They did this to try to avoid making hard decisions, the truth is they need to cut down the number of employees to only the essential staff and they need to focus on local non travel related videos. No first class flights every month and no gold flake encrusted gourmet food.

My fave former buzzfeed employee story is Quinta. She left, pursued her dreams and worked hard and has an Emmy to show for it. An icon

Watcher needs to go back to their "black screen with blue and yellow text" roots. Til this day, I watch those Buzzfeed Unsolved videos.

You’d think with 25 employees they could put out more than a video a week at most.

I don't think I'm alone in this being a wake up call that actually... I don't enjoy Watcher as much as I enjoyed Unsolved. It's all overproduced and to the actual detriment of their content. Blue and yellow text on a black screen and two guys at a desk was so much more entertaining than every expensive set and overly long show they do now. It's a shame, but this is definitely my jumping off point, after many years of supporting them. If they really want to keep growing, I think they need to drastically cut their staff, cut their studios, move out of LA, and embrace the much lower budget look that centred talent over money.

The fact that the try guys have never even suggested they want to leave KZfaq but these people have done this? Insane. If you want to be a “television show” sell your stuff to a network

“It’s been fun. Thanks guys” *shrugs* What a gut punch. That felt like a bad break up.

This would all have gone off far better if we hadnt heard about the 55K weddings, teslas and the glorious lifestyle they live 🙄 dont tell me its about them not wanting to fire people, that not what they’re trying to save.

They apologized & that’s good. I give them credit for that. What pisses me off is that even with all their revenue streams (live shows, merchandise, sponsorships + patreon) they are doubling down on their cry of poverty. They doubling down on squeezing their audience for more money 💰 Just greedy & manipulative to double down on the attitude that it was either a streaming service or die. They need to realize that everybody can be replaced.

Tbh they set the tone they couldve acted more excited and really tried to sell this and majority of their fan base would probably go with it because the parasocial relationship. But they were recording it setting the tone, like an apology vibe almost like they know people wouldn’t be happy

As a long time fan of Watcher and Buzzfeed Unsolved, this whole situation came entirely out of the blue. Never in my life have the Ghoul Bois ever done anything like this. I personally think they just have no idea how to run a business and overbudgeting by traveling/doing these expensive food videos no one really asked for? (That's purely Steven byw, who is the CEO)

3:55 this irked me so bad lmao. it’s one the for random boomers to discredit youtube, but for actual youtubers to imply that “tv” is more prestigious than youtube (while offering a web subscription lmaooo) is pathetic. the sheer amount of HIGH QUALITY content on here is incredible.

I kind of feel bad for them. This feels like something that came out of a very exciting brainstorm, but no one stopped to do some market research along the way. If they did, they would've known that most people have so many subscriptions for so many platforms, there's no way their little new platform with the same three dudes in every video was going to pop off in 2024. I admire their will to dream and the fact that they admitted their bad judgement and turned it around for the audience, but GOD, these 25 people... NO ONE DID MARKET RESEARCH?

They want to be "tv caliber" whilst only providing Watcher TV on desktop 😂, no apps or anything

Essentially they thought they were Disney+ bundle when they were Peacock. 😅

"it would be great if we could find a way to rely less on advertising" so rely less on the big companies with a lot of money and more on people that are mostly living paycheck to paycheck... Makes sense to me 🤦‍♀️

And this is why I'm a pirate. Youll never catch me paying for any streaming service if i can rip it out of their money hungry hands

In this economic crisis I’ve chosen to not stream anymore (cancelled membership), changed to free Spotify (ads are on KZfaq too), and yet influencer streaming platforms will not trump getting those services back instead for dang near the same price and ONE TYPE OF CONTENT!!. Lollll

19 people were credited in the video…. I feel like they should maybe address that before leaving KZfaq and starting a streaming platform. Also… CREATING STREAMING SERVICES COSTS MONEY TOO!!!!!!!!!!!!! Like that’s another thing they’ve spent money on!!!!!

Honestly, my problem with watcher has always been that the mix of Ryan and Shane with Steven never made any sense to me. If we compare the three to the try guys even, they don't have that chemistry or a history of working together. And now that they do work together, their chemistry isn't fun which is made even more evident by Ryan and shane's natural chemistry. I feel like ryan and shane really brought on Steven because they thought he's more grounded and can make better business decisions, but watcher inherently lacks the chemistry we adored about them. It's so weird because i used to watch Buzzfeed Unsolved religiously with my friend, we'd literally be late to classes to watch the episodes the moment they aired and now i barely ever watch any watcher content even though i adore Shane and Ryan.

