometimes number can drive people a little insane - it's like a drug of power; look, there are 10,000 people subscribed to my channel, y'know?
@@OlPalJoe Yep. Thousands a month from basic Google ad revenue, then the thousands a month they make from shilling shitty products with ad-reads, then thousands _more_ via Patreon, and then they decided to throw a paid streaming service on top of that because the tens-of-thousands they make each month already just isn't enough for them.
You will never be funny
As a (former) huge Watcher community member the staffing/“television caliber” issue was the main issue. People flocked to the channel to basically watch Ryan & Shane hang out in different circumstances and all this other nonsense just felt pushed on to them by Steven Lim to fund his aspirations to be a professional influencer.
Yeah, I was one of the people who flocked to watch Ryan and Shane. I dont know anything about that Steven guy, only surface level stuff, but I got that feeling that this was something he was pushing for. Then again what would I know as a casual Watcher? I looked at the comments for Stevens new show and it was mostly positive but the show itself sounded like it was in poor taste. And when there were genuine criticisms made the commenters were labeled as trolls by the same 2-3 people defending every aspect of Watcher. But they always come off as condescending and sometimes even advocating for opinions to be silenced. They were saying a bunch of hypocritical stuff and would mostly avoid being called out on it. They are go great lengths to defend them. Idk it just feels off. I think they need to change their content pipeline again and perhaps take some notes from paywalled content like Corridor, from what Ive seen their model is great.
I think the reason places like Smosh, Try Guys and Dropout can justify the increase in staff is because of growing demand. You don’t add 20 people just to add 20 people. You have to see the need for the position and the necessity of it being filled at that moment in time. The Try Guys basically started off in the same position as Watcher breaking off and starting their own company, the difference is, they knew when to start growing their company and how much they could support it compared to the success of their content.
Im going to be honest here, I was a big fan of Buzzfeed Unsolved. It’s sorta what got me into True Crime. So of course I went over to Watcher. In the time since they left Buzzfeed, I have watched maybe 3 videos. It just no longer really spoke to me the same way it did when they were on Buzzfeed. And I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of people felt the same way. Heck there were comments that you showed that said people were there from Buzzfeed days. Sometimes you can tell when someone’s ego goes to their head….and Watcher unfortunately is that.
Exactly, when CollegeHumor went under, Dropout reduced themselves to a literal skeleton crew. I believe Brennan was the only on screen cast member to be fully employed at that point and everyone else was freelanced. Sam invested his own money to keep it going, he said he wanted it to be at least long enough for all of the others to find work.
It’s just, hearing stories like this make it sooo obvious Watcher just completely mismanaged their money, I’ve seen that the Try Guys took pay cuts to keep from laying people off and all of these companies essentially had the same goal- to keep their friends employed, except Watcher wasn’t willing to make the same type of investment/sacrifice, it seems.
“Watcher … wishes they could produce for TV , so they think they’re doing the internet a favour by gracing us with their presence.” 23:29
OMG, YES. This exactly.
Yeah, this video is one of the very few that really understands the issues Watcher fans have had with their decision. My husband and I were patreons. We are all for supporting creators. But we were angry. We’re still angry. And that quoted comment is exactly how we felt. They seem to think they’re above their own audience.
Lol yes Dr Todd Grande also shoots down the Watcher's aspirations to make "TV Quality" content in his analysis of this debacle & expresses an opinion that their content is not TV quality. iirc the 'TV quality' statement came from Ryan, & it just seemed like his ambitions exceeded that platform he was producing for & perhaps he & Steven don't want to be YTubers anymore, that they have the perception that they should be at the level of a TV production company. Which made me wonder if possibly their own concepts or content just weren't 'good' enough to be pitched or sold to an existing streaming service or terrestrial network. The Try Guys 'Without A Recipe' series did have a separate run on the Food Network, which afaik they were executive producers with a freelance crew, so not sure why The Watcher guys could not have done the same thing eg a ghost hunting 'special' or doco for one of these niche platforms. Both Steven & Ryan were said to be difficult to work with at BF, but managed to develop popular shows by forming strong working relationships with particular coworkers who became close friends to produce their shows. Am guessing the key problem for Steven & Ryan is that it appears they haven't worked out how to replicate that success by working with others, but are relying on the format that had worked for them at BF, by casting themselves at the 'main talent' on screen & as producers. The Try Guys have recognised that they needed to expand their cast & evolve their format, however time will tell if they also fall into the same trap of bring contemptuous of their audience. All imo
Meanwhile, Quinta Bronson, a former BuzzFeed peer is actually producing (& acting) for TV.
