Watcher Backpedal After Fan Backlash 

i imagine the money hemorrhaging comes from them hiring their friends

The thing about the apology, they seem upset that they upset us not like they understood what they did wrong. They basically threatened to cut us off if we didn't pay. And continue to insinuate that we just didn't understand the reasons and misunderstood them. Sara's comment was even more telling. It's not that we don't want to help, it's that some of us CAN'T help. It's giving lazy. They don't want to grind so that corporations can pay for some of their frivolous spending, so they want us to fully fund it? During a time when most of us are not in a position to stay alive let alone help Steven eat at a 5 star restaurant overseas. They're also grossly misunderstanding their audience. Because we don't need the high production. That's what THEY want. Their fans are ok with way less production but respect their artistic vision. The money is also an issue. What is livable wage to them? And why are they still hiring people and spending so much on each episode when according to Ryan the channel might even dissolve without more money? All of the guys have also insinuated a specific lifestyle outside of the studio. The nerve to have significant little luxuries and then say you're going broke. Obviously I want the guys to do well but at the cost of our basic necessities? At a point, we're just enabling them. They always want more. What were they going to do when the streaming service hit the next money wall? And the way they did it was just pure trash. They made it seem like some big exciting announcement was coming and got everyone hyped. That it was like, "your big surprise for being a fan for years is that if you don't pay for our content, then you're being let go as a fan!"

Also, they didn't care that $6 can mean a lot more for their international audience

I simply do not believe them. They didn't do this because they were struggling financially. They did it because they couldn't handle having to adjust their content to please advertisers. It's going to take a whole heck of a lot to convince me otherwise.

I love the Ghoul Boys but I think it’s painfully obvious this was just a cash grab. Shane spent 50k on a wedding VENUE. That’s absolutely absurd. They are all living very successful, wealthy lives. And if their channel is truly in danger of being discontinued, they really need to start living more modestly (which would still be more extravagant than 95% of their viewers) Unfortunately, this did leave a bad taste in my mouth and I did unsubscribe. But I think the apology was appreciated.

It’s Steven Lim, he’s the problem.

I love Shane and Ryan, I bought buzzed unsolved book and watched their live show last year. Honestly was going to subscribe to the tv channel but when I heard about Steven’s new show, it left a bad taste in my mouth. I don’t care to watch Steven travel all over the world and eat expensive things.

17:56 it’s all going to Steven Lim’s pay check. He’s a money hungry nepo baby who is single handedly ruining Shane and Ryan’s careers after riding on their coat tails for so many years. He’s greedy and needs to be fired. Teaming up with him was the WORST business move the ghoul boys ever made, and he was the mastermind behind this abominable decision.

Here is the thing - this channel is making no less than $100k/month. That means it's bringing in a gross of $1.2M/year. And that is the absolute lowest end of what they are making. More than likely it is twice that but we will go with this. Their most expensive show is likely Ghost Files - Travel, permits, staff, etc. They make around 6 episodes of that per season. If every episode costs $50k that still eaves over $900k/year for the rest of their stuff. They mention they have a staff of 25 people. That staff has to be getting mucho bucks to soak up the rest of the income. So I ask a simple question - when they shoot a episode do they need 25 people? I hate to suggest layoffs because that is crappy but... do they need a third cameraman and all when they could just grab a tripod? Do they need high end cameras when they can use an iPhone? Basically is the money problems a function of overexpanding? Or is there a deeper problem? I refuse to name names here because I disagree with all that hate being directed at one person (All three participated in this decision and Shane and Ryan didn't have a gun to their heads while making it) but there is one that does seem to have a history of ever extending budgets. Is that the problem and if so perhaps they could struggle back some of that?

I think Steven is a huge problem here...

Steven Lim’s Tesla. That’s where the money is going.

I'm so curious about how many people signed up for the streaming service over the weekend, because I have a feeling the numbers were extremely low. Maybe I'm being overly cynical bc I've never really watched them and this just looks like pure unchecked greed from an outside perspective, but I'm willing to bet that they wouldn't have been so quick to backpedal if they had seen anywhere close to the number of subscriptions they must have (naively/ignorantly) been expecting...

