Speculation, is it right or wrong

First of all this is not another topic (out of many) to question WHY any member has left Giant Bomb, but to discuss speculation in general. After this week's bombshell news that 3 out of 4 alumni are leaving the site it's been hard as a community member to not speculate why. Maybe it's a human thing but when any company goes through a huge change, regardless of the industry and regardless of the company, people want to understand why.

The thing that has been a head scratcher for me about speculation in general is anything involving the inner workings of Giant Bomb in general on this website has been frowned upon by certain moderators and users in general. For the last 5 years (arguably longer) I have watched 2 dedicated GB podcasts a week that provide almost 1 hour of their shows speculating on gaming industry news stories. From anything to do with next gen consoles, studio closures, online stores, anything Switch Pro related, Epic vs Apple, Game Pass, E3, even as recent as Jeff Kaplan leaving Blizzard. And yet, someone leaves GB and as a premium member I'm told to wish them the best (and duh why wouldn't I) and to not speculate why.

So why? Why is it that we are ok listening to what a GB employee has to speculate about gaming news every week, and yet when the community wants to discuss GB its frowned upon? After reading several speculation posts over the last 3 days I have to say I don't think any of it comes from a place of hatred, its a genuine curiosity and while those questions may never be answered there is nothing inherently wrong with asking "why?" in general.

Anyways, that's all. I could go into detail why someone who pays for a premium membership on anything has the right to question the future of a product but that's probably for another topic.

I love you all, I myself shed many a tear on today's Beastcast as many of you did I'm sure. I trust in My Two Jeff's to move this site in a new direction and I'm excited to see where they take it and I will be renewing my premium sub to help them out. I just shouldn't be made to feel like scum by any GB member or mod to speculate why this happened at the time it did.

-F1RE

All this means to me is that my favorite podcast is ending. To the staff at Giant Bomb, their livelihoods are at stake. Speculation is frowned upon because it's inconsiderate to the people really being affected by all this. Also, what's so bad about being frowned upon? Do you not like criticism?

The only reason anything like this happens:

$$$MONEY$$$

or lack thereof.

I am also slightly worried that no one thanked Jeff G in any way in their goodbyes. Really feels like a "what they're not saying" situation and I'm not happy to say that. Vinny mentioned Ryan Davis multiple times in his last appearances but not Jeff. Same with everyone else, including Alex which was weird as well.

This is why they don’t want speculation on here. Because we end up with people coming up with theories like Jeff is the real villain here because no one thanked him. Insane.

Not going too much time on this so forgive my brief unedited thoughts.

The difference between the crew discussing and speculating on the industry and us speculating what's happening with GB folk is that they have relevant industry information to supplement that discussion with (and when they don't they often just say "I have no idea about what this means"); users on here - no matter how much you might like to imagine otherwise - possess no relevant information that could inform any speculation regarding the personal lives of the GB crew or whatever's happening behind the scenes. There's an inherent difference in the value of these discussions as the latter has absolutely no value added.

Sure there's nothing wrong with asking "why?" but you should also know that you have no basis of entitlement for receiving an answer. If you get to accepting that point, then the question becomes why bother having the discussion in the first place? It's just blind people shouting into the void.

Because a lot of that speculation goes in bad directions? Like we saw a fair amount of people earlier this week somehow blame this on Red Ventures, even to the point where I saw people tweeting at the Red Ventures account blaming them for this (causing me to have to track down the people who ran that account and offer them an explanation), only to have Vinny say definitively today that that wasn't the case. I and the mods don't have the time or the ability to tamp down every shitty or even potentially damaging or hurtful rumor (most of which are going to be baseless), so hey: don't do it here. There are plenty of places to discuss Giant Bomb on the internet and I'd encourage you to take your speculations there, or just wait for Vinny, Alex, and Brad to discuss this in the future. Speculation now helps no one except your curiosity and frankly the harm that might come from it far outweighs that to my mind.