Sadly, I'd barely heard of Watcher until this snafu of theirs. & I watch & subscribe to a TON of YT - including Try Guys, Dropout content, GMM, MrBeast, etc., yet the algorithm put _this_ and similar vids _about_ Watcher on my homepage exponentially more frequently and sooner than any _actual_ Watcher vids.
@@notorioustori it also helped that Quinta had the acting and producing approach pretty much from day one. I remember the Buzzfeed Original series she did called Broke. She did do some of the challenges but not as often as her peers
@@JuriAmari no argument here, lol. It's just that you'd think after so many many years removed from BuzzFeed that Watcher crew would have picked up a few dos and don'ts, production-wise.
Watcher thinks they're mainstream celebrities, to the point where they act more arrogantly than most actual mainstream celebrities.
The fact that watcher isn’t reaching the millions of views they’d get before their apology video is insane 😭 I was so hurt when they pulled that move and can’t bring myself to watch them without being salty
I’m surprised this video didn’t mention the borderline-unhinged Tumblr post made by Shane’s wife/frequent Watcher guest star Sara Rubin where she tried to address the backlash. Just a complete disconnect from the audience they cultivated on all levels
wait what did she post
@@Sunidhi2706she basically said that they’re artists and artists need to eat too and that the price is to support them and folks called them out for their big wedding and sara having a designer bag
Looks like I need to read this post for myself, it seems juicy
@@ameliablue1388 Omg she is obviously so out of touch. How can one lack self awareness like this??
@@Garsnoos Because the only people who can afford to be an 'artist' living for over 10 years in one of the most expensive cities in the world are those who had established family to support them in the first place. I agree that artists should be paid for their work but her husband and his fellow partners in business appeared to be grossly mismanaging money that most people do not have and instead of cutting back and honing the company to stay alive, they went for an egotistical quick money scheme.
dropout has a massive backlog, full of dozens of shows, thousands of hours of content that feels worth the 6 or 7 bucks a month.
And aren’t afraid to take chances with new content. Smartypants has hit it out of the ballpark a few times already
@@robp5469 meanwhile watcher's shows mostly involve... imitating or reviving the old content from their previous company but with the serial numbers filed off
There’s literally so many shows i’m interested in watching. Gamechanger, make some noise, VIP, thousandaires, Dirty Laundry, Play it By Ear. I keep being amazed by the new shows popping up, such high quality. I’ll get a subscription one of these days, and i have a feeling i may never terminate it once i do.
and yet Watcher set their prices the same as Dropout with a lot less backlog and a lot less coming out of the pipline, yet still has a bloated crew and budget for each show... hm.....
meanwhile, 2nd Try has just a slightly smaller following than Dropout and still a big backlog (included backlogs of exclusive content to rerelease) and 2 years of being an independent prod company over Watcher, and they priced themselves cheaper too!
in the tragedy that is the death of watcher people are really upselling dropout to me, which i'd never really heard of til this video 😂😂
I found their whole announcement video so disconnected from their audience.
They complain about lack of revenue. They state $6 a month is affordable. Steven announces return of Worth it where they get to experience luxury on our dime. This was such a bad move. I don’t even think the React brothers announcing the ownership of the word “react” was this bad.
If noone understands why I laugh so hard every time I see the clip of them saying "going to the UK and Scotland" it'd be like me saying I'm going to go to the USA then Illinois.
I guess they're anticipating another referendum? lol
More like the USA and Texas, given that a lot of Scots do not want to be part of the UK
Ryan has always been an uninformed dumbass. It’s been the driving force behind his career as a ghost hunter
Phasing out the television caliber was so smart. It irked me so much. It means nothing. TV makes reality tv, silly shows, poorly written shows, great stuff. Tv quality means nothing. It just feels like they look down on RUclips because of the medium.
There was someone who talked about how the streaming service sustainable because of the garenteed payment no matter how much the subscriber watches. Which I could get... But that's what patreon is for.
As a subscriber, I'm disappointed. Im also frustrated at fans trying to push the blame just on one person on the team. There are so many ways they could've made it work and so many things that could've done before getting to this point (such as not hiring as many ppl).
fr and also, just bc one is a CEO doesn't change the fact that there's 3 co-owners. they all have equal say. not to mention, hiring your buddies from the same company just means you all know how to make the same style and level of content. you're going to need to hire ppl from traditional media to emulate that content. 2nd Try did that from the start of their company with Rachel Cole and a few others while also getting to hire their friends. IMO as someone in traditional media (post-sound for film/tv and producer for indie shorts),,,,, Watcher wasn't set up for success from the jump...