My big suspicion about where the money is going is that they ramped up too big too soon. The repeated insistance about wanting to do tv quality content makes me think they went in from the jump hiring like a tv studio, but with the resources of a youtube channel, albeit a pretty big one. Compare to the try guys, their closest peer, who worked out of a like small house they were using as an office until they could afford to scale up to a studio. I saw someone else mention elsewhere that try guys had 20 staff at the time of their big scandal last year and they put out double the content watcher does. It makes sense that ghost files would be expensive to produce, but that means they should be cutting costs elsewhere. Maybe the crew for that needs to be seasonal rather than full time. Maybe people that are being hired full time have to be able to also do camera work when they do travel shoots, etc etc. I'm not sure of the specifics, but i am certain they shouldn't need the same level of production for the in studio shoots, so what are all these folks doing day to day? Do they NEED to have the level of set design they have for the in studio shows? (Like they made a basement set rather than say finding a basement?) Can they find a less costly studio? Can they have editors etc work from home to get a smaller space overall? I also suspect that this mentality is causing them to basically leave money on the table. They're trying to think like netflix rather than a youtube channel. For instance, I'm a regular watcher and didn't know they had a pateron until last friday and i saw loads of folks respond to this whole thing with "oh isn't that the buzzfeed unsolved guys? I didn't know they had a channel anymore." Which i think suggests they were planning to abandon the youtube/patreon model before it was actually necessary to do so, instead choosing a much much riskier venture (especially given that there's reason to think we've hit market saturation on streaming services). As for why they're hiring new folks- i suspect they're trying to spend out of the hole rather than face scaling back, which is a bleak prospect. I love their content and want them to do well but i think they might be in for a reality check if I'm right.

Jacksfilms skit on the topic was hilarious tho xD

I haven’t watched the ghoul boyz since they teamed up w that Steven guy he saw a pot of gold with Shaun and Ryan and completely took control of them

How did they know that they were gonna have to close the Watcher RU-vid account only after three days of lounching the app? Because they said that they were gonna have to close if they didnt put up the app when they didnt even know how the app was gonna go. To me this is an overpaying issue. And also while youre right about the audience appreciating the good quallity content, absolutly nobody asked for even more quallity to their content...so giving that as a reason to go behind a paywall was sus to me lol.

I was so afraid I wasn’t gonna see my favorite blue puppet ever again for a moment there

They don’t have an app, actually. The content has to be watched on a website.

I always knew that Steven guy was bad news

My heart was broken too and I was/am angry 😤

totally not related to the content itself, but i have to ask, why did you photoshop steven lims shirt to be red on the thumbnail?

They had to pay big money for the web site platform didn’t they?

The maximum tier on their Patreon is actually $100 (there's that right arrow to click on the $25 tier). They actually plan on downsizing from 4 down to 3 with $100 still being their maximum tier.

Will watch. Won't trust the bois

$10 a month for 3+ years cancelled after good bye youtube. If you want to be Netflix, fine, I don't support Netflix on Patreon. Good luck. I'm not funding your mismanaged company. Fire the bloat. Life sucks. Having to fire someone sucks. Buzzfeed Unsolved was better then most of the over produced content they make now anyways. Shane making fun of Ryan thinking hair grows thru the skull is what made the content good, not some high quality intro.

struggle with sponsor? Where? Their content is as clean as it could be 😂 they didnt even swear or if they do its censored to high hell. Besides, they're already have this certain canon personality from their fans so if they're suddenly deviate from that the fans would still be angry / uncomfortable or whatnot imo. I'm calling bs and think it's their oversight, expanding too much too quickly and over budgeting by a lot. Should've hire finance consultant rather than making whole new platform.

No need to bash them verbally or over text... money will speak and if they lose all of their fans by the move, "who could have seen that coming"...

I also think its Steven! Am I crazy? He's the CEO. Most definitely giving himself quite the paycheck. If the company really is hemorrhaging money why aren't they focusing on cutting costs? It's pretty obvious this move was pure greed.

