They didn't. I haven't bought a Metallica album since the black album. That was a decade earlier, because everything since sucked, but as I got older I thought about maybe expanding my tastes. I avoided Metallica specifically for their disrespect of their fans.

Did they not? Seems like they're still quite popular, and I knew people in HS (for reference, late 2010s to early '20s) that were big into the band.

Additionally, looking at Google Trends[0], it seems they peaked in 21st-century online popularity in 2008 and had another notable uptick in 2017.

I think a lot of us want the assholes to have suffered real consequences for their behavior, but want is different from did.

[0] https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=%...