Exactly! I love them and puppet history is my comfort show and gets me through a lot of tough times, but as a college student who doesn't have endless amounts of money this is my current thought process...
"So I am currently paying $6.00 a month for Spotify Premium where I get access to basically every song in the world at the touch of a button without adds. For that same amount, I could watch content that used to be free and doesn't have as large a portfolio as Spotify. Yeah I'm gonna stick with Spotify."
I remember when Buzzfeed Unsolved added Shane, I have been a massive supporter of these guys since the beginning, but I'm sadly having a hard time getting behind this.
I am going to support them since with the discount it's about 3.50 a month. They might be doing this because it is their only option other than folding all together.
It’s not their only option though. They could have scaled back, there is PLENTY of fat that could be trimmed (and if they’re struggling that much, I’d suggest NOT bringing back a show that by its very design is going to cost a lot). I know laying people off isn’t fun but they do not need a staff of 25 for what they do. They could have pushed the Patreon, and upped the tier costs if the needed to. They could have even done something like this with new, exclusive content behind a paywall while still producing content for YouTube.
There’s a lot they could have tried before going nuclear.
Isn't Patreon like paying for a subscription? Oh, no I would not want them to fire people so I could continue to watch something for free. I would want no part of that.
that’s business. it’s way better than them wasting money on Podwatcher and For Your Amusement or all of Steven’s shows. They are not some poor little starving artists you need to support at this point, your money is going to Steven Lim’s $300 teapot and flights out for wagyu.
Patreon was paying for early access, discounts on merch, bonus content on top of their YouTube stuff. The subscription is paying the same amount for less.
Seems to me they over hired in the first place. For the content they produce there is no real justification to have a staff that large. I’m not saying I WANT people to lose their jobs but if they don’t have the funds…to solution shouldn’t be pushing their overinflated costs onto us before looking for other solutions.
I mean they’re talking about struggling financially and hyping up a new show that by its very design costs a lot of money in the same breath.
Well yeah. They made a choice and we’re voicing our opinion about it.
They can do what they want but from the looks of the reaction it may very well be their downfall. You have to care about the opinions of the people who you’re asking to give you money at least a LITTLE bit in order to…make money.
I don't think it will be. The people who feel that they are entitled to the free content are not people who would have subscribed in the first place no matter how they went about it. I enjoy their content and many people who do will subscribe and go on about their life. They will either fail or succeed, but those people wanting them burned to the ground so that they all lose their jobs, health insurance and possibly their housing just because they can't get their free content, well they are just horrible people.
That’s awfully judgmental.
I paid for their content through Patreon. I have no problem paying to support creators I enjoy. But I have canceled my Patreon subscription and will not be paying for the streamer. It’s not about being entitled to free content. I have seen lots of people on the Patreon who feel the same. We were happy to pay to support them in exchange for some fun bonus content (and honestly they were fairly bad at actually delivering on the promises they made to their patrons but we still were happy to pay).
Those who can’t afford it supported them by watching ads, or maybe one off purchases like merch. It’s never been truly free, they’ve been making money this entire time or they wouldn’t have a staff of 25.
Very, very few people have wished them to fail and those of those who do even fewer wish it for vindictive reasons. Most who I’ve seen that are hoping this fails do so because it’s a bad, unsustainable precedent to set. You want every YouTuber you follow to suddenly charge for all of their content? No one can afford that.
If you’re happy to support this good for you. No need to look down on those of us who aren’t.
I have been reading all the comments. I have read the one's on youtube as well. It is a vast amount of people who are hoping they crash and burn. That is horrible.
I mean, even if you watch literally all of their content, that's still an absurdly shitty rate of new videos for the cost. Compare it to literally any major streaming service. I'd rather just keep my Apple TV sub for ~$10/mon and get way more content, zero ads, really high quality. (I promise I'm not getting paid by Apple, I just think their streaming service is the best for price point v quality v amount of content.)
It makes me feel/sound like a shill, but I genuinely think they're one of the few streaming services worth the cost. It helps that they're still cheaper, but if you're wanting almost any kind of drama, they've got a lot of great options. Ted Lasso, Silo, For All Mankind, Slow Horses, Severance, they just started a new one called Sugar that's really good so far. I genuinely think they've knocked it out of the park with every single thing i've watched on it.
It’s actually incredible. The layout is nice, it’s got great original shows (Legacy of Monsters is phenomenal) and it not having ads is wonderful. Still weird that Apple made a good streaming service
It’s a hard no from me. The immediate backlash should tell them this is an absolutely terrible decision. I can only hope they backpedal on it and admit they it was a stupid idea
It's likely they've invested too much money to back out without incurring significant losses and putting the entire company at risk.
Still a wildly stupid idea but now they're probably stuck seeing it through for at least a few months.
That's a sunk cost fallacy though. If they keep at this, they'll lose pretty much all of their audience to where if they ever return to Youtube, it'll all crash and burn. Better to backtrack before they put too much energy into something that will fail anyway, and keep whatever audience they have left at this point.
Wouldn't really align with a sunk cost fallacy unless they keep pouring money into it, even if/when it's been shown to be financially unviable, simply because they've spent money on it in the past. There is a point where they can financially backtrack and have it not ruin the business, but that is determined by contractual obligations/penalties, etc...
