So, in your opinion, the switch in Zack began when he started seeing himself as more of a creator as opposed to customer.
Zack abandoning his popular Jawbreakers for more "artistic" projects demonstrates (at least to me) his contempt for his fans. He never wanted to be a humble hot dog merchant. That bored him. He wants to fulfill his own sense of self-fulfillment or whatever. When you start to grow an audience for something, and then suddenly decide to stop catering to them, it demonstrates contempt and indifference.
This can all be traced back to dropping the Waid lawsuit. I'm sure he got a fair amount of backlash from quite a few of the CG faithful for wasting a fuckton of their money. It didn't help matters that he apparently agreed to terms that would prevent him from talking about
why he wasted their money. That was when he stopped going on streams and began separating himself from CG. I think the shit he took from CG retards made him sour on everything that had to do with the movement, including whatever passed for its first principles. This is how he went from hot dog vendor to "artists are obligated to use their art as a platform for their stupid opinions".
I believe Zack's shift in outlook and attitude stems from his resentment for what he perceives as taking a giant L on behalf of Comicsgate. Of course, it's not CG's fault that Zack decided to sue Mark Waid and it's definitely not their fault he completely cucked the lawsuit, but Zack has to blame somebody and he damn sure isn't about to engage in some pussy shit like self-reflection.
I think he's just mad at himself because all his culture war shit cost him a chance of ever working in mainstream comics but he's still smart enough to know that if he attacks CG directly, meaning EVS, he'll cost himself what customers and audience he has left. Lashing out at the entertainment grifters is really all he can do at this point without losing his gay sidejob.
Well, yeah. If he flat out disavows Ethan, his remaining audience will wither away. If Ethan says Zack is an unperson, same thing. The core 4-500 dents that constantly bail his campaigns out are probably CG diehards that don't watch his videos regularly but do get e-mails from Zack begging them to drag his ass over the finish line again. Zack and Ethan seem to have this weird détente happening where Ethan will only mention Zack if asked, and even then it's usually a vague thing about how he doesn't really get Zack but wishes him well and Zack never speaks Ethan's name.
Ethan claims Zack is his friend so won't trash him yet has burned almost every bridge he can in the space, even with people he said were friends.
Zack won't disavow Ethan even though EVS is the Temu version of a Zero and stands for everything Zack now despises.
A Zack/Ethan schism is bad news only for Zack and he knows it. He has to grit his teeth and accept that his career is pretty much in Ethan's hands.
Nothing may come of it, but we don't know who Ethan's next target will be after the Rippa stuff dies out and an anti-Zack arc would probably bring the views.