Watcher giving their "serious" reasons for the streaming platform.
Me: nah, no thanks.
Sam: It's like Netflix but worse
Me: Aight, say no more
They worked on me too 😂 but I think part of the reason is that Sam was honest: Watchers stuff is NOT tv calibre, most of their series are cheap in every way EXCEPT video production. Two guys playing games? Reading stories? For $6.99 USD a month? To support their 50 employees 🙄
But some of the stuff on Netflix is made with a smaller budget and still fun/enjoyable.
Sam was setting realistic expectations and we were cool with it. Watcher was trying to pull the wool over our eyes and we weren’t.
Nah, now I think dropout is way better than Netflix currently
I can’t believe that “Travel Season” passed through several people and no one thought it was a bad idea
It was the CEO's pet project. Any number of people could have said it was a bad idea, that doesn't mean they'd be listened to.
It's easy to fund a trip to the motherland when you clock it as a work expense. Flights to Korea can be $2K or more, but they're free if you make your patreons pay for it!
I’ve watched them since their early buzzfeed days, and because of this one mess up, I honestly lost trust in them…. Even after their apology video, I still haven’t regained that trust either. This really showed their true colours and it’s hard to ignore, imo
this is so interesting to me cause i only watched their ghost show, and never watched them on buzzfeed. so it was so easy for me, after this debacle to just be like “fuck it don’t care. never watching again lmfao” but to see y’all, the real OGs, feel the same way really makes one realize how severe they fucked this up
@@reaganb6173 I don’t consider myself to have a parasocial relationship with them or anything, but after watching them for 10(??) years, seeing them do something like this felt so out of character for them, so it was a huge shock. I think it confirmed in a lot of peoples minds that they’re just like any other company who will do anything for money
Agree. The magic is gone now. Even if they come out with more videos I think I'll pass.
@@reaganb6173 I also watched them early on. The sad thing was that it felt a lot less clean than Buzzfeed's other crap. It felt fun and it had some genuinely iconic and quotable moments.
But after this fumble it even sours rewatching their old videos. It feels scripted now. It makes one ask "Was it always just about the money?" And the sad thing is the answer is clearly yes. Sucks.
same.
As someone with RUclips premium, thank you for including me in on the joke
It's the same thing as what happened in early Hollywood: the filmmaking studios owned the cinema theatres. The US government had to make law to dismantle this kind of system. I think studios shouldn't be allowed to stream their own movies, especially in an exclusive manner. Streaming services should independently compete to stream movies. This is how we can watch any and all movies in the same theatre. We should be able to watch any and all movies and shows on the same streaming provider. Competition shouldn't be about what content is allowed, it should be about the quality of the service: the bitrate, the resolution, the convenience, etc.
Wow! I never knew that about cinemas! Thank you for the education on it. That's so interesting.
It's getting out of control. Especially Disney+, paramount etc. Hulu and Netflix are cool because they have everything. But I totally agree. It's like they are holding their content hostage
I’m curious to see what happens long term now that the Paramount Law has been repealed. With Sony buying Alamo Drafthouse, it’ll be interesting to see how that goes in ten years…(although, with streaming killing cinema, maybe it won’t be worth it to studios to make that another problem…)
Damn. Daaaamn. Well said.
honestly? ive stopped following what happened with watcher after they said goodbye, a comment that stuck with me specifically is that someone was watching it in line at a food bank, i used to help stock those places and man, acting like everyone can afford something is such a stupid short sighted executive move effectively stating loud and clear "EVERY PENNY MATTERS NOW I DONT CARE HOW BAD IT MAKES US LOOK JUST FEED THE MACHINE" and i really wish they'd have just. not been bad people with this.
Dropout is worth every penny, and adds so much quality content all the time. Plus I LIKE everyone on Dropout. None of that is true for Watcher.
And the transparency thing… watcher lied about the original plan to remove everything on RUclips, lied about the advertiser thing as they’re talking about doing entire branded episodes on the streamer, and all they’ve put out so far is some half-assed let’s plays (very tv caliber) that they clearly don’t care about, and yet another iteration of Stephen eats fancy food, which has already failed on Watcher when it was free. (To be clear though, this is not Stephen’s fault, they all made this decision).
On top of ALL of that, their shows are all worse than they were on buzzfeed, like you covered. They seem to have fully misunderstood what was successful about their shows and focused entirely on production, but then they use AI art so… what’s actually left that makes Watcher worth it?
