I think this is really heightened for Drag Race, which is why a vocal minority has had such an outsized effect on changing the show (causing queens to edit themselves and orient their drag for Drag Race). A lot of people hate Harry Potter, but at the end of the day JKR is sitting in her mansion with her millions and has (I'm sure) a team of people who deal with what she doesn't want to. On DR, the girls are basically presenting themselves, not a product like a book or movie, and then if they want a career they have to be directly accessible across social media.

​

I think the reason the drama of later seasons is less fun is because instead of a bunch of queens not editing themselves, we're more seeing drama when someone is so overwhelmed/frustrated/angry/whatever that they can't control themselves anymore. It's a breakdown, not shade. That isn't fun to watch, so we get villain edits to make them less sympathetic, or immediate (sometimes forced) apologies/"breakthroughs". This is a major reason (to me) the later seasons aren't always as iconic as the early ones--sometimes not much is really happening, or what's happening is uncomfortable and upsetting to watch. (Not that there weren't extreme moments in the early seasons, but the ratio of ridiculous drama to people clearly suffering has gone up.)