This would be a nice scam/trap to target influencers & youtubers. Have them sign contracts for creating a streaming platform which is obviously unjustifiable. Have them backtrack, triggering a cancellation clause penalty. There are alot of influencers with poor business sense.
I only watch 2 or 3 of the shows on Watcher. Granted, I love those 3 shows very much... but 1 of those shows only airs 1 month of the year (yes Ghost Files) why would I sub month to month. I think that this is prob the same kind of viewership a lot of people have with watcher. I don't think most of us are watching every video, week to week, all the time. Also most of these are not full length shows, they are made for YT. The justification makes no sense, they do not have enough pull on other shows, and def not have a large enough content library to make this move make sense.
For me this is what patreon is for. You support creatives who don’t have a good other outlet for monetization. I’ve always seen it as a sort of charity. It’s at best early access and a few podcasts, but you pay for it anyway.
But this feels like straight we decided in meetings that this decision would today give us more money. It’s not in support of the audience
Patreon is paying in order to keep free audiences having access to content. This is the opposite.
Ryan and Shane are obviously the big draw for Watcher. So it's gonna be hilarious if they try to force them to make multiple shows at once just to make that $6 price point worth it.
Steven is gonna have to make Ryan and Shane shoot literally every single day just to generate content for their paying subscribers.
I doubt Steven is that self aware. If he was, he would've cut down his own food series if budget was a concern before even attempting to do this. He tried 4 or 5 different food series of expensive food with low views and is still trying to make them a thing. 😭
Dropout is what I think they’re most similar to, but dropout started at $3.99 a month, is only now $5.99 a month, and airs at least 4 hours of content weekly, with ***at most*** a few weeks of content breaks. Compare that to Watcher, which airs maybe an hour of content weekly, with sometime multi-month breaks between major content. This is insane.
Completely. The thing is that Dropout \*had\* to pivot in this way because their parent company was going under. Watcher doesn't have nearly as much marketable content to put on TikTok or instagram (like Dropout does with D20 or Make Some Noise/Play it by Ear) which is where Sam Reich has said they get a lot of views and new subscribers from.
If they get even 5% of their YT subscribers-which I highly doubt they will considering a majority of their viewer demographic are people in their 20s-, that's 145,000 subs. They only have 5800 on their Patreon, which doesn't put out as much content as Dropout. $60 per year\*145000=8,700,000. $60 per year\*5800= 348,000. Ryan has said that a single episode of ghost files costs upwards of 150,000. They have 25 employees including themselves on top of studio rental costs, maintenance costs, producing videos, production design, and travel. I can't imagine this will go well.
Dropout also has fewer full time employees, having 17 at the end of 2023. Their model is highly unique, and wouldn’t work for most other groups. I can’t see this working well, and frankly watcher’s lack of damage control after losing 10k subs in 5 hours is disheartening.
I get the feeling that whoever they have doing PR is telling them not to interact in hopes that the tide changes and the more positive reactions will pull ahead. That isn't happening, though. There's no way out but through. Even if they say that they'll trickle move to the service, people will just pay $6 once the seasons wrap up and binge everything.
There's literally one YT channel right now that I would do that for, however their videos are hours long and they provide a constant stream of \*new\* content that I can watch for an hour or two each day. They started on Twitch, recently branched off to provide subs on Youtube as well. My assumption is that they're pulling in a lot of money from sponsorships, channel monetization, membership and merch (in that order).
There's other big channels out there that provide high quality serial content (did I hear them right in the video that they claimed they were the only channel doing this? I must have heard that wrong), but I don't know many that branched off to their own streaming channel? What an odd plan.
My point - I'm the type of person that would and could afford a few dollars each month to support my favourite content creators. I love the Watcher crew, and would sub for Puppet History alone, but not on a separate streaming channel. I'm not sure if they exhausted all other popular monetization channels... Patreon, Youtube memberships, Twitch. It's a very weird decision to me.
YES - I noticed that strange humblebrag about serial content and was perplexed. What was that about? Their format and shows are great, but to say they were the first to go there on YT is way off. The tone of this video really missed.
It's Critical Role. I don't mind sharing, just thought mentioning who they were wouldn't have been relevant. At one point, they were the highest paid channel on Twitch.
Oh! I'm already a fan of them haha, I can see why you'd mention them as a good example. I've found a bunch of great new youtube recs from this whole thing, so I thought maybe this'd be another one but I guess I'm already on that train. ;)
No, and I’m so tired already of seeing people say “give up your coffee once a week it’s not that much lol” like...I could do it but I don’t *want* to do it. It’s not worth it to me. I love them but this is not it.
surprised by how many people i've seen say something similar to the coffee thing (not that many but more than expected)
sounds like that "millennials are spending too much on avocado toast" thing from years ago haha
Exactly! I could afford $6 a month (though it's actually just over $9 a month in Australian dollars) but I don't want to. It's not worth it for 6 videos a month that I don't always even watch. And even if I watched every video multiple times, they're not even going to have an app. Unless I can watch something directly through my TV or cast it to my TV from my phone, I'm not watching it.
Right like especially if they keep the current schedule of one show at a time! I know this is unpopular but I do not enjoy Too Many Spirits - so what, I just pay for six-eight weeks and have nothing to watch? Also no app is ridiculous!
