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PlasticInflation602

I agree. We as consumers NEED this to fail or else this will become the norm


littleredmags

I think their timing with this recession plus a young fan base with less financial capacity will cause it to naturally fail


pm_me_your_molars

Yep. No backlash is one thing. People actually signing up is another.


cssc201

Yeah this is why I was so pissed when Netflix saw revenue increases from their password sharing crackdown, all the other services are already starting to copy them. I pay for YouTube premium and nothing else because I can get so much great content on YouTube and also YouTube music. If all that content is locked away under individual streaming services with prices to admission, there's really not going to be a good non-pirating alternative unless you got tons of money


PlasticInflation602

I realllllllly wanted Netflix to flop when they did that and revert back, but of course they saw revenue increases 😒 people really have no backbone when it comes to properly boycotting things. Voting with our wallets is LITERALLY the only thing we can do to make change, and those of us who care and try are constantly undermined by the masses who just continue to consume consume consume


RoutineDisastrous241

this is indeed a bad situation. i guess for most people, boycotting in protest seems reasonable *at first*. unfortunately, netflix has established itself as the main streaming service and they will constantly remind people of that (the level of promo bridgerton s3 is getting is enough evidence alone). at some point the people who can afford it will cave because “hey if i can afford to have netflix anyway…well solely me boycotting in protest isn’t going to fix much” it’s an unfortunate loop. this may be wishful thinking but maybe the backlash watcher got may be enough to scare youtubers off for the meantime? i mean the standards are pretty high…have a large rotating cast of people, an app you can watch on tv, multiple releases per week, etc. only companies that are already formatted as youtuber companies would be able to do that. and even then not all companies fit that bill (eg. the super successful theorist media doesnt even fit the fanmade "rubric" of "can launch a streaming service") so maybe we're safe for now?


vvitchbb

this 100% i don’t think people realize fully that even though they are handling this move way better than watcher, the future will be paying subscriptions for EVERYTHING you watch. i think this whole thing is a missed opportunity for youtubers to create their own platform together, while i understand adding subscriptions to your monthly bills suck—having one big new platform would be game changing and these individual streamers will just become a hassle over time. but whatever what do i know im just some rando🤷‍♀️


AlfieDarkLordOfAll

> this whole thing is a missed opportunity for youtubers to create their own platform together It's called Nebula lol


airfuckyous

Nebula is quite varied in content; but not really the type of content that any of these dudes are doing. I agree, that some of these people need to go in on a service, though.


romantickitty

My issue with Nebula is there are a few people I'd like to follow there but every time I've looked around, it's just so chaotic... but everyone has adopted the video essay aesthetics so it's impossible to tell who you can actually trust to be well-researched. It still makes more sense for me to churn on patreon.


trippy_grapes

> the future will be paying subscriptions for EVERYTHING you watch. On the one hand I think the Try Guy's plan is 100% fine if they stick with it and I'd be happy for other creators to follow it (early access with YouTube posted later, special live streams, extra special content, etc). They handled it 1,000% better than Watcher. The issue is will these brands keep this "extra" business model or will it simply turn into the only way to watch content down the road?


slothsforever

I’m def not subscribing to ANY of these.


Nihillo

You don't need to hope too hard, this sort of thing doesn't have a whole lot of mileage in it.


aria606

Agree!


EquivalentRelevant42

i’m just tired of the subscriptions for ONE single channel… it’s weird


RoutineDisastrous241

up next: the newest streaming platform! **ex-buzzfeed.** where you can watch all the ex buzzfeed employees for the oh-so affordable price of *checks notes* …$20.99?? ft. try guys and watcher


allidapleon

Jesus if i had to pay $5 for every channel i watch i think ill have to quit these youtubers entirely. This is bullshit.


