Jesus. Thank you to everyone for checking out the video. Let me know if you would stick around for more KZfaq drama content like this as it's not what I normally cover on the channel.

I don't understand why Patreon wasn't enough for them. especially because nobody was even asking for tv level production to begin with

Their ukulele apology video will be out of this world.

It used to be 11,000 patrons. That dropped quickly.

Plus they have the audacity to run ads on the very goodbye video saying "give us money or get out". The comments are the same in Tumblr, with the addition of some leaked stuff from what's going on in their Patreon, where they're only giving a 40% discount after the patrons' backlash hit.

I'm SO TIRED of the "Starting SIGH" in these videos, especially "Apology" videos.

the issue is that they don't want to BE KZfaqRS. They clearly have goals that don't align w allowing everyone to just consume their content for free. we're no longer entitled to their content, we now have to purchase it and we're not their friends, we're their customers.

The Patreon thing is what blows my mind. I would be so upset if I had prepaid for a year then this happened. As Coffeezilla said, Netflix doesn't have a Patreon. Like either you're a KZfaqr, or you have a streaming platform. Also, a lot of streaming services will offer big discounts at certain times throughout the year (you know the pay $20 for your first year than we'll automatically renew you for 49.99 next year). So right now I'm paying $60 for Peacock, Britbox, and Curiosity Stream COMBINED! They are delusional!

i don't think people really grasp how bad of a precedent that would set if it *would be successful* like i loved ryan & shane and have followed them from the buzzfeed days, but this ain't it chief. if *_they_* succeed that will open the door to and make other youtubers confident in doing it themselves then it's no longer $6 a month ... if you have even 5 youtubers you like that would follow suit you'd have to pay $50 a MONTH just to watch youtubers. it's insane. i love them but honestly as brutal as it sounds, for the sake of everyone already struggling right now, i really hope it doesn't succeed and a bunch of other youtubers start to copy. 😢💔

I didn't know about the Steven guy. It's weird that they normally do ghost hunting and read scary stories, and then there's this random guy cooking. Like, why? Lol

if we wanted tv content we would watch tv. IDK how that doesn't fucking connect in their minds

Seems to be a combination of hubris, being overly impressed with themselves, an apparent lack of interest in their audience as well as being clueless about the demographics of that audience, all seasoned with a sprinkling of greed.

They should have just signed a contract with an actual tv channel lol

It’s hilarious that they had a countdown to this special announcement and the announcement was hey guys we’re leaving you unless you can pay us more money 🎉🎉.

Everyone realizes why the first part of that video is formatted the way it is, right? Watchr starts out with this inherent assumption that they are retiring and fans won't ever see them again and then they pop the idea of "Well, you could see us on a streaming service if you pay $6/month" on everyone. It's kinda like the old move of saying something like "Your mother is dead! Just kidding. But I did wreck your car." - start with a bigger scare and then serve up the sales pitch. Very manipulative.

Steven's the one I see in most collabs with other channels. And every time I'm put off by his personality.

Also, I'm pretty sure that if they were taking it back they already would have said something. This radio silence is their pride and greed deciding they're doubling down on it

Another youtuber showed what they make from KZfaq, it's $520K a year.

I wish they would have asked the fans!!! I wish they would go back to the old days. I love the simple BuzzFeed unsolved. And they teased us with that in the beginning, now it’s just a poopy show. Who cares about Steven and his high society appetite? He’s the new “Meg”.

They had over 12,000 Patreon members 2 days ago, that they offered a 40% discount to the streaming service 😂

Man, they should just make another video saying "April Fools" and pretend it never happened.

I’ve been a Patreon supporter of theirs for years and the discount they’re offering is 30% off the annual subscription. That means I have to sign up for a full year to get a discount. I’m not willing to do that at this juncture!

Even Roosterteeth treated their subscription service as early access and eventually uploaded it to youtube after a few weeks

They really thought they were gonna get the MatPat goodbye video treatment 💀💀

it's so wild that they pulled this move out of greed, thinking they were gonna *make bank* when in reality they just nuked their (very profitable) income stream. WHO advised these guys that enough people would chuck up 6 bucks a month to end up with more cash revenue than YT ads & sponsorships??? The *one* thing I'll give them is just because people *say* they don't care about "production value", doesn't mean the analytics won't show a very different story. I'm familiar with people saying they definitely want a certain type of content and will totally watch the heck out of it and then just... not watching when you make that content. I'm assuming they have data on lower production videos and higher production videos that prove the latter perform much better. However, if that's not financially viable (doubtful, but whatever), what they're doing is not the solution. They should just accept that they can't afford the higher production value and settle for the lower performance of lower production value content.