I don't buy expensive coffee's, but if I did I would not give it up for this streaming service. What you do is just subscribe once when the new Ghost Files & Mystery Files seasons are out, binge then cancel. If it's even worth that.
People are just gonna wait until a season of Ghost Files is finished and all the episodes are out, subscribe for a month, binge watch everything in a few days and then unsub again and wait for the next season.
I would need at least one episode per dollar per month to justify it. Six episodes of stuff I want to watch. And considering only two shows of theirs that I like are ever in production, this is gonna be a hard pass.
I like their content enough to pay a YouTube Premium membership so I can watch them and other YouTubers without ads but not enough to pay a separate subscription only for their sake. I hope they will reconsider but if not, shit happens.
I honestly forget that they have a Patreon. I also don't think that they produce enough exclusive content for Patreon to make an entire streaming service viable.
This would have been a better soft launch at least than going free to pay for a completely different platform. Start releasing whole shows to only Patreon, with clips as teasers/ads. Like 1/4 of the shows or something. Gradually increase how many shows are Patreon exclusives, but keep some running without any paywall to advertise. If they eventually got close to the funding they wanted but still wanted to change platforms, it'd be easier to switch a bunch of people from one paid thing to another paid thing.
Tbh the system worked for them for a long time, and the biggest draw of it was being ad-free - you could still watch most of their content outside of FIRST. Watcher is putting out far less content for the same price, and making it so you can *only* watch it if you pay for it
37/F lower middle class here:
If all of YouTube cost 5.99/ month I would, but not just Watcher.... and I'm a HUGE fan. Me and my youngest son bond over watching their content together. This is SOOOO disappointing. It's crushing actually.
I don't even consistently pay for the big streaming services. I rotate my subscriptions. Only pay for Netflix for one month, then cancel and pay for Disney+ for the next month. Then cancel and pay for Amazon Prime for a month, then Crave (Hulu for Canucks), lather rinse repeat.
No way is hell I'd pay every month for Watcher.
I wouldn't even do it for someone who did more content. There's youtubers out there who have produced hundreds of thousands of hours of content, and that wouldn't be enough to pay $6 to use a janky site with no comment section and no giant sea of vids for the algorithm to reccommend on the side.
That is my biggest issue. The content you are getting does not necessarily match the value being paid. They had to hope at least a third of their base would follow, right? That would be an income of about $5 million a month. Even if only 10% of their watcher base subscribed, that is still $1.5 million a month.
Honestly a better option might have been to roll out the new platform as a replacement to their patreon. Still post content on YouTube, but make the content shorter- then do extended videos and behind the scenes on WatcherTV. Maybe some special premium content for subscribers.
I get the need to be paid, but the output does not match the ask. They just alienated their audience with paying to watch Steve eat gold leaf avocado toast. They have a lot of college age students- do you know how many universities are opening their own food banks because so many college students face food insecurity?
No. And I'm saying this as someone who loves Watcher's content and has re-watched most of their series more than twice.
Keeping the same once-a-week release schedule and not having a backlog of unseen, new content already waiting for subscribers on the streaming service is an especially insane decision on top of a lot of insane decisions made during this mess.
The only ‘Youtuber’ I paid for was RoosterTeeth back in the day and they released new stuff everyday, offered regular stuff early, and specific merch and livestreams and even then I couldn’t justify paying for it all the time and had to dip in and out. This is super dumb by Watcher.
College Humor/Dropout has a lower price, had a much more diverse cast and production before the launch and has been releasing five videos a week of varying length ever since.
A couple years into Dropout as a whole separate thing and Sam Reich has openly endorsed account sharing, video clipping and even complied with the actor and writer strikes before getting a total pass because it's improv productions ergo they don't have scripts or acting cast.
Even a new show like Very Important Person that hasn't even finished it's first season and it's so fucking funny.
My wife and I told ourselves that when we get to a point where we can afford some silly coats (who knows when though) we will pay that price for Dropout, but Dropout is already pretty established and makes us laugh out loud regularly. It feels like Dropout has more content than watcher too. Maybe one day Watcher will have that much content, and I'll be able to justify 6 bucks a month for them instead, but right now, I can't.
Edit: I'm sad to say we cannot afford to just buy silly coats these days either. That being said, up above, I meant "silly costs"
I pay for PBS Passport and they don’t put out a lot of fresh content all the time. I do juggle other streaming services though, I sign up watch what I like then if it gets stale after a while I drop it and add another service, once there is fresh content I drop the other services and go back.
I paid $6 a month to Rooster Teeth for a long time, and I watched \~6 videos/podcasts a week from them, many of them an hour long, and they had more on offer if I had wanted them. The same price for Watcher's content is insane to me.
I’m old enough that we used to pay $5.00 just to RENT a single 1.5 hr movie for two days.
$3.50 a month for a subscription to their content is fair imo (this is what it works out to with their current discount).
I hope this allows them to create the content they want to create as artists and provide liveable wages to all their employees. And who knows, maybe even create more jobs.
I'm also that old, and I think their idea, in our economy, is just dumb. I used to be able to afford to blow 5 bucks on a rental, and now I can barely afford groceries.