The price of groceries is a must , paying for gas to get back and forth is a must , paying rent , insurance , utilities , car payment A MUST ! You tube premium optional but a way to "step away " from our over commercialized lives . All the stressors and bites from our wallets is not a must . To watch as Shane and Ryan take trips to England and Scotland to hear them talk about all the places theyve traveled to while we worry about having enough gas to make it back and forth for the week ~ spare me on the whole we arent making enough money on KZfaq!!!!

They are just so money greedy and bad at business. So many employees they dont need, focus on "quality" even though the viewers dont care, Stevens stupid first class tips and overpriced food. People stayed for the personalities not the fancy camera it was shot on.

The sheer amount of people and companies wanting monthly subscriptions is getting out of hand. I can't afford a billion different subscriptions every month. Almost every site I go to wants to shill a subscription service now.

They’re aspiring to be « as good as tv » when tv is actually dying…

Have to word this carefully to not cross any contractual lines. Worked for a media company that has worked with Watcher before and in terms of business practices this is fully unsurprising.

The couch of shame 🛋👀

Watcher feels like they wanted to be movie directors and were expecting movie director budgets but forgot they're just youtubers.

I was a fan and I’m brazilian… five dollars here is more or less the equivalent of 35 in my currency. lmao no not affordable

Honestly, I think they're so used to Buzzfeed Unsolved viewership and numbers that the Watcher views don't seem consistent enough, so they went for a bigger moneymaker. It left a sour taste in my mouth, because I really liked these guys but to be so completely tone deaf was really odd.

I need a body language analysis on the original vid so bad

honestly like someone else said this whole thing just made me realize that im not really a fan of their current stuff. i only really stuck around for the mystery and ghost stuff but i kinda petered off even that and mostly kept watching to support them. but after this i kinda ended up questioning why im even watching something i barely pay attention to/like. so i feel bad for them and also good on them for listening to their audience, but honestly the whole situation just kinda lost me completely so i don't think i'll be resubbing, much less paying for their content. i think there were so many better ways to go about trying to fix their apparent financial problems and this really really wasn't it, and i think even though i've seen a generally positive reaction to the rollback and apology a good chunk also kinda have had the same wakeup call of 'wait, why am i watching them again?' because this- at least personally- has jarred me out of the rut of staying with something just because it's a lingering attachment to something you don't really enjoy anymore.

That has to be the dumbest decision ever, how did no one stop them and wake them up.

it's giving fine bros react world, honestly

Okay but the comments on their first video were so fucking funny lmao

Ok but I feel like they could do both? Like… Just make the expensive content payed, and start producing some simpler videos for KZfaq, cuz it could also work as advertisement for their streaming service

Going to be an awkward and stale return to youtube in a few months time

i don’t know anything about what it takes to make a tv show but couldn’t they have pitched themselves to places like netflix or get picked up by another streaming service, it seems like they have a HUGE ego and i think the first sign of that was towards the end of buzzfeed unsolved

Big KZfaqrs: choose to go on fun, interesting, once in a lifetime trips to film content. Also them: "we really need help guys, we do this all for you :/" Lmao. & Like you mentioned.. why doesnt mr beast need a paywall? Its not lack of money. Its lack of the amount of money they want. Absolute greed. It destroys communitites.

I just feel the need to clarify, they do have about 13000 members on patreon, but if you look under the about tab, they actually only have 5,800 PAID members on patreon and their lowest tier is actually $5 USD, so using your reasoning they are actually making about $30,000 USD per month, not $90,000

Idk, they’ve gotten about 2k videos on them almost all complimenting their content and then retracted their nonsense.. seems almost like ragebait advertising

it was definitely a steven decision, he became the sole ceo a few months ago and hes the one who wants to travel around the world eating expensive food for content and all tht shit

The comments were brutal a lot of people were bringing up that one of the guys eats gold encrusted ice cream

Maybe Mythical can buy them like they did Smosh and they can get a steady salary and solid management for budget and staff and such.

