It is a scenario sadly, hilariously typical of an industry too arrogant and stupid to simply relate to its audience:

When Dan DiDio isn't berating fans, demanding to know how anyone could possibly be doing a better job than him, he is sending researchers to beg fans for advice on how to better do his job.

Of course, if you're directly on the receiving end of this behavior, it's not so funny. Patton Oswalt, who knows funny, has sworn off DC, not for their reboots, their nasty public berating of fans, or their shocking portrayal of women. He's sworn them off because he wants the right to spend his money at his comic shop without a Nielsen researcher getting in his face, demanding that he help them figure out how to write sell, and market comics - essentially, to do the job that a staff of editors, executive editors, publishers, and other high-ranking Warner Bros. executives are paid for rather handsomely. I can hardly blame Oswalt for, no pun intended, drawing the line and kissing DC goodbye, which he did on Twitter after being harangued by researchers while shopping at Meltdown Comics.

"Don't go to @MeltdownComics today unless you like getting buttonholed into douch-ey, stultifying 'New 52' surveys."

and:

"I also bought my last DC comics, EVER, today."

This is something we're going to see more of until the industry dials down the arrogance a bit. "Like what we tell you to like" is a refrain we've heard repeatedly from both of the big two, or "if you don't like it, don't buy it" - an attitude that changes dramatically when sales sink so low that jobs are on the line - then, they want fans' advice so badly that they resort to invasive methods like sending researchers to their LCS.

Fans love comics. If you treat them with a the tiniest fraction of respect, they will keep you in business for life. If you shout them down at cons and follow them around at stores, it shouldn't be shocking if they slowly start to drift away.