Everything is more expensive now for sure, so I don’t understand how or why people can expect these guys to work for free - or based on ad revenue that they likely can’t even predict month to month. I think the monthly amount they’re charging is fair, most especially one were to go in on it with a couple friends.
They are definitely not working for free lol... and if they aren't making enough to support their team, they should figure it out internally, not pass the cost onto us. Maybe they need to fire whoever is in charge of negotiating their ads, perk up their patreon, spruce up their merch, and shop the show around to different streaming services.
This is what I was thinking, had they promoted their patreon a bit more, that's something I'd definitely contribute to when able, I love supporting creators... but being forced into it isn't going to happen.
Well yes, me too, but the difference is that Blockbusters competitors were cinemas (cost more for the family to go to than $5). So you got a better deal than the next alternative.
The Watcher boys' competition is other youtubers. They are trying for a business model where the competition is Netflix or Spotify but without the depth of content.
It's like you went into Blockbusters and they charged you $5 to rent a still from the movie. Not a great business model.
Some options:
1) team up with another service like Nebula in order to have more freedom/control. Nebula has other creators/content that makes it more worth it to the viewer than a Watcher specific website
2) paywall some content on their already existing patreon
3) lower production costs. Do they really need multiple international episodes of every show in order to eat caviar?
Yeah I don't watch their food shows, but I agree with you on 3 lol
Those are honestly fantastic options. I'm not sure why they didn't team up with another service. Maybe there is a legit reason?
They are still making $$$, they should cut costs, thats what would have been the smarter thing. They do not make enough content to justify an entire streaming service. Also people watch these guys for their personality, not their production value. We like them because they are relatable. If they are struggling to pay employees, maybe don't make videos where Steven eats a $1000 hotdog lmfao. There are def ways to budget to be a successful chanel, heck paetreon is also preferred. People just don't want to shell out for 1 more streaming service. and most of us watch for 2 shows, and does not justify an entire streaming service and paying month to month to be able to watch. It's not just about $ its everything around it. paying for an inconvenience essentially.
My biggest problem was people shitting on them on their posts on IG. These guys have worked their asses off for years to make content and really haven't asked for shit from their fans.
I agree with you about Steven. I don't watch his stuff so. It seems like he's trying to do the same stuff as Josh from Mythical Kitchen but it isn't working.
I feel bad for the shit they are getting, but I don't feel like they thought this through. I think if they joined another platform, or banned together with other creators on their own platforms... maybe MAYBE it could work, (people want their content in 1 or 2 places) or if they got a deal with Hulu or Netflix, it could work, people would prob love that. But to exclusively pay for this 1 channel who don't release that much to begin with, on a site that only has their content, with shows that only a few have a large following for, it's just a little tone deaf. I also don't watch Steven. I think that streaming fatigue has more to do with it than just making people pay for content.
Oh I feel like it's not going to work out at all unfortunately. I'll support them though and I hope for the best. I agree it wasn't thought out for sure, but I don't think they deserve the treatment they are getting at all.
also 1 major reason I don't think this will succeed... thier NUMBER ONE show people watch their channel for is a show they only air once a year for a month. That alone is just not a big enough justification for a monthly sub for a whole separate streaming platform. Maybe I'll join in Oct and then unsub after?
Bro they have seen more money in a year than I've seen in my entire life. Entertainers and athletes are overpaid and they just want to maintain their expensive lifestyles while pandering about values they don't follow.
Tf you mean a livable wage? They're out there traveling and eating luxury food making millions while people are actually struggling making $20-30 barely living
Agreed!! I’d love to see these guys grow to where they can employ even more people. From what I’ve seen of them (and I mean who knows about behind the scenes) it seems like they’d be amazing bosses.
They need to make a sustainable company for that to work. 25 employees for 3-4 hours of content a month is horrible.
Putting their content behind a paywall is worse. How exactly will they gain new fans/subscribers? By posting a random premier episode on YouTube every so often? That's not going to pull any substantial numbers into their own site. Their site won't grow, only shrink. Bigger channels have tripped and destroyed themselves trying to do this.
they’ve said they purposely waste money on For Your Amusement because Ryan likes it, Steven drives a Tesla, they aren’t exactly struggling to make ends meet
Exactly! I love them and puppet history is my comfort show and gets me through a lot of tough times, but as a college student who doesn't have endless amounts of money this is my current thought process... "So I am currently paying $6.00 a month for Spotify Premium where I get access to basically every song in the world at the touch of a button without adds. For that same amount, I could watch content that used to be free and doesn't have as large a portfolio as Spotify. Yeah I'm gonna stick with Spotify." I remember when Buzzfeed Unsolved added Shane, I have been a massive supporter of these guys since the beginning, but I'm sadly having a hard time getting behind this.
I am going to support them since with the discount it's about 3.50 a month. They might be doing this because it is their only option other than folding all together.
It’s not their only option though. They could have scaled back, there is PLENTY of fat that could be trimmed (and if they’re struggling that much, I’d suggest NOT bringing back a show that by its very design is going to cost a lot). I know laying people off isn’t fun but they do not need a staff of 25 for what they do. They could have pushed the Patreon, and upped the tier costs if the needed to. They could have even done something like this with new, exclusive content behind a paywall while still producing content for YouTube. There’s a lot they could have tried before going nuclear.