Their fanbase really said all i wanted was you

Some people started saying they was gonna pirate 🦜 their new content. 😂

They just went about it wrong. Plenty of youtubers have their own paid service and do "highlights" for free on youtube. Its nothing new at all. These guys just decided to go all or nothing like idiots

The reason streaming was so popular originally was people felt like they had 600 channels and watched like 5 of them. Advertising was absolutely unavoidable. Oh, and anything like Max, AMC or Showtime would still cost an extra $3-5 a month each on top of the increasing base prices. Streaming services allowed the viewers to tailor what they paid with what they were actually watching. But now the companies are all doing cash grabs and it's as bad as cable packages- I'm pretty sure I'm going to start sailing the high seas again soon.

seems like they've either bitten off more than they can chew by having too many staff members and unrealistic ambitions about the type of content they want to make right now, or they aren't good at managing their funds responsibly, or want to shift into being a type of content or "show" that no one asked for or wants.........OR they got too greedy, and want to grow and get paid more for just for the sake of it (maybe a combination of those). in any case, they HAVE to know that we are in subscription hell right now, and people aren't going to add on another subscription to something as nonessential as their channel. like come on. personally, I'm leaning more towards thinking that they simply wanted to have more money and keep their team big and their content as high-production as possible. arrogant move tbh, but thank god they at least are paying attention to their viewers' reaction

Your point about being called out, apologising, and people ridiculing you for the apology they wanted in the first place is so spot on😂. Damn!

I pay two KZfaq memberships per month, £18 for Oz Media(there is a cheaper option) and £4.50 for Tiny Blue Anthropologist. Given how expensive living is you have to really like people and their content to want a membership. The idea that they think more than maybe a few percent of their audience will pay this subscription fee is out of touch at best and manipulative or exploitative at worst. I pay for Premium because I hate ads but also because the volume on ads is often different, usually much louder from the video’s volume and I don’t like being suddenly deafened especially if I’m working and can’t always change it straight away. I know channels watched get money from Premium but I’m not sure how much.🤔🤔

That side eye u give in the thumb nail wraps up my exact emotions on this

Fave youtuber crossover but not in the way I wanted it to be.. yikes

Maybe their aim was to convert their Patreon users into this new service to remove the Patreon middle-man taking a cut, though it would still be odd if it's for the money since they'd be losing the youtube & sponsor money along side needing to pay for their own streaming platform/server maintance (if it's their own and not just a pre-existing streaming service).

I stg it’s part of the weird Buzzfeed pipeline 💀

It’s giving ‘we want a tv show but we’ve not been picked up’

the sad piano in the background... its like they learnt nothing from the arogance of the fine brothers.

I’d rather watch multiple ads through every video. Like/comment/subscribe to support my fave content creators. I just wouldn’t personally pay for a membership situation like they’re doing.

The thing that irks me is that they think theor content is worthy of $59 a year. Sorry but they need to humble themselves

Sad to see my ex co workers being dragged. Not defending this misstep at all. They were always nice people to work with but maybe they’re getting lost in a sauce a bit like all successful influencers.

Thank u for giving us the short version! 💓

I can’t believe they tried to go this direction without even exploring patreon or services like that

I love Watcher, but $6 for a streaming service with just those 3's production is WAY too much. $3 maybe i could justify it but they over valued themselves way too much. They should have launched the service for less $$$ but put a few exclusives on it and let people choose. Also the fact they didnt initially roll their patreons who were already paying them extra to the service is insane to me.

I used to like Watcher and casually watch them. Not necessarily following every video closely, but every so often I'd click on a video in my recommended. This whole thing just put a bad taste in my mouth. I actually think their apology was pretty solid, but they've completely shattered their original "good guys against the world" type of image. I appreciate the steps theyre taking, and I wouldn't blame people for going back and welcoming them with open arms, but I'm definitely not going to resubscribe.

