I’ve heard people say like “Watcher expected their parasocial fans to just happily pay the fee” but if anything I think the opposite. I feel like the whole subscription thing was them thinking “of course our fans will be happy to pay more for the expensive shit we want to do, because we have vision, because we are artístés” and they were actually surprised when everyone was like uh dude your film degree means nothing to me. I think Watcher was under the impression their fan base was about the art, not the artist. Which is so funny because this is a ghost hunting show. It’s like a grocery store romance novelist being confused that people want to see romance scenes and missed her subtle nod to the deleted scenes in Citizen Kane.
i think this very firmly hits one of the main points on the head. i do think that they severely misinterpreted what their audience prioritizes (high production quality > personality and comfort). i think a lot of their staunch supporters throughout this also fell into this trap a little bit. i saw a lot of "it's their channel, they can make what they want and don't have to listen to the demands of their audience" which is again, technically true, but that doesn't make them entitled to an audience.
if anything, i feel like this debacle just highlighted the honestly astounding amount of people who have continued to support them despite not even having a strong interest in their content since the move to watcher. and maybe that's not what they wanted to hear, but there are a lot of people who would love to have their audience's love and dedication