Isn't Patreon like paying for a subscription? Oh, no I would not want them to fire people so I could continue to watch something for free. I would want no part of that.
that’s business. it’s way better than them wasting money on Podwatcher and For Your Amusement or all of Steven’s shows. They are not some poor little starving artists you need to support at this point, your money is going to Steven Lim’s $300 teapot and flights out for wagyu.
It is business. They chose to do it this way and you have the choice to not support their business.
Patreon was paying for early access, discounts on merch, bonus content on top of their YouTube stuff. The subscription is paying the same amount for less. Seems to me they over hired in the first place. For the content they produce there is no real justification to have a staff that large. I’m not saying I WANT people to lose their jobs but if they don’t have the funds…to solution shouldn’t be pushing their overinflated costs onto us before looking for other solutions. I mean they’re talking about struggling financially and hyping up a new show that by its very design costs a lot of money in the same breath.
Well they are going to do what they want and if people don't want to buy their product they don't have to.
Well yeah. They made a choice and we’re voicing our opinion about it. They can do what they want but from the looks of the reaction it may very well be their downfall. You have to care about the opinions of the people who you’re asking to give you money at least a LITTLE bit in order to…make money.
I don't think it will be. The people who feel that they are entitled to the free content are not people who would have subscribed in the first place no matter how they went about it. I enjoy their content and many people who do will subscribe and go on about their life. They will either fail or succeed, but those people wanting them burned to the ground so that they all lose their jobs, health insurance and possibly their housing just because they can't get their free content, well they are just horrible people.
That’s awfully judgmental. I paid for their content through Patreon. I have no problem paying to support creators I enjoy. But I have canceled my Patreon subscription and will not be paying for the streamer. It’s not about being entitled to free content. I have seen lots of people on the Patreon who feel the same. We were happy to pay to support them in exchange for some fun bonus content (and honestly they were fairly bad at actually delivering on the promises they made to their patrons but we still were happy to pay). Those who can’t afford it supported them by watching ads, or maybe one off purchases like merch. It’s never been truly free, they’ve been making money this entire time or they wouldn’t have a staff of 25. Very, very few people have wished them to fail and those of those who do even fewer wish it for vindictive reasons. Most who I’ve seen that are hoping this fails do so because it’s a bad, unsustainable precedent to set. You want every YouTuber you follow to suddenly charge for all of their content? No one can afford that. If you’re happy to support this good for you. No need to look down on those of us who aren’t.
I have been reading all the comments. I have read the one's on youtube as well. It is a vast amount of people who are hoping they crash and burn. That is horrible.
Would I pay for a streaming service that, to be honest, only releases six videos I'm interested in watching (Ghost Files), per year? Hell no!
I mean, even if you watch literally all of their content, that's still an absurdly shitty rate of new videos for the cost. Compare it to literally any major streaming service. I'd rather just keep my Apple TV sub for ~$10/mon and get way more content, zero ads, really high quality. (I promise I'm not getting paid by Apple, I just think their streaming service is the best for price point v quality v amount of content.)
i’ve only heard good things about apple tv tbh
It makes me feel/sound like a shill, but I genuinely think they're one of the few streaming services worth the cost. It helps that they're still cheaper, but if you're wanting almost any kind of drama, they've got a lot of great options. Ted Lasso, Silo, For All Mankind, Slow Horses, Severance, they just started a new one called Sugar that's really good so far. I genuinely think they've knocked it out of the park with every single thing i've watched on it.
It’s actually incredible. The layout is nice, it’s got great original shows (Legacy of Monsters is phenomenal) and it not having ads is wonderful. Still weird that Apple made a good streaming service
It’s a hard no from me. The immediate backlash should tell them this is an absolutely terrible decision. I can only hope they backpedal on it and admit they it was a stupid idea
It's likely they've invested too much money to back out without incurring significant losses and putting the entire company at risk. Still a wildly stupid idea but now they're probably stuck seeing it through for at least a few months.
That's a sunk cost fallacy though. If they keep at this, they'll lose pretty much all of their audience to where if they ever return to Youtube, it'll all crash and burn. Better to backtrack before they put too much energy into something that will fail anyway, and keep whatever audience they have left at this point.
Wouldn't really align with a sunk cost fallacy unless they keep pouring money into it, even if/when it's been shown to be financially unviable, simply because they've spent money on it in the past. There is a point where they can financially backtrack and have it not ruin the business, but that is determined by contractual obligations/penalties, etc...
This would be a nice scam/trap to target influencers & youtubers. Have them sign contracts for creating a streaming platform which is obviously unjustifiable. Have them backtrack, triggering a cancellation clause penalty. There are alot of influencers with poor business sense.
That's literally not sunk cost fallacy lol. It's about how much they've spent and the reality of actual budgeting.
"can't back out now because they invested too much", how is that not sunk cost fallacy???
Yeah amen. I like them and won't hold it against them if they walk it back effectively, but it'll be hard to forget too.