A lot of people think the reason Watcher seemed so rushed and terrible was that they wanted to beat the Try Guys, and it’s really the only theory that makes their many bad decisions make sense.
The irony around the "banned" words us that it is far less respectful to use phrases like "self-deletion" or some other twee euphemism rather than the actual word.
"Kermit sewer slide" and "unalive" make it seem like a joke
But apparently these platforms find those less offensive than just saying the actual word itself
Eh I'm sewerslidal and i think its clever some of the stuff they come up with to get around censors.
Sorta like when forcing yourself not to cuss, you can come up with some pretty good substitutions on the fly after a while.
Idk, people that are actually depressed and going through it for real couldnt care less how youtubers avoid being demonetized. You need to work on taking offense on behalf of people you know.
@@cdogthehedgehog6923I think it's just juvenile as fuck, like parents teaching their kid to say wee wee instead of penis
@@cdogthehedgehog6923your experiences are not universal, plenty of people in the same situation agree with the above commenters
@@tairneanaich I never said it was...? If you can find a single person that has attempted deletion, and is actually hurt by word substitutions of self deletion _(on youtube)_ well, then they aren't taking enough care of themselves psychologically.
Making all the old content paywalled is insane. People will always feel scammed when you pull that, it makes something that was free before paid now, it feels like a loss psychologically.
As soon as any ass announces doing that, you're gonna have a dozen nerds downloading their published videos and sharing them around for free.
This 👌
This! And the old content still makes money. Even on just egotistical business levels it doesn't make sense. Smosh has talked about how they can run the company and risk buying it because the backlog views keep the lights running in the company. Yes, watcher has way less backlog, but it's still throwing away money
And im pretty sure other channels will just repost it on youtube getting millions of view then watcher basically gains nothing
Something I don’t see people commenting about, y’all know that Steven Lim is the CEO of Watcher, right? A media personality with ZERO company management experience is running the entire business. I can guarantee that he severely mishandled their money. They need to hire a professional company manager if they want to actually stay afloat.
Another detail that made me respect the Try Guys crew more and kind of clued me into the budget mismanagement in Watcher was this: when the Try Guys saw that they were losing money and were told "you need to fire people to stay afloat" Keith and Zach said "we don't want to fire people, we are going to take a pay cut instead until we are doing better". Maybe they didn't hire some freelancers back and only kept the core staff employed, but to me that speaks volumes about their integrity and how they understand the responsibility they have towards their employees, especially with how dire the job market is right now (ESPECIALLY in media and entertainment). I respect the Hell out of Watcher for also not wanting to fire anyone and give jobs to talented people they know, but they seemed to lack the knowledge the Try Guys had when making their streaming service, and definitely lacked the tact in communicating their decision. Both Watcher and Try Guys suffered from RUclips's ever changing algorithm and restrictions and the fickle advertisers, I don't blame them for seeking out a more stable source of income that allows them to make the media they want to make... but only the Try Guys have gone on to explain the obstacles YT has put them through; first through their announcement and in much deeper detail in interviews across the platform (once you hear them explain all the hoops they have to jump to get a video out, and how to keep that video monetized... your brain will melt). Watcher's message read as "We always wanted to make TV, for a TV audience. RUclips was just temporary, you were our training wheels, and we don't need you anymore (but give us your money)". I haven't seen any of the Watcher guys be interviewed about this matter on podcasts outside of their channel like the Try Guys have, so I think they're coming off as less transparent than their fellow ex-buzzfeed coworkers. Time will tell what happens to them.
@10:22, Watcher didnt 'imply' all their youtube content was moving to their streamer. They actually privated all their videos and it was stated in the Viriety article about the move.
When they got the swift backlash they backpedaled quickly and tried to imply that it never happened, essentially gaslighting their audience. The proof however was there.
“This feels like a breakup and the reason why is you calling me broke” is so accurate 😂
The ridiculous amount of streaming services has driven me to just start buying box sets of shows I like and calling it a day.
That's what I want to do too. Alas, the last 2 seasons of my fave show came out after DVDs stopped being pushed and so are streaming only. 😢
@@thegriffinnewssail the seas and store them on a USB my friend, you deserve it
@@kynedyrEveryone would be doing that IF THEY KNEW WERE TO SAIL.
Nobody's dropped a website, or a method.. "Just do this-" okay, how???
