There are other factors, too.
WCW may have been complete shit for a long time, but it was still competition. Once Vince owned everything, the fighting spirit went away. They won the war.
Because of that, they stopped listening to the fans, and became like WCW for a while, where if you were young or from outside the brand, or if Vince didn't particularly like you and the fans did, you weren't going anywhere.
I remember a time where Christian had gone solo. The company was pushing Edge, but Christian was far more entertaining. He started picking a fight with John Cena, calling him a "Marky Mark wannabe," which was just so spot on. I was really looking forward to seeing what they would do with the feud.
What they did was make it a 3-way with Chris Jericho and Christian got buried. Behind the scenes, Vince was denying Christian amenities like first class flights when they were available, and Jim Ross was giving interviews saying they were successful because they "listened to the fans." I stopped watching about that time.
I recently watch the first ECW One Night Stand PPV from 2005 or 2006. That crowd was on fire, and united. I thought, "There is nothing like this today, not in sports, not in music, not even at a current Trump rally." We've really declined socially. There's no atmosphere as fun as that anywhere anymore.
Well, not for Whitey anyway. I wonder if that feeling is how blacks feel when they're looting.