One thing I have noticed with many of my former favorite channels is some have transitioned to full-service venues for patron-only content and have left their non-paying subscribers on YouTube in the dust for the most part.
Sure, they still produce their weekly videos, but tend to fall further and further behind real-time and omit any
current details or anything of real substance to free fans in order to maximize monitized content for their patreon viewers.
Social-media posts on facebook or their own blogs go almost full blackout regarding anything newer than what has happened in their most recent free YouTube video, which may be 6-months or more behind real time. All the while their patreons are given up to the minute blog posts but are all but sworn to secrecy to hide the info from the hoi polloi.
One case in point is a vlog that decided at the last to sail to
Hawaii from
Central America but not to tell their non-patreon fans WTF is going on. It is all a big secret and all the while rhey are
posting cryptic middle of Pacific photos on Facebook so nobody not "in the loop" as a paying friend has a clue what is going on for a month or more.
I guess these vlogs are a business and are all about maximizing profits to fund their lifestyle, so I shouldn't be offended if they don't update what is going on to non-paying fans. It just makes it a little less interesting to me at the free level and I tend to disengage as a "fan" tobthe point where I quit watching and eventually even unsubscribe from their YouTube channel.
This is a trend that I have noticed among quite a few channels that I used to watch religiously and never miss a
single episode when it first comes out. Once I no longer feel like Im "there" sharing in the adventure it looses its shine.
I am a cruiser myself and barely have the
budget to continue living the lifestyle even forgoing a lot of the essentials many others feel are necessary (even those I see enjoyed by vlogs I follow asking for
money.) We are not funded by patreon ourselves, and certainly don't have the cashflow to fund other cruisers.
I was content to contribute to their channels by watching every week thumbing up every video and sharing links to their videos on Facebook and other social media occasionally to help boost subscribers and views. Now, I'm at the point of unsubscribing. I don't wish them anything but good luck, I simply have
lost the fandom feeling once left so far out of the loop.
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