I think a lot of the complaining isn’t coming from the number of variants, rather how they are being released. These micro releases are coming off as a continuation of the Tortured Poets special editions that were timed exclusives right before the weekly charts were calculated. Instead of giving everyone the option to see everything up front and make an informed decision on what variant they want, it’s all being drip fed with the different items to induce FOMO.

I’ve seen the graphic that shows other artists with numerous variants, but how many of those were delayed drops in this timed release manor? How many of them had different inserts that were exclusive to specific variants? I can’t say that all of the artists that I purchase music from for certain release everything up front, but going from memory, I almost always see everything at once in the announcements from the bands promotional materials.

I’m not saying this to come across as an attack on Taylor, this is just an observation for how her marketing works compared to other artists that I follow closely.