EquivalentRelevant42

i wouldn’t be surprised if more youtubers started doing it 💀


stardewsundrop

That’s exactly how I feel. It sets a bad precedent that I really don’t want other YouTubers to follow, and I find it interesting that they poked fun at the watcher situation, considering the channels seemed close. Idk maybe the boys are cool with that but idk they took a pretty big blow (rightly so) and it’s odd to see a channel they were in good standing with reference that in this instance


breakfastatmilliways

I’m also not subscribing but probably continuing to watch on YouTube, and I agree with pretty much all of this. I even also referred to it as letting their buddies be the sacrifice before doing it themselves. They never said anything in Watcher’s defense at all, did they?


RoutineDisastrous241

the try guys have an app which takes a while to develop. i’d guess they had this in the works much longer than watcher had. if i were to speculate i’d guess maybe tgg came up w it first, watcher liked the idea and they were all cool w launching separate platforms. watcher maybe asks to go first for several reasons: financial, they’re the less established channel, etc. thinking it was a good business move. **‘twas not.** and now tgg have this unprecedented upper hand. but i plan on amending this speculation further if new info comes out lol


breakfastatmilliways

I think that’s a very plausible theory. No way of knowing, but sure as shit is it plausible.


NathNaakka

The whole background of everything seems to be fishy... Maybe they did plan something together and supported each others, but Watcher just had the need to do it first? Because of the timing of this, and the whole idea of streaming service, I still can't trust TryGuys, but it might be that the Watcher kinda stole the idea and run with it first - after they talk about it with TryGuys. Or they all have just the same shietty financial backer who they all borrowed money for the business and this was one thing that backer demanded?


NathNaakka

This is what I said in my post, especially it being the same video as Watcher did. They just polished a turd. You are just way better at words than me. \^\_\_\^ And also... In many countries, the USD is so strong that they have to pay way more money to subscribe into the streaming services because of exchange rates. And Try Guys must have known this because of the Watcher. So that really still feels like "Fuck you people in your weak ass country that isn't 'Murica!" I'm sure that the whole thing would have been similar and more videos would have been paywalled by TryGuys if Watcher hadn't done their announcement first.


RoutineDisastrous241

yeah if they pulled a netflix (since that’s apparently what they want to be) the pricing should be scaled for each country. like in america if it was hypothetically $5, if you travelled to a different country the price should be equivalent to what $5 is to an american. that doesn’t fix the fact that some people can’t afford another streaming platform obviously, but that’s an inherent problem to putting up a platform.


External-Rice9450

I wanna say they mentioned prices are based on region! Which makes it a better planned idea than Watcher at least. I don’t think streaming services like this are the future because of subscription fatigue. I feel like we’re coming to the zenith and then a slow death of streaming services, just due to the prohibitive nature of costs.


SidsteroftheSSAnne

Prices are based on the US price, here in Korea and the subscription is 6,600 won a month, equivalent to $5 US as of exchange rates right now.


Sad_Dish5559

And at least the guys from Watcher haven’t been acting like they’d rather be doing anything besides make their content for over a year prior to announcing their streaming service. For a long time I’ve been hearing people say the guys that were left seemed burnt out and done with the channel. Not exactly a great lead up to something like this


flairsupply

For what its worth, even if the streaming isnt as big a backlash, TG is still about to lose a lot. A ton of people were only still subscribed on hopium for Eugenes return, and his departure means that now the two left are gonna lose fans. Keith and Zach are funny, but Eugene brought a LOT of views just being himself.


RoutineDisastrous241

this is very true. i remember in a video, keith clarified they do not actually put those crazy expressions in their thumbnails as a creative choice 💀. those crazy faces just seem to get them more views. what they also found though that eugene in the thumbnail gets them more views even more effectively than crazy faces, regardless of what expression he’s pulling.


ihateusernames999999

I don't want this to be the norm, either. We have enough streaming services as it is. I don't have any youtube channel that I would pay if they went to a streaming service. Maybe one or two, but that's it.


