Fans are very important. I think you may be on to something that we as a society are starting to feel entitled when it comes to media, but downplaying the importance of the fans and saying they don’t matter is a bit too much.
In recent memory I can think of a few examples where fans had a major effect on the entertainment content we received.
The response to the first Sonic trailer was abysmal and much of the internet called them out for Sonic’s design. The studio listened… the artist who designed Sonic’s look even went to Twitter to thank people for all of the feedback. Then they went back, redesigned his look throughout the film and we got a pretty solid film out of that.
The entirety of #ReleaseTheSnyderCut managed to convince WB to bring Snyder back and let him finish his vision.
I mean even in comics, the fans mattered. How many times have comics held contests or write-ins to vote on decisions for certain characters or directions to take the story. The big one that comes to mind is the death of Jason Todd. People hated his Robin and voted to kill him off. Eventually he was brought back as Red Hood, but none of this would have occurred without the fans.
Oh and who could possibly forget Morbius getting rereleased because Sony mistakenly thought people loved it since there was so much online discussion and memes regarding the movie. For better or worse, fans (consumers) did that.
Unless you are a small hobby farm, you’re not putting your cows out on pasture alone to raise them for meat. Most grasses are deficient in one or more vital nutrients that the cows need to grow. Most cows today are fed TMR (Total Mixed Rations). These are diets carefully mixed with different grasses, grains, hays, and mineral supplements. There are different metabolic diseases that cows can get when eating diets deficient in different nutrients. Cows that are sick don’t want to eat, and cows that don’t eat don’t grow. To a farmer, that’s like burning money.