That five dollars girl came to my mind too

10:30 its not about if 5 bucks is a lot of money, its wether you, the streamer/product is worth 5 dollars of dedicated revenue each month.... yeah, no...

it’s so wild to claim they would’ve had to “bring watcher to a close” as if there’s not ways to cut costs, layoffs are terrible, but that’s an easy first answer. i genuinely don’t feel like the quality change has made their videos better, it’s always been about shane and ryan’s dynamic. their buzzfeed videos with clearly lower costs had like 20 million views regularly. i’d also personally take a pay cut before shutting down the source of my income as a whole. wack. i also haven’t seen a single person who likes steven or his videos, which get 1/10th the views of ghost files, or even the vids of the two drinking.

Just like anything else it’s who has the money who controls everything. Look at Shark Tank. People being great ideas to the show but those ideas will never go anywhere without financial support. But once you bring the money in the people with the money start to control more and more of your original idea. They can change it however they want because they’re in control. I’m sure that the advertisers for Watcher were doing their best to control Watchers content and to be the creator being told what to do and how to do it would be awful. It’s sad that they thought this was the best way to go but I don’t see them as money hungry at all. They just want to be able to control their creation. I can’t fault them for that.

Here is the thing, the ghoul boys have said before that Steven did not want to be in videos and that they didnt want to do the admin part of the business so they left that to Steven. But now Steven wants to do his old Segement which is expensive- yes they can write it off in taxes, but still- and hire Andrew and Adam who are , of course, getting paid a nice amount and being honest most people watched worth it not because of Steven, but because of Andrew.... I think Steven sold the idea of the streaming and " exclusivity" and they guys not understanding the admin part of business agreed with him because they saw the previous results- like patreon revenue. They need an actual business partner , that understands management in their industry.

Its become an added benefit for their patrons and if they add new shows to just their app that may encourage more people to try it out. I still don't understand how they could possibly be struggling for money tho. Sounds like they need to downsize a bit.

I was initially very sad that they were planning on doing this. I remember telling my wife that I guess we're not going to get to see any more of their shows because we are not going to be signing up for a streaming service for this. Luckily they reversed course so I guess we will get to see Future Productions by these guys

Agree if you want exclusive, ad free, early access cool pay. They lost it by making everything behind the paywall.

This was obviously Steven’s idea and Ryan got harassed into it and Shaun is just along for the ride

Off topic -- love your tee shirt.

These guys are not use to fans being angry at them and I am sure they got a huge reality check . They are use to being popular and loved which is why I think they got full of themselves. They figured while the fans might grumble they would still of course pay to keep watching them . They didn’t stop to consider if fans could even afford this or if their pay site made sense from a financial standpoint . I feel like this was largely Steven’s idea and if the boys had a brain they would ask him to step down . Fans are here for Ryan and Shane . One day out of the blue with NO warning they were like hey guys thanks for making us popular now either pay to keep watching us or never get to see our content again . Literally what the f***?! They forgot that fans are everything for content makers . They literally admitted they didn’t think about the fans when they made this decision. Their goodbye video was tone deaf, insensitive and honestly they sounded arrogant af. It remains to be seen if they can survive what they did to themselves . If they are truly hurting for money (I doubt it) then they are clearly mismanaging their money. Probably paying themselves and staff too much . Paying way too much for nonsense(steven eating gold covered food 🙄) and big unnecessary production costs and god knows what else . If they had just offered their fans a chance to pay if they want early access or free if they are willing to wait from the get go we wouldn’t be having this problem. Instead they did this so I just don’t know …

Patreon code is only for 3 months, made it seem like it was for the year! Sus!

I agree with her

? Are they gaining back subscribers sconce apology?

for me watcher look very greedy and not worth your time or money , let them have consequences , if not i'm very sure they will try again to squeeze money

They demonstrated humility and proved they actually listen to their audience. Everyone steps on poop at times. Now, this is just a bunch of nothing burger so time to move on.

I can finally say "first!"

I can’t feel bad for someone who paid my yearly salary for a wedding venue like- the disconnect is so obvious and I can’t unsee it🧍‍♀️