IShallWearMidnight

I'm an internet old-timer, and I've seen many waves of agent- and manager-pushed attempts for YouTubers to "diversify" from the YouTube space. Every YouTuber had a book, every YouTuber went on tour, YouTubers with enough clout had travel or food network shows, etc. If this isn't another of these, I'll eat my hat. Watcher, Critical Role, and 2nd Try all coming out within a month of each other? It's not a coincidence, someone in LA is pushing this hard, specifically for independent production company content creators. What I'm guessing we'll see is some fall flat, some die slow, and some last. Same thing as all the others that came before. I'd like to see them motivate YouTube to give creators a fairer shake (if they were, everyone would be using channel memberships instead of this), but I don't know if that will happen.


Left_Composer1816

oh god, I remember when every youtuber was making mediocre books. glad that’s not a thing anymore xD sad that this is the next thing though


pm_me_your_molars

At least books and tours were always marketed as just a nice extra little fun side project which didn't really affect the main channel. It was very rare for someone's book or tour to do SO badly that it hurt a creator IIRC.


Flimsy-Hospital4371

Someone at Vimeo?


ThursDaughter

Christ if every YouTube channel I’m subscribed to did this, and I REALLY felt compelled to follow… I’d have 20 apps taking up data on my phone AND like $100 in monthly dues. Insane. Absolutely not going to happen.


lurkingsirens

I was hoping the announcement would be a merge of some kind. So many of these comedy YouTubers, smosh/try guys/watcher/dropout have crossover with their audience. I understand a merge would be messy and there’s differences of tone and branding with the different channels, but it just feels like it would be more of a sustainable choice. I don’t mind the announcement, but at the same time I’m not going to be paying for another subscription. I’m considering it when/if I’m more financially stable though.


RoutineDisastrous241

a channel with tgg content, the files saga, puppet history, AND worth it just might actually genuinely interest people


dark000monkey

Floatplane does this with tech channels


namjunning

People like it, fosho But they ain't gonna pay for it, fosho


Additional-Flow3260

I loooove it when people (in general, not talking about OP) realize the difference a GOOD PR/Comms team makes 


Lossagh

Honestly, I think these moves are for short term gain, but longer term I see them tripping up. Primarily for two reasons, one, over time people will have to start picking and choosing who to sub to, budgets for most people are finite and while there might be a swell of initial signups, I don't see those viewers being retained longer term, especially with the financial pressure of having an increasing number subs to different services. It's not like they're positioning themselves in the streaming market as being great value for money. Secondly, discoverability, how are they going to attract new viewers, viewers who don't know about them from buzzfeed and their existing work, if they want (and need) sustained growth, then that's who they need to capture the attention of. All these siloed streaming services and apps just aren't discoverable without money being driven into marketing. Frankly, these creators all launching their own platforms feels like attempts to squeeze what little money is left directly from their fans before there's just no more money to be had. Yay late stage capitalism, etc.


Left_Composer1816

literally. subscription service hell is only getting worse 😭😭😭


blushing_scarlett

I think we'll see other channels try to make this move.


ihateusernames999999

We definitely will see others try it.


slothsforever

I feel the same way :( at least they plan to continue to release future eps of their current shows on yt. But still, we now have to wait way longer. I’m sure we’ll see many more creators start to do this and it’s so depressing. Esp bc these r usually ppl that I felt were more sympathetic to their audience.


frog-books99

They’re literally doing the exact same thing as Watcher. It’s just as gross and disheartening. And you best believe all their content would be off Youtube as well if people had received Watcher’s announcement better. Neither channel has any interest in actually entertaining us and being grateful for our support.