@@giggidygoblin is it that difficult to google instructions? Lazy azz
I feel so validated for keeping my DVDs and Blue Rays.
college humor was also dead on the floor not breathing when they launched dropout like, it was that or nothing,
No, they launched dropout in 2018. IAC dropped them in late 2019 or Jan 2020, so they had a bit more support at the beginning but when they were dropped it got a ton of sympathy.
@@chanashira8570they launched Dropout following the massive layoffs at College Humour, so by that point College Humour was considered dead, even if it hadn't been dropped
@@chanashira8570 And there was a _lot_ of pushback against Dropout for years, IIRC.
I have a feeling employees are friends and they dont have the heart to let them go so they give them work on everything to justify them and not make them feel like they are not needed or are a part of projects.
I love to pay for people to go to places I'll never go, show me B roll that is lesser than marketing footage that is freely available, and then I get to see their eyes glaze over as they tell me it's "indescribable".
Well put 😂
Before Try Guys even announced their change, they slowly started phasing the new members into their new videos while activiely upping production value. For the series finale for season 1 of phoning it in they had Duff from Charm City Cakes as a guest judge and they started publishing the new all-star season of phoning it in with really high profile and high caliber chefs before they officially announced their streaming platform. They have also been pushing RUclipss demonitization policy for a while, epsecially with Zach's attempt at starting Smoke Show. Their content was getting bigger and better and was still up for free on youtube when they announced this pivot. We could see where the koney was going and it was to make these high quality shows. They even did try to pivot to television which was totally blown up by the whole Ned thing. They are actually making videos with huge overheads and require special sets or filming on location or huge crews. A lot of watchers content could literally be filmed in their bedrooms with the cheapest alcohol they could find while still using their nice cameras and microphones but the quality of the videos would be the same. The dichotomy here is crazy
2nd Try has been SO transparent in their business model on YT and their declining attitude toward it. They speak so openly about it and involved some fans to help beta test and break the streaming app / platform before launch. They have a whole video about how it's been a year in the making and had a thorough social media plan and schedule for everything. I find that from the jump, 2nd Try has been higher caliber management and I think a lot has to do with hiring Rachel and other people, who've worked in traditional media, rather than solely your friends who you want to help keep employed. You see how much they care about their team. Like Miles, he was a PA to podcast producer (cuz they fostered that growth) to former employee to cast member. The energy and attention 2nd Try gives their audience vs Watcher kinda says it all...
When this happened, I didn't even know they had a Patreon. The moment I did, and realised they weren't giving any perks to them, it was anger from me and I'm not even a Watcher person
I have a strong feeling Watcher got wind of The Try Guys' plans (or even were offered to join) and they really rushed their process. Then they tried to steal Second Try's thunder by launching first. Reminder that Steven has always tried to ride their coattails from the very inception of Worth It.
steven is so annoying
This is the only way their release time and lack of a functional product at launch makes sense to me - they were trying to beat 2nd Try to market.
@@CJMGalaxyI’m really surprised so few commentators have picked up on that. It seems so absurdly obvious.
The thing that immediately leapt out to me as an intriguing difference between Dropout and Watcher was staffing: Dropout has been very vocal about their determination to keep staff numbers down, to focus on profitability and sustainability. This is no doubt in large part due to the terms of the deal by which Sam acquired the company, but it also gave them a sense of the scrappy underdog. It was only *this year* that they hit 25 staff members, with everyone else being independent contractors. (And they also dodged criticism by making them truly independent; with many also doing outside work.)
By contrast, Watcher began by bragging how big they were out of the gate. There's this sense of arrogance in that.
0:15 tbh if your comfort shows are just these 3 then just buy all the dvds, saves you money
If I hear "television caliber content" one more time I'm gonna explode lol
A truly television-caliber reaction moment for sure 😂
Was so ready to jump to the defense of Sam, and Dropout, only for it to be used as a model of how to do things right lol!
you know, drop out has a show about a whole group of people getting drunk and playing a game together, they only had 1 bartender who was in on the game as well. why did watcher need 2 to get 2 people drunk?
it seems like watcher is less of a company/corporation and more of just a group of friends trying to get their friends jobs and work together, but they're doing it at the expense of their audience.
The "TV quality" thing grated on every last one of my nerves, so its validating to know I wasn't the only one bothered by that. I'm an elder millennial at this point, in the twilight of my life in internet-years, but I feel confident saying that using TV as a benchmark for quality and prestige feels incredibly outdated. TV/cable is the whole reason our current streaming model looks the way it does,. It's why streaming took off, and it's why online media occupies the space that it does.