I'm starting to wonder if this is a joke that got out of control? This is just too stupid to have gone through multiple people and greenlit. Maybe the silence is them being shocked and appalled that so many people believed them. Please, let this be a horribly thought out April fool's prank.

I miss unsolved :(

Found you while following the Watcher controversy. Might be bad at advertising your channel now, but I had a lot of fun watching the video and you'll get better at it. Keep it up! I'll have to subscribe.

I think it's mostly their ambition talking, more than greed itself (except Steven, that one I'm not so sure about), and I can imagine and understand the struggle when you've got big dreams in your vision, I really do, but... that's just not the way to achieve your goals. Sad to witness as a fan

The best part is how they use Silicon Valley VC Bro jargon. "Soft launch". "Beta test". All at full price. Comparing their KZfaq channel to Netflix to justify the price is _full cringe._ I'm not saying their die hard fans, the ones at the top tier on Patreon, won't pay for their proprietary service, because they totally will. They may feel disrespected with how they did it, but in the end they will do it. The question is how many of the lower tier Patreons will follow them over, and how many of the _freeloaders_ from KZfaq will follow them over.

Yeah, this was just a greedy move. They were making a good amount with sponsors, ads, patreon, merch, and live shows. They are making money not just as much as they want. Its also odd to say they want to make television quality productions, but the way broadcast television works is through ads. I mean, they worked with buzzfeed, so they know how the business works and they were not willing to a) compromise on certain aspects of their shows for advertisers to sponsor them. b) lower their production costs, rethink, and cut certain shows that are too expensive (worth it). c) move to a cheaper location for cheaper office rent and downsize on that massive 25 staff. The only reason i think they have that many people is because they just want their friends to have jobs. I am sorry but tgis is super disrespectful for their fans. Sure some might have the money to subscribe but why would they if this was all free before. With all the subscriptions out there 6 dollars a month does add up for a lot of people. Idk this is kinda scary because if this is somehow a success with them, then what stops other popular youtubers from doing the same thing.

Update since they posted the video. 36394 Likes 212409 Dislikes Lost about 90k - 100k subs in 2days. - This is the most epic downfall I have ever seen on KZfaq :D

Lets spend money on a high end production, about how expensive high end production is...then trying to make them feel bad for you and also wanting them to give you more. Its a dick move...hell of a dick move. Loved your upload...cheers mate!

If they want to do TV series content they could approach a broadcaster like Netflix, or a cable company. I think the professional streaming market is saturated, I doubt even a really large new player could break-in now.

they never check their social blade

I had to wait patiently for them to put ghost files up on their watcher channel after leaving buzzfeed and now they're moving again and charging for it. I'm not paying to watch the 2 and a half shows I watch. And $6 is too much. Anything is too much but even if they did it at $1 a month and half of their subs join thats over a million dollars a month which is more than enough. No body is happy

Its not worth paying more in an economic crisis, bye girl.

Commenting to boost your video or whatever. Good video man

They sealed their fate….less competition for other You Tubers (I guess).

Whether they double down or backtrack, it's gonna be a wild ride

I have been doing KZfaq for 8 years (given not had the same video quality since I am 16 now, I started at 8) and I make nowhere NEAR as much money. Even when my previous channel was monetized, I have not once needed to switch platforms and paywall my fans. I may consider Patreon for extra stuff, but I won't paywall my viewers. This is just my 2 cents, so don't listen to me :p

Great points! Especially about the severe disconnect - I think many small creators such as myself and you come to KZfaq because it's really fun and if we're able to monetize that would be rad but to them I think it's become about their personal salaries and cost of living. They should definitely have scaled back and explained to their users why they were scaling back instead of pursuing more money and as Coffeezilla put it "silicon valley broed" their media

I just found out about this. Truly sad. But I literally watched two of their series. That is in no way worth 6 bucks a month. I have amazon, and that's it.

Tv production is such a shit reason because it's will probably be bad, why? Because it's now corporatised and not personal and now we compare it to other tv productions. A 9/10 channel in KZfaq is like a 4/10 in tv. Went from a really good youtube channel to a underaverage tv show. And throwing money into stuff doesn't garauntee sucess i mean look at all the dosney flops hundreds of millions into no money return. Their older stuff is more personal in my opinion but the streaming service and the higher production is making it less appealing to us youtueb viewers. And not to forget they are idiots because they forgot their out of US audiences like myself 6$ is not much to an american but to me it's like 3 days of food. 60$ is about a month for me

IMHO, they should have done what other KZfaqrs have done. Give their Patreons ad-free early access, like a week or a month early, before releasing to KZfaq with as many unskippable ad breaks as possible. I would be very surprised if their Net Income from their proprietary service will be as high as KZfaq plus Patreon.