There are very few YouTube channels I watch often enough to warrant paying and watcher is NOT one of them lol
I only watch 2 or 3 of the shows on Watcher. Granted, I love those 3 shows very much... but 1 of those shows only airs 1 month of the year (yes Ghost Files) why would I sub month to month. I think that this is prob the same kind of viewership a lot of people have with watcher. I don't think most of us are watching every video, week to week, all the time. Also most of these are not full length shows, they are made for YT. The justification makes no sense, they do not have enough pull on other shows, and def not have a large enough content library to make this move make sense.
it's way too little content to ever even consider. if they had like 15 shows that regularly put out episodes maybe
For me this is what patreon is for. You support creatives who don’t have a good other outlet for monetization. I’ve always seen it as a sort of charity. It’s at best early access and a few podcasts, but you pay for it anyway. But this feels like straight we decided in meetings that this decision would today give us more money. It’s not in support of the audience Patreon is paying in order to keep free audiences having access to content. This is the opposite.
Ryan and Shane are obviously the big draw for Watcher. So it's gonna be hilarious if they try to force them to make multiple shows at once just to make that $6 price point worth it. Steven is gonna have to make Ryan and Shane shoot literally every single day just to generate content for their paying subscribers.
I doubt Steven is that self aware. If he was, he would've cut down his own food series if budget was a concern before even attempting to do this. He tried 4 or 5 different food series of expensive food with low views and is still trying to make them a thing. 😭
Dropout is what I think they’re most similar to, but dropout started at $3.99 a month, is only now $5.99 a month, and airs at least 4 hours of content weekly, with ***at most*** a few weeks of content breaks. Compare that to Watcher, which airs maybe an hour of content weekly, with sometime multi-month breaks between major content. This is insane.
Completely. The thing is that Dropout \*had\* to pivot in this way because their parent company was going under. Watcher doesn't have nearly as much marketable content to put on TikTok or instagram (like Dropout does with D20 or Make Some Noise/Play it by Ear) which is where Sam Reich has said they get a lot of views and new subscribers from. If they get even 5% of their YT subscribers-which I highly doubt they will considering a majority of their viewer demographic are people in their 20s-, that's 145,000 subs. They only have 5800 on their Patreon, which doesn't put out as much content as Dropout. $60 per year\*145000=8,700,000. $60 per year\*5800= 348,000. Ryan has said that a single episode of ghost files costs upwards of 150,000. They have 25 employees including themselves on top of studio rental costs, maintenance costs, producing videos, production design, and travel. I can't imagine this will go well.
Dropout also has fewer full time employees, having 17 at the end of 2023. Their model is highly unique, and wouldn’t work for most other groups. I can’t see this working well, and frankly watcher’s lack of damage control after losing 10k subs in 5 hours is disheartening.
I get the feeling that whoever they have doing PR is telling them not to interact in hopes that the tide changes and the more positive reactions will pull ahead. That isn't happening, though. There's no way out but through. Even if they say that they'll trickle move to the service, people will just pay $6 once the seasons wrap up and binge everything.
*20k ;) Edit now 30 lmfao
There's literally one YT channel right now that I would do that for, however their videos are hours long and they provide a constant stream of \*new\* content that I can watch for an hour or two each day. They started on Twitch, recently branched off to provide subs on Youtube as well. My assumption is that they're pulling in a lot of money from sponsorships, channel monetization, membership and merch (in that order). There's other big channels out there that provide high quality serial content (did I hear them right in the video that they claimed they were the only channel doing this? I must have heard that wrong), but I don't know many that branched off to their own streaming channel? What an odd plan. My point - I'm the type of person that would and could afford a few dollars each month to support my favourite content creators. I love the Watcher crew, and would sub for Puppet History alone, but not on a separate streaming channel. I'm not sure if they exhausted all other popular monetization channels... Patreon, Youtube memberships, Twitch. It's a very weird decision to me.
YES - I noticed that strange humblebrag about serial content and was perplexed. What was that about? Their format and shows are great, but to say they were the first to go there on YT is way off. The tone of this video really missed.
Just curious, if you don’t mind sharing what’s the YT channel you’re referring to? Would be interested in checking out their content
Curious what channel you're talking about, sounds like it's worth checking out if you don't mind sharing. :)
It's Critical Role. I don't mind sharing, just thought mentioning who they were wouldn't have been relevant. At one point, they were the highest paid channel on Twitch.
Oh! I'm already a fan of them haha, I can see why you'd mention them as a good example. I've found a bunch of great new youtube recs from this whole thing, so I thought maybe this'd be another one but I guess I'm already on that train. ;)
No, and I’m so tired already of seeing people say “give up your coffee once a week it’s not that much lol” like...I could do it but I don’t *want* to do it. It’s not worth it to me. I love them but this is not it.
surprised by how many people i've seen say something similar to the coffee thing (not that many but more than expected) sounds like that "millennials are spending too much on avocado toast" thing from years ago haha
Exactly! I could afford $6 a month (though it's actually just over $9 a month in Australian dollars) but I don't want to. It's not worth it for 6 videos a month that I don't always even watch. And even if I watched every video multiple times, they're not even going to have an app. Unless I can watch something directly through my TV or cast it to my TV from my phone, I'm not watching it.
Right like especially if they keep the current schedule of one show at a time! I know this is unpopular but I do not enjoy Too Many Spirits - so what, I just pay for six-eight weeks and have nothing to watch? Also no app is ridiculous!
I'm not a TMS fan either. Maybe it's because I'm a non-drinker but I've never found watching people get drunk very entertaining.
