these youtubers accidentally killed their channel

I like to study YouTuber mistakes I think it's for the same reason that people watch True Crime you they say that some people watch it because they're trying to avoid being you know a victim themselves of these of these you know killings and things like that they say if I just watch enough of it I won't make that error I won't be in that situation I feel that way about big YouTuber mistakes I'm like if I study these study these guys I won't make a big dumb decision whether that's going to work out for me uh we'll find out but today we're talking about Watcher speaking of True Crime by the way they are a famous uh True Crime duo or at least started and spawned by a true crime Duo if you've never heard of this channel you've probably heard of their predecessor BuzzFeed unsolved this was the hottest stuff back in the day back when all the you know production quality was garbage tier a true crime show came out that was um really awesome so I fell in love with these guys a long time ago to be honest I didn't even know they left BuzzFeed I guess to start this new show or Watcher new YouTube channel they've been really successful three million subscribers I didn't really follow them over there I didn't really know they had moved but uh they've done quite well for themselves they get about a million views a video and recently they released this video called Goodbye YouTube which is why we're here today now people are Furious about this video which essentially boils down to they are pay Walling all of their content for $6 a month uh and that's what that's the only way you can see their new shows is by paying $6 a month you know the shows that were previously free and and the reasons you know they say that they need need to be paid this is reasons that honestly I'm a little bit sympathetic to they say look we're beholden to ads I get it they want to make better shows higher production I get it look it's hard to make high quality stuff I get it so why did it Miss the mark so badly With Their audience that not only are people not moving over their patreon which they had a patreon as well at the time of of this uh video being released asking for everyone to move to a new service now they're unsubscribing so I think they're losing money all around uh it's been a colossal disaster the comments are horrific so I think it's for a few reasons so starting number one the tone of this thing is like ah we love YouTube we love you we love you guys we love you guys you guys carried us here we couldn't have done it without you but the actual video is we're taking all our content and taking taking it away from you unless you pay us that's essentially this is not a behind the scenes or behind a pay wall this is not support us if you want this is if you want to see the thing that you have supported to get us to this moment now you have to pay and if you don't pay well see you later now the way they're framing all of this is that they're not just you know you're not just paying for a YouTube channel you're paying for a whole network uh you know and they literally use the analogy of Netflix the problem is though if you do like the value numbers Netflix is a way better deal and they're like look we made it affordable it's it's six bucks a month uh anyone can afford this but I don't think they're taking into account that everyone has to like weigh this you a YouTube channel now going Premium versus all the shows on or you know all their other subscriber bundles which pissed people off when they said like oh anyone can afford it Steven talk about money yeah what's this price you can become a member of Watcher for $5.99 a month or $59.99 a year we want to keep the price low enough where anybody and everybody is able to afford it but it also has to support the things that we do here so that was the number that just made the most sense for the streamer now when a lot of people were talking about this they were saying saying you know not everyone has $6 lying around and I I think that's true you know in in like like cases of um you know a lot of people living paycheck to paycheck but I even think for people who have some money laying around there's like they have $6 lying around the problem is you're tearing yourself with these other platforms and like now you're forcing me as a consumer to make a decision of am I keeping this premium subscription or you and if you are some guys on YouTube that I liked to watch for free that that math doesn't really add up like this decision was so poorly conceived I think I know how they got to it which is that they have a successful patreon which we need to talk about um so they have that and they think oh if we could just get like five times the subscriber base which I think they have like 6,000 patrons paying an average of like5 to $20 you know uh which is which is a lot so they thought oh we we'll just like make it's like patreon plus but it's not but it's but it's not though patreon was people supporting an like an indie Studio that gives them free stuff already streaming services like it you're compare you're putting yourself in but a different product tier you see what I'm saying like does that make sense when you just pit yourself like oh we're a network now we're a streamer now it's like okay well let's see what you got streamer what shows what Emy award-winning shows what movies do you have for me oh you're still producing YouTube that's the issue now I also signed up for their patreon because I wanted to see sort of what they were promising what they were offering there and how people were generally taking it because usually your Pat Pon is people who are more plugged in with your content people who are kind of like hardcore fans so you can really get a litness test because the YouTube comment section all negative like everyone hates this the patreon also hates it but hates it even more turns out people don't like supporting a YouTube channel only to be told you have to go pay somewhere else and oh by the way we're not going to give you a free subscription to our streamer even if you've paid an annual subscription over on patreon so let me get let me explain this people have like paid to support annually on patreon these guys Watcher you can pay like I forget what it is for five bucks a month like I guess that's 60 bucks a year so they pay 60 bucks then halfway through their subscription they get told no more videos on YouTube we're going to put the videos on this streaming service now which you can't watch unless you go also sub subscribe to that and by the way get this and they like I could not believe this when I heard it I don't think they're shutting down the patreon they're moving to the streamer keeping the patreon pay wall they're just like putting a podcast behind it they are they have an $100 a month tier on the patreon and they're doing a streaming service look I have a patreon okay I'm not I'm not trying to hate but you can't dip your hand in every pot you have to choose you do you do have to choose if you're GNA do a streamer Netflix doesn't have a patreon account right what if Netflix