I'm a smaller channel myself, just now starting to make money off videos. It's not alot truthfully and I haven't had a sponsorship ever. But it's not the important thing for me. I loved Watcher for a long time and this blatant display of greed is astounding. For years, when Ryan and Shane were Unsolved. I loved the videos alot more and it was mostly yellow and blue text on screen with whoever was talking 😅. Loved seeing them grow away from Buzzfeed, but this move is so bad. Even from my standpoint as a fan, youtuber. Subbed to your channel too man, you deserve more subs. Ever need something, feel free to reach out!

Hope you get monetised soon dude!

It was all just manipulative and greedy as all hell. The egos on display were all so insanely massive. “We’re too good for you now.” When it was thanks to us that all this happened.

Even KZfaq failed at trying to produce TV quality shows on this platform. Let that sink in. Their main draw was ghost files, when that is not airing, most people won't justify paying every month.

New subscriber. Excellent analysis!

i didn’t even know about watcher until this situation exploded in their face, but 2 ex-buzzfeed trio on a couch apology videos is getting ridiculous. they compared themselves to NETFLIX and DISNEY+?? two multibillion dollar corporations with huge diverse catalogs of media to watch?? they drank too much of their own damn koolaid lmao

I really hope this ruins their careers. This is an awful precedent to set. No, i would literally never pay to watch a single KZfaq channel in a separate streaming service with ONLY that channels stuff. If I wanted tv caliber content I’d watch something on Netflix, Hulu, etc. you know, one of the streaming services I already pay for because they have many different shows on them.

Only 5k patrons now? It was 12k before their announcement! 32,000 liked their announcement and 210,00 disliked it. They are truly done.

Lets all be honest here. I dont think Steven is holding anybody hostage. What I do think is that hes relaunching a former hit show from buzzfeed. The show consisted of him and other dudes enjoying crazy expensive meals (gold leafs in everything kind of stuff). It was fun when they wasted Buzzfeed’s money, but now they’re quite literally asking their viewers to pay for it. The dude also drives a Tesla and is very open on how he buys high luxury items for himself. To add to that, they have something like 25 employees. 25. Fucking. Employees. For what??? They release one season of each PER YEAR. 8 episodes or less of each PER YEAR. They actually have them as guests on their podcasts sometimes. One of them couldnt even say what her fucking job was. She did “a bit of everything and remind people of stuff”. So they’re paying someone to be a human post it. They hired a bunch of their friends and now they realize that they actually have to pay them a good living. To end the rant: NO ONE ASKED YOU TO FLY TO GOD DAMN HAUNTED JAILS! We just want Ryan and Shane fucking around in weird places and look for ghouls. We do not need 100k+ production on a damn ghost show and never asked for it. PS: no one is watching for Steven. Its ridiculous that this dude is CEO and one of the faces of the operation. Ryan and Shane’s content is collecting more views every single time, even their trailers.

Not taking into account how absolutely tone deaf this whole everyone can afford it thing is, i think this is gonna be a huge backslash for them. Judging by the reception of the announcement, id say most people wont be subscribing, then you got people who will pirate the shows and then you got people who will sub for one month, binge everything and quit, instead of constant views. And already paying patreons quitting cuse they backstabbed them. Then you got the issues of having your own platform. You need customer service, billing, law department, developement of the platform, bandwith and the list goes on. Many things youtube did provide as a platform. Not to mention visibility, youtube gave them views and visibility by recommending the content to new users. Now if they get like 150k subs, that number will only go down

They had 3m YT subscribers before this announcement. Even if a third of them stays and pays $6/month for their platform, that totals to $72million a year. End of day, these 1 third of fans that remains could give them more than what the 3m have been. They had to know this before going ahead with this.

They had 13k patrons

I hate the whole parasocial relationship bulshit so many people have with KZfaqrs /other internet celebrities and all that, but in this particular case, this really does feel like a betrayal of really close friends. Genuinely saddens me/feels wrong being so angry / disappointed with them(at least Shane and Ryan) I'm with you.. honestly have trouble wrapping my head around how they could have possibly thought this was a good idea. If I was a friend of theirs and they mentioned they were going to do this, I would have told them that's fucking insane; there's a 100% chance it's going to piss the vast majority of your fans off and you will lose a massive number of subscribers / fans. If I was a member of their patreon, regardless of whether or not they went back on this and making content on youtube, I would unsubscribe for the patreon and their channel in general. I doubt there would be anything that could ever get me to watch any of their videos again or support them in any way shape or form. The whole thing is bad enough, but the patreon shit is absolutely fucking insane.

they say goodbye youtube, i'm saying goodbye watcher.