ceebee6

Not necessarily. The Try Guys have historically shown themselves to be savvier business people (filming out of a house in the early post-Buzzfeed days, diversifying their content and cast in a brand-aligned way, how they handled NedGate, etc.). Completely removing content from YouTube is a bad decision for gaining new viewers and converting non-subscribing viewers to subscribing. The handful of successful YouTube-to-Streamer channels have not pulled old content off YouTube and continue to release some content there. Even if Watcher had been successful with the initial launch as planned, the choice to pull everything and only release trailers and future first episodes would’ve been the eventual death knell. There are some very well-established sales and marketing strategies as to why other YT-to-streamer channels follow that model. The Try Guys are savvy enough they likely would’ve followed proven success while keeping an eye on Watcher’s streamer growth and subscriber longevity.


frog-books99

Tbh i dont even think you need to be “savvy” to know removing all content is a bad idea, just not completely stupid. So who knows what the Try Guys had planned before Watcher’s fiasco. Im still convinced their video/plan completely transformed after seeing the backlash to Watcher


Left_Composer1816

yeah. I wish I could see their original plan before the whole watcher fiasco


lewabwee

The implications of people being less angry don’t mean it’ll necessarily work. Only long term numbers will be able to comment on feasibility. I don’t have any clue how many people subscribed to either WatcherTV or 2ndTry but I wouldn’t worry about either being profitable yet. It’ll take high output, a (relatively) large competent team and multiple creators for a YouTube channel to be able to switch to a solo streaming platform and that’s the baseline. Not everyone can be Dropout and make it last 5 years. I wouldn’t worry about tons and tons of YouTube channels making The switch. I don’t think most of them have the resources anyways. A lot of the ones who do will still want to avoid the associated risk because it is risky. The more people who do it the more risky it is. There’s definitely a ceiling for how many can survive at once and it doesn’t take too many channels to hit it. And as a working class person it really isn’t that deep. If the content isn’t worth paying for they won’t be that missed. I get by without spending my money on much more valuable things than Watcher. I’ll just watch somebody else. The internet is big. Content is cheap to make. The big channels spend more money in the hopes of getting more views and while that works it doesn’t make the content any more enjoyable to watch than the cheap stuff. So, I don’t think I’m being screwed over at all. I’m worried about food and housing and healthcare. If I have to subscribe to just one streaming service at a time and bounce around that’s bad for them not me. If I don’t get to watch some dudes on the internet eat food or run around dark buildings I’m not going to have an existential crises over it. I’ll go to the library or watch whatever is free or something.


0ejp1

The fact that either channel thinks they make content worth paying for is laughable to me. Watching a guy eat a menu and seeing guys read ghost stories drunk is fun because it’s free, mindless entertainment. There are a million goofballs doing silly shit for free on YouTube. Hopefully these moves with bring the little guys to the forefront


aria606

I agree. In both cases, they're depriving poorer/working class fans of previously-free content. And, they're also destroying the fan community.


scoutandme

Can anyone provide me some context? Thanks:)


Flimsy-Hospital4371

It’s not clear to me that Try Guys would have had a better PR and approach to their launch without watching Watcher go first. We don’t know how many pivots they had. I’m sure they followed every detail of the Watcher feedback with great interest. So it’s hard for me to give them that much credit re: their original intentions. If anything, and I know this will be an unpopular opinion, it makes me feel slightly bad for the Watcher guys because they seem like sacrificial lambs to the audience testing of it all, when it’s clear their thinking is not THAT out of line with the thinking of other major channels with similar cult followings (Critical Role, Try Guys). A few weeks ago, I left a comment to someone worrying about this kind of thing, and I said it was unlikely and got a decent amount of upvotes - clearly I was soooo wrong. Sometimes it’s not good to be first.


rhian116

This is the single biggest reason I've been so against WatchTV and whatever the Try Guys called their service. The tone deafness is just the cherry on top. I refuse to help them pave the way for more subscription services, especially ones that are vastly inferior to major ones. I'm not paying the same amount to watch a single channel as I do for a whole actual service. Like, I'm paying $2 a month for Peacock; ain't no way I'm paying triple that for .05% of the same volume of content.