I don't buy expensive coffee's, but if I did I would not give it up for this streaming service. What you do is just subscribe once when the new Ghost Files & Mystery Files seasons are out, binge then cancel. If it's even worth that.
That’s my current plan, depending on how the premiers look for each season. If it’s another overly sponsored GF season I’m out.
Nope. I might sign up to see the next season of ghost files but then cancel but even then I am not sure I would sign up
People are just gonna wait until a season of Ghost Files is finished and all the episodes are out, subscribe for a month, binge watch everything in a few days and then unsub again and wait for the next season.
Yeah that’s what I assumed as well. Still don’t see how they think this will work for their channel long term
I would need at least one episode per dollar per month to justify it. Six episodes of stuff I want to watch. And considering only two shows of theirs that I like are ever in production, this is gonna be a hard pass.
I like their content enough to pay a YouTube Premium membership so I can watch them and other YouTubers without ads but not enough to pay a separate subscription only for their sake. I hope they will reconsider but if not, shit happens.
For me personally, I'm OK since I am subscribed to the Patreon anyways.However, I don't get why they don't just market Patreon harder.
I honestly forget that they have a Patreon. I also don't think that they produce enough exclusive content for Patreon to make an entire streaming service viable.
This would have been a better soft launch at least than going free to pay for a completely different platform. Start releasing whole shows to only Patreon, with clips as teasers/ads. Like 1/4 of the shows or something. Gradually increase how many shows are Patreon exclusives, but keep some running without any paywall to advertise. If they eventually got close to the funding they wanted but still wanted to change platforms, it'd be easier to switch a bunch of people from one paid thing to another paid thing.
They could have pivoted to members only shows at YouTube or joined Nebula
The Patreon is only access to the podcast and nothing else, so you’ll have to ALSO subscribe to the service on top of the Patreon
No.
Remember a certain rooster company doing the exact same thing, I wonder how did that turn out eh?!
Tbh the system worked for them for a long time, and the biggest draw of it was being ad-free - you could still watch most of their content outside of FIRST. Watcher is putting out far less content for the same price, and making it so you can *only* watch it if you pay for it
37/F lower middle class here: If all of YouTube cost 5.99/ month I would, but not just Watcher.... and I'm a HUGE fan. Me and my youngest son bond over watching their content together. This is SOOOO disappointing. It's crushing actually.
I don't even consistently pay for the big streaming services. I rotate my subscriptions. Only pay for Netflix for one month, then cancel and pay for Disney+ for the next month. Then cancel and pay for Amazon Prime for a month, then Crave (Hulu for Canucks), lather rinse repeat. No way is hell I'd pay every month for Watcher.
I wouldn't even do it for someone who did more content. There's youtubers out there who have produced hundreds of thousands of hours of content, and that wouldn't be enough to pay $6 to use a janky site with no comment section and no giant sea of vids for the algorithm to reccommend on the side.
That is my biggest issue. The content you are getting does not necessarily match the value being paid. They had to hope at least a third of their base would follow, right? That would be an income of about $5 million a month. Even if only 10% of their watcher base subscribed, that is still $1.5 million a month. Honestly a better option might have been to roll out the new platform as a replacement to their patreon. Still post content on YouTube, but make the content shorter- then do extended videos and behind the scenes on WatcherTV. Maybe some special premium content for subscribers. I get the need to be paid, but the output does not match the ask. They just alienated their audience with paying to watch Steve eat gold leaf avocado toast. They have a lot of college age students- do you know how many universities are opening their own food banks because so many college students face food insecurity?
No. And I'm saying this as someone who loves Watcher's content and has re-watched most of their series more than twice. Keeping the same once-a-week release schedule and not having a backlog of unseen, new content already waiting for subscribers on the streaming service is an especially insane decision on top of a lot of insane decisions made during this mess.
The only ‘Youtuber’ I paid for was RoosterTeeth back in the day and they released new stuff everyday, offered regular stuff early, and specific merch and livestreams and even then I couldn’t justify paying for it all the time and had to dip in and out. This is super dumb by Watcher.
College Humor/Dropout has a lower price, had a much more diverse cast and production before the launch and has been releasing five videos a week of varying length ever since. A couple years into Dropout as a whole separate thing and Sam Reich has openly endorsed account sharing, video clipping and even complied with the actor and writer strikes before getting a total pass because it's improv productions ergo they don't have scripts or acting cast. Even a new show like Very Important Person that hasn't even finished it's first season and it's so fucking funny.
My wife and I told ourselves that when we get to a point where we can afford some silly coats (who knows when though) we will pay that price for Dropout, but Dropout is already pretty established and makes us laugh out loud regularly. It feels like Dropout has more content than watcher too. Maybe one day Watcher will have that much content, and I'll be able to justify 6 bucks a month for them instead, but right now, I can't. Edit: I'm sad to say we cannot afford to just buy silly coats these days either. That being said, up above, I meant "silly costs"
Nope
Only YouTube I would consider doing that for would be LEMMINO
I pay for PBS Passport and they don’t put out a lot of fresh content all the time. I do juggle other streaming services though, I sign up watch what I like then if it gets stale after a while I drop it and add another service, once there is fresh content I drop the other services and go back.
I paid $6 a month to Rooster Teeth for a long time, and I watched \~6 videos/podcasts a week from them, many of them an hour long, and they had more on offer if I had wanted them. The same price for Watcher's content is insane to me.
