Feels like this has been the case for over a decade, but it just clicked in my head:
The woke left see successful IP's as the Post Office. It's job is not to make money by producing a good product, but rather provide a service... a well-paying, creativity-focused, air-conditioned office job for everyone who wants one. Who cares if it loses millions? It HAS millions!
At some point a company with a best-selling franchise transforms into the She-Hulk Writer's Room.
One day, you have a gathering of dedicated, hard-working individuals determined to make the best product possible... and then just like that, you have a corporate HQ filled with these people who don't care if they cost the company millions and destroy a beloved franchise that's lasted decades, so long as they themselves got Mental Health Days, the meeting room was air-conditioned, and wine was on-tap.
When a small company works to the grindstone and creates something original and incredible and becomes a multi-million dollar IP franchise... it happens:
"Jobs available at [Successful Company]! You don't have to produce anything... just be creative! Come up with ideas! Even if they're bad ideas that harm the company and harm the product's short and long term success... it doesn't matter! Your only deliverable is Ideas From A Different Perspective™. The only KPI is your mental health! Support Animals welcome!"
And then the franchise tanks, something magical is lost, the company downsizes drastically and/or goes bankrupt, and these people just get another job at another successful company and the cycle repeats.
Has anyone else noticed this?
For example: Star Wars has literally become a government welfare program.
Instead of producing a fantastic Star Wars product that's focused on telling the best story possible and striving for success by producing a product that sells millions of movie tickets/toys/games/etc... it's just a welfare program where people sign up, do a bad job, get paid, see the product fail, and shrug and say "yeah, well, it has millions to lose, so who cares?"
Blizzard is another example.
https://i.imgur.com/PT9kzow.png
A video game company made BY gamers FOR gamers. The game devs were making a video game that they wanted to play. They wanted to tell a specific story that had one KPI: it it cool? And when they weren't developing the game, they were playing it themselves.
Now? It's a massive billion-dollar game company where 80% of the jobs serve no purpose other than giving people a comfy job. That's it. Every HR person's sole mission is to award comfy jobs to people they believe deserve it. Did that person deliver a bad product? Who cares? All that matters is they were paid well and enjoyed their time being creative! Again; who cares if the company lost millions? It HAS millions!
Every IP, wether it's movies or TV shows or comic books (Marvel/DC comics are literally non-profits now). Am I wrong?
One moment Doctor Who is making the BBC millions by being a popular show, and when you point out it's lost 90% of it's viewers and is COSTING millions?
https://i.imgur.com/RxWMQCS.png
"Yeah, so what? It's supposed to lose millions! Who cares if we make a bad product? The BBC's purpose is to pay me to be creative, not to make a 'good' product!"
Sorry for the rant, but it just makes sense. It's all about perspective.
Woke leftists truly, honestly believe the moment a company/franchise become successful, it transforms into The Post Office; it's not a business anymore, it's a service that only exists to employ people for as long as it can before it collapses.
To focus purely on the economic factors, it mainly occurs when a franchise starts picking up wider "mainstream" conciousness (ie. various sub-cultures become aware of it and start becoming part of its fan community).
It's here various "thought leaders" can begin making money off talking about it (journalists, youtubers, social influencers etc.) and even new ones start forming specifically around this franchise, heavily influenced by existing creators from other sub-cultures. These "thought leaders" commonly have sizable networks and can influence people to try and become employed to work on the franchise, either directly or indirectly.
Further onwards, economic reasons become hazy as there's a triple-threat of economic, social and political factors that eventually leads to a franchise's eventual capture. Despite all this, franchises, no matter their level of success, can still fall victim to capture by hiring the wrong person in the wrong position.