had an $100 tier for their patreon and this is the problem when you go and you call yourself a streamer now well okay you're a streamer let's you know that's just a different thing that's what I'm saying framing was like so important and I think there was some some the wrong person was in the room with these guys because I don't know um the some of these guys don't seem like they could have come up with this they seem like just like regular creatives this sounds like a business dude a suit's decision to pull off this you know move to a streamer and I want to point out something people haven't been talking about which is the language they use to talk about their website cuz I think it shows the infection of like Silicon Valley bro thinking think of this beta period as a soft launch an opportunity for early adopters to sign up help us work out the Kings and provide feedback to make it a better experience for everybody yeah the do y all hear this beta test soft launch users feedback experience these are not the words of a YouTube Creator this is the words of like founder somebody who calls themselves a Founder on Instagram right this is a Silicon Valley bro uh and that's the kind of thinking that gets you in trouble like this you go from you know making a few BuzzFeed unsolved videos to starting to say soft launch I think if there's anything we can take away from this bad soft launch fellas that's my feedback bad soft launch now to be honest I don't want to like punish these guys I mean I I I like them I like their content on BuzzFeed unsolved now that I know they're on Watcher well I guess they're done making stuff on Watcher but I would watch it there I hope that they walk back this catastrophe of a decision fire the guy who used the word soft launch anywhere in their presence because that guy's not doing you any favors and just get back to producing content and you know like people could support you on patreon you don't have to I think pay Walling everything is just what um you know pissed everyone off because it feels like the YouTube audience that got you here you're then asking to now just pay you I don't know it just feels really weird I guess the other thing I should also mention is the uh audience they cultivated so in the comments what I noticed was a lot of the comments were talking about you know um you you expected an audience that you fed with Eat the Rich and what's wrong with a little thievery to pay $6 a month for four videos we love your create creative Liberty but to be honest you raise us better than this so this is something that I was less aware of as somebody who didn't watch their current content but apparently their Their audience is sort of like they talk about you know down with capitalism Eat the Rich we'll put a stop to you we'll get you yet I mean I do want to eat the rich you know they taste good but I mean sneakers though me speaking of sneakers this guy's rocking the Sakai Blazer Lowe's and I got yeah that's weird you go eat the rich and you go check out my cool shoes but anyway anyway that's like also playing a factor in here why it's such a bad move you didn't get an audience who were like you know you've got an audience where you said Eat the Rich all the time that's going to be a problem when you kind of pull this and you go ah 5.99 what's that to what's that to all our viewers you know it's not it's tough it's tough and look the one thing I do want to say is I always applaud people trying to step up the game and make better content but there also is this idea among creators especially YouTube creators like more specifically that throwing money at Productions equals better experience and equals better content sometimes that's true you know know and especially when you're starting out investing in some cameras or whatever get some lights learn about lights but also sometimes adding too much varnish and polish takes away what people enjoyed about it in the first place in fact funny enough I learned that lesson in the void sorry my ears are getting sweaty from these headphones right um I made a nice set nice production value uh long story short my computer crashed hard drive died lost all the files made some content here and was shocked when people were like yeah we just like this just forget about all the nice stuff uh I still like to make the high production stuff but I realize like there is a place for you know just talking to the camera just I think there something is lost when you put too much production value on things I think there's a place for both types of content but the point is these guys were like oh what we really need to be is television we just have to be television and it's like yeah but maybe that's not why we liked you guys right at at least that that's how I felt gather around my little kitchen table in my apartment we kind of wrote down the mission statement of just we want to make a studio or a platform where we could make unscripted television caliber content yeah see they say television a lot they say it multiple times everyone has different missions they're marching towards on YouTube ours was to make a television show and you know over time you start to realize like hey maybe television shows aren't meant for YouTube perhaps we should find a different place that's better suited to the content that we're making and yeah that statement right there is sort of I think why a lot of this reaction's happening I think he's right there are limits to what you can make on YouTube but also if you cultivate an audience on YouTube accustomed to free and then you say Eat the Rich and then you pay wall your all your content you can't be surprised when a lot of people are unhappy about that especially when the people who even are paying are being asked to double pay these patrons are being asked to double like that was the part that I really couldn't believe I was like this is this is actually Beyond The Pale um so yeah people are out of respect for them I don't want to share the behind the scenes like patreon stuff but but if but if you're behind the scenes there it is the comment section is feisty it is it is worse than YouTube which is saying a lot by the way I don't know if I said uh they're offering a 40% discount to their patrons that's like the that was the big offers like you can get 40% off your new subscription here uh which you know I I don't know all right well anyway that's basically it just wanted to talk about this catastroph I wanted to extend the Olive Branch to these guys if you're watching this I think you can make it all right I I would walk this back I'd pretend it didn't happen i' delete it I delete that video right now and just go oops oops no more using the word soft LOD we're gonna just keep making the content Everyone likes um because I think everyone wants to see these guys succeed but I don't think we need another streaming service from a YouTuber anyway that's basically it uh I'll see you guys next time

Channel: voidzilla

Views: 767,968

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Id: QhKIhGrxHQ8

Length: 16min 0sec (960 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 20 2024