After mulling some things over, this is my working theory regarding streams and so on. It's not Gura's fault, but rather Cover's itself, to an extent. It's to be expected that they'd want to expand her brand and deliver more and more products to the fanbase all the while putting her in the spotlight. Having her show up in games, commercials, shilling products etc. is a normal business practice in this case and makes sense from that standpoint. However, I think they went in too hard and that this poses a special kind of problem - diluting the "brand" and a blind spot regarding global economy as a whole. As a Croat it is impossible for me to buy any sort of merch or physically attend any sort of convention for the obvious reasons. In the first case the issue isn't tied directly to Cover but is something that was duly noted way before shipping issues etc. - as a small market, despite being in the eurozone, any and all international shipping and shopping on say ebay or amazon or whatever simply makes no sense for us because the costs and taxes associated with it as well as the weakness of our currency makes it unfeasible. I'm talking that I'd have to drop 1k+ HRK for effectively anything tangible, and for reference ALL my utility bills for a month are always around 700HRK. Thus I am filtered from purchases. But I am a member, and SC when I can. And I'm willing to bet there's many more people in my situation. For us it's the streams themselves that are the main focus of the experience and the bit we can support.
Now, the global economy is and will continue to implode. As this unfolds more and more people will be forced to tighten the belt, and thus won't have many disposable funds. Because of this I can safely conclude that the bread and butter of Cover, and any and all vtubers and vtuber companies, will significantly roll back to the base feature of being a member and SCing. This is also a hidden advantage that will form a rock solid bedrock of viewers who will see vtubers as an endless source of entertainment and community. Streaming services however, may be completely fucked. Back to Gura.
I am worried that Cover has forgotten and is blind to the above mentioned stuff, and is trying to "cash in" on Gura's brand and image much more than advisable or tasteful. By having her constantly involved in a plethora of everything they're putting her streams on the backburner as they try to branch out, and this saps her energy and focus from streaming and definitely tires her to an extent. In my eyes this also fucks up the advantage of knowing that your girl will stream and does stream at such and such a time, which creates an expected timeframe you clear up for her to tune in. This deepens the dedication and connection with the chuuba, and this is something Cover seems to have forgotten. Irregularity results in indifference and opens up slots for the competition to fill in. More that that, I see these recent events as diluting Gura's image, it reminds me of Kizuna Ai and how she's everywhere and nowhere at the same time, allegedly important but substanceless. A hollow idol despite all the merch and appearances and so on. Since Gura has actual substance, actual staying power and we all got drawn to her because of that this is particularly jarring to me.
Just let the girl stream. That's it. That's the recipe for enduring success.