Hey everyone! If you want more details about what Angelika did not go over I will discuss it :) First off, I want to say I have been watching Shane and Ryan for 5 years. When Unsolved was just a baby. So, let’s get started lol Ryan Bergara started and started Unsolved: True Crime and Unsolved: Supernatural. Shane Madej joined him about 2-3 episodes in as Ryan originally had a different cohost. Unsolved became a huge success and lasted for 7 seasons until they decided to leave Buzzfeed in 2020 to start Watcher Entertainment with Steven Lim. Steven was also apart of Buzzfeed but he worked on a show called “Worth It” and a few others. Worth it was a show about going to a bunch of expensive restaurants and seeing if the prices were “worth it.” Unsolved episodes have surpassed millions of views since its debut and continue to be watched by fans (me lol) When Steven, Shane and Ryan started Watcher a big reason fans followed was for their version of Unsolved Supernatural and Unsolved True Crime which are Mystery Files and Ghost Files. Ghosts filed debuted about a year and half ago and was followed up with Mystery Files. Production had defiantly gone up as seen in the graphics, “ghost tools” and sets. Shane, Ryan and Steven have created other shows ofc like Puppet History, Too Many Spirits, Top 5 Beatdown and a few podcasts. They have grown a lot since the last 4 years as Steven mentioned they currently have 25 employees. It is important to note that a lot of these employees were friends or even family members of the guys which eluded to them saying they didn’t want to lay people off. This video came out after mystery files season 2 wrapped up and was of course a huge shock to fans (I spent that entire watching the social blade and other channels commentary’s lol) In the US the monthly subscription is $6 and $60 per year. For viewers outside of the country as Angelika showed, the payments rise significantly. The video last I know off has 250k dislikes compared to the 30ish K likes. Of course they have gotten a lot of backlash and attention from the decision but not bringing in new people that they would’ve hoped for. During the 3 day silence they lost about 10k on Instagram and it’s now 18k lost since then. Shane Madej’s wife did speak out against the backlash by backing up the statements made and the pricing. Calling it “affordable” and that she understood people “not wanting to pay for something that was once free” but that it’s important to pay fair wages. She of course got a lot of backlash because it has been publicly noted that they’re wedding in Chicago cost 55k at the least, making her statement very out of touch as she also bought an expensive bag for their honeymoon. In the original video Steven announced he would be starting a show called “Travel Season” which is a similar concept to “Worth it” which got so much hate because people took notice of the current economic crisis and how people can’t even afford to buy food sometimes since many Americans are living pay check to pay check. Once again making it an out of touch experience for Steven. A lot of people blame Steven for the situation because he is the CEO and that he’s has shown in prior videos he enjoys living a luxurious LA lifestyle. Driving a Tesla, expensive trips, bragging about eating goop salads on the podcast as well as owning a $300 coffee maker. I don’t particularly believe he was the only one to make this decision because they are all grown adults. The aftermath: As shown in the video, they’ve lost thousand as of subscribers and followers across all platforms. They of course make the apology video and state that all patrons members will have a free membership to the new streaming service. BUT They failed to mention that it wasn’t a fully free subscription, it gave current Patreon members T H R E E MONTHS free not a fully free add on service. They lied multiple times throughout both videos and showed the audience a very greedy side of themselves. Especially with saying Patreon members get to have “free” access when it was only for a couple months. Prediction: The decision has tarnished their reputation and relationship with the audience. And showed other potential audience members that they don’t really care and just want money. I don’t know if Angelika is aware but Watcher does live shows for Ghost files where they fly around the country doing QAs and showing the newest episode of Ghost Files. Which is of course extra income. This possible new audience has now seen a dark side that they won’t be interested in and they will lose out on potential money. The current Watcher fans or ex fans feel betrayal. This betrayal will ultimately lead to other channels with similar content taking in these ex fans, giving them an opportunity to be the “New Shane and Ryan”

At 2:04 you can see how they feel about it, Steven is smiling nodding along, very pleased about it and then there’s Shane… he moves and changes position on how he is sat as if he is uncomfortable from hearing it and then sighs and looks away and just looks displeased over all. Then at 2:30 Steven is still smiling and Shane just can’t look at the camera and looks to the floor. Shane knew their subscribers would not be on board with this. And this is why I’m convinced this was all Steven’s idea

I never even heard about that channel, and I only found out about this story because all my favorite commentary KZfaqrs were clowning these dudes all week, lol...anyway. Delusional. They're making way too much money but that's probably why they can't read a room. The best thing is this could have been COMPLETELY avoided if they did a little bit of market research...matter of fact all they had to do is post a poll on their community tab

A crossover I never expected tbh

I’m burnt out too. I’ve stopped all my services except Amazon and we plan to not renew when it comes time. We’ve unplugged a lot more and we’re moving toward completely unplugging

I pay for KZfaq premium, so I'm especially not going to pay for an extra streaming service for KZfaq videos. I think they saw platforms like dropout and thought that they could do it too

I feel like i can understand why they want a more "stable " form of income as in they don't rely of sponsors . But i feel like keeping a part of content free would've been the way to go even if its a minority of the content they produce.