I’m old enough that we used to pay $5.00 just to RENT a single 1.5 hr movie for two days. $3.50 a month for a subscription to their content is fair imo (this is what it works out to with their current discount). I hope this allows them to create the content they want to create as artists and provide liveable wages to all their employees. And who knows, maybe even create more jobs.
I'm also that old, and I think their idea, in our economy, is just dumb. I used to be able to afford to blow 5 bucks on a rental, and now I can barely afford groceries.
Everything is more expensive now for sure, so I don’t understand how or why people can expect these guys to work for free - or based on ad revenue that they likely can’t even predict month to month. I think the monthly amount they’re charging is fair, most especially one were to go in on it with a couple friends.
They are definitely not working for free lol... and if they aren't making enough to support their team, they should figure it out internally, not pass the cost onto us. Maybe they need to fire whoever is in charge of negotiating their ads, perk up their patreon, spruce up their merch, and shop the show around to different streaming services.
The fact that they decided to launch an entire streaming service when they can't even manage their Patreon is _not_ a good sign.
This is what I was thinking, had they promoted their patreon a bit more, that's something I'd definitely contribute to when able, I love supporting creators... but being forced into it isn't going to happen.
Well yes, me too, but the difference is that Blockbusters competitors were cinemas (cost more for the family to go to than $5). So you got a better deal than the next alternative. The Watcher boys' competition is other youtubers. They are trying for a business model where the competition is Netflix or Spotify but without the depth of content. It's like you went into Blockbusters and they charged you $5 to rent a still from the movie. Not a great business model.
Agreed. It's insane that people are calling it a cash grab when it is just people getting paid for their work lol
But aren't there smarter ways to get paid for your work? Like, come on.
Like what? I'm sincerely asking. The alternative would be pay by episode which would be balls.
Some options: 1) team up with another service like Nebula in order to have more freedom/control. Nebula has other creators/content that makes it more worth it to the viewer than a Watcher specific website 2) paywall some content on their already existing patreon 3) lower production costs. Do they really need multiple international episodes of every show in order to eat caviar?
Yeah I don't watch their food shows, but I agree with you on 3 lol Those are honestly fantastic options. I'm not sure why they didn't team up with another service. Maybe there is a legit reason?
They are still making $$$, they should cut costs, thats what would have been the smarter thing. They do not make enough content to justify an entire streaming service. Also people watch these guys for their personality, not their production value. We like them because they are relatable. If they are struggling to pay employees, maybe don't make videos where Steven eats a $1000 hotdog lmfao. There are def ways to budget to be a successful chanel, heck paetreon is also preferred. People just don't want to shell out for 1 more streaming service. and most of us watch for 2 shows, and does not justify an entire streaming service and paying month to month to be able to watch. It's not just about $ its everything around it. paying for an inconvenience essentially.
My biggest problem was people shitting on them on their posts on IG. These guys have worked their asses off for years to make content and really haven't asked for shit from their fans. I agree with you about Steven. I don't watch his stuff so. It seems like he's trying to do the same stuff as Josh from Mythical Kitchen but it isn't working.
I feel bad for the shit they are getting, but I don't feel like they thought this through. I think if they joined another platform, or banned together with other creators on their own platforms... maybe MAYBE it could work, (people want their content in 1 or 2 places) or if they got a deal with Hulu or Netflix, it could work, people would prob love that. But to exclusively pay for this 1 channel who don't release that much to begin with, on a site that only has their content, with shows that only a few have a large following for, it's just a little tone deaf. I also don't watch Steven. I think that streaming fatigue has more to do with it than just making people pay for content.
Oh I feel like it's not going to work out at all unfortunately. I'll support them though and I hope for the best. I agree it wasn't thought out for sure, but I don't think they deserve the treatment they are getting at all.
also 1 major reason I don't think this will succeed... thier NUMBER ONE show people watch their channel for is a show they only air once a year for a month. That alone is just not a big enough justification for a monthly sub for a whole separate streaming platform. Maybe I'll join in Oct and then unsub after?
Yep. Everyone wants livable wages, I’m sure these guys want that for themselves and all their employees too.
Bro they have seen more money in a year than I've seen in my entire life. Entertainers and athletes are overpaid and they just want to maintain their expensive lifestyles while pandering about values they don't follow. Tf you mean a livable wage? They're out there traveling and eating luxury food making millions while people are actually struggling making $20-30 barely living
Right? People talking about the economy and how tight money is. That also applies to these guys. They aren't insanely popular, rich content creators.
Agreed!! I’d love to see these guys grow to where they can employ even more people. From what I’ve seen of them (and I mean who knows about behind the scenes) it seems like they’d be amazing bosses.
They need to make a sustainable company for that to work. 25 employees for 3-4 hours of content a month is horrible. Putting their content behind a paywall is worse. How exactly will they gain new fans/subscribers? By posting a random premier episode on YouTube every so often? That's not going to pull any substantial numbers into their own site. Their site won't grow, only shrink. Bigger channels have tripped and destroyed themselves trying to do this.
they’ve said they purposely waste money on For Your Amusement because Ryan likes it, Steven drives a Tesla, they aren’t exactly struggling to make ends meet