If they had just said hey pay us if you want to watch early or wait a month and keep watching for free from the get go we wouldn’t be having this problem ! They let ego and greed convince them fans would happily keep paying to watch them and fans said sorry but no . I’m glad they did decide to make content still free but it feels too little too late . It remains to be seen if they can survive this stupid decision or not

Redletter Media has a lot in common with The Watcher, but RLM is way smarter. All of their videos are edited, written and produced by three guys, including all the set designs.

Watcher is now a hot topic, but for bad reasons!

1:05 nahh you did not just say that about THE Tom Scott

Watcher has responded and have walked a lot of it back. Here's my video on the apology. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/fa5kn5lnr93Qhpc.html

This isn't about the topic: careful about diminishing yourself as a part of your brand... when you get bigger (you just may ;◇) it will wear on you emotionally. Inb4 you think to yourself "im already worn down" it can always be worse as a warning

What’s funny is all the streamers coming out laughing at what watcher did. It’s like everybody knew what a bone head idea this was, except management at watcher. Seriously delusional.

The guy in the middle of the thumbnail isn't matching the energy of the other two.

Subbed and liked, I wish you a successful YT career, just don’t paywall content when you’re a big time KZfaqr.

Ego entered the building lol

UNSUBSCRIBED from their channel. (And no, we will NOT be paying to watch them in the future). While the guys are talented and we had fun watching them, it's obvious that they are not skilled at running a business, and most of all at budgeting. It's ridiculous to have so many employees and a huge office space in one of the most expensive places in the US. They should never have spent recklessly, added so many extraneous employees, and gotten, well, too big for their britches. They are young. Maybe they should grow up and think about paying their dues, and stop throwing money around. Frankly we liked them better when they were with Buzzfeed. Sadly they now come across as spoiled brats. 25 employees is absurd. Then you have Steven's completely ridiculous Dish Granted costs? No wonder they are bleeding money. Honestly in our opinion Steven adds NOTHING to that channel. We have no desire to watch entitled or self-entitled people eat outrageously expensive food. Our favorite bits were the ones years ago when Ryan and Shane went places like a pie shop, soda shop, Knott's Berry Farm, etc. and sat in den and talked about mysteries. Their best content did NOT cost that much to produce and was far more interesting than some of the other stuff. Just a couple of guys doing fun and entertaining stuff and giving us their hilarious take on it. They blew it and we won't be ever watching them in the future.

I saw their goodbye vid immediately when it dropped. I am an OG fan from Buzzfeed days. I was terribly sad (won't be able to pay for another streaming platform) but I also wasn't angry like the other fans. I watched as 60,000 plus people commented on the vid, about 80% who were really negative and another 20% who were sad and disappointed. I thought about this and ultimately realized these comments were almost all "Watcher" fans. Kids in college who didn't really have the love for Shane & Ryan that many of their old school viewers have, the ones like me who followed them from Buzzfeed. I think it's quite possible that the people who truly love their content and would pay for it, just aren't leaving comments and risking getting trolled by the angry viewers. They had like, 2.4 mil subs! If even 400,000 people were angry and saying F*** you and causing the uproar, (don't think it was that many most were leaving same comment cross social media so more like 100,000) that leaves a MINIMUM of 2 million fans we haven't heard from still! These are all potential subscribers to the new platform. So, even though it looks insane right now based on the people who spoke out, crunching fan numbers is quite a different story. I agree, Steven is intolerable. I mean, if it all goes south, and it's really not what they expected, they've gotten some pretty valuable feedback about what people genuinely love and want to see. Across the board we've all said we don't like Steven and we watch Shane & Ryan because of the way they interact together. Shane & Ryan could always come back and do what they always did... dump Steven go old school & bank without massive production overhead. Shit I remember when they had to make weird contraptions to strap their gopros on for Supernatural! We're fine with that! They can make it out of this alive regardless of what happen most likely. I say, live your dream, go for it, don't let the haters bring you down boys! Thanks for the vid! ❤

Youre not big on business sense huh? Maybe dont make videos until you know what youre talking about...

I loved the balance of skeptic and believer on their paranormal videos as a skeptical believer myself. It's a shame I can't afford to pay $5.99 on top of everything else.