HAAAA I can’t believe you’re talking about Watcher I honestly watch like 5 channels consistently this is such a crazy crossover

I pay the same for Disney Plus. I think I would prefer that over Watcher

i watched charlie (moistcritikal) talk about this as someone who runs a agency for youtubers and also has a lot of employees and he mentioned how they in no way are “struggling” for money with their current revenue

They employed a lot more people than they could pay, and they tried making their fans pay the cost.

whats really funny is the fact that we have streaming places like dropout that are a subscription but the MAJOR difference is the amount that they put out vs what watcher is putting out (and for virtually the same amount)

Haven’t watched Angelika in awhile, so not used to the background, but I’m obsessed with your ds game collection!!

I wonder if they changed the tier costs before i had a chance to check them. They were $5, $10, $25, & $100 when i checked the day before last. Something interesting i learned, though, while they may have nearly 14k patreon members now, fewer than 6k of those are paying subscribers. Everyone else is on the free tier. So their current paying base is really low. Idk how they thought theyd suddenly convince more people to start paying ehen they have a pretty good indicator of whos willing to pay already

Except they didn’t do it because they didn’t understand their audience. They got greedy and they got caught. They were pulling all their content off KZfaq and putting it behind a paywall. Even the old stuff! If they are so concerned about the quality of the content they need to scale back, stop worrying about fancy sets, pointless shows to pad their content, hiring more people, and alienating the only reason they have the popularity they do.

Did they not learn from rooster teeth tf 😂

I love it when I come home, sit down with food, and watch an *amazing* video ❤❤❤

I make a pretty decent wage. I cannot afford an extra $5.99 a month.

the couch video is a career ruiner smh

I mean- this was the dumbest move ever.

I didn't know they had a Patreon, how did they know understand that the Patreon was already the extent of people that would be willing to pay for them. The Patreon is a pre-built place to be free of sponsors and get wild/uncut. Maybe they thought this would get loads of press and it was a deliberate move

I love that they are offering full refunds to fans who have already subscribed! they seem like they actually care about their fans and i think they really thought people would like this (since people complain about ads and sponsors all the time)

They could just lower the quality? A lot of ytubers i watch stream from their bedroom and they have good content. Good camera and mic are the most important.

they have responded RECENTLY

Thank you for the point about how absurd the "oh they only apologized because they got pushback!" argument is. Like...yeah, that's how apologies work! No one would ever apologize if they never did anything wrong in the first place! I mean if you don't feel you can forgive the initial mistake, just say that but this kind of circular reasoning of "this person is totally wrong and if they don't apologize they're trash!!! oh wait? they just apologized!? pfft! only because people told them they were wrong!!!" just doesn't make any sense. Do you believe that people can grow and learn and be remoseful for their mistakes or not? And if not, why even bother asking for an apology?

I think the Sidemen did the streaming service thing really well. They still have their big sidemen Sunday videos for free on KZfaq but then do bts stuff on side+, a podcast and little mini series. Maybe these guys should’ve done that

They are so greedy Fr

i was a bad girl

They disappointed the fuck out of me with this.

Girl….please let us know what eyeshadow you are using. Also, I LOVE YOUR VIDEOS❤

Like so many other people have said, I don’t think any of their audience was asking for big budget videos. Obviously the ghost files vids are gonna be more pricey with travel and everything. But we also like their more low budget vids.

in the words of keke palmer - “and who the hell are they?!”

I wonder how much money they sunk into the watcher app. They could have paid themselves more with that.

The only reason I don’t wanna watch is cos they still seem out of touch for saying everyone can afford it

As a YT premium watcher, I gladly give ad revenue to anybody I’m watching. But if people behave like this, going above and beyond on spending and labour costs, it’s simply a no from me. Not that I watched them in the first place 😂

"we don't want to depend so much on advertisers". well, there's this thing called youtube members

Well Steven is kinda being called out