Adding to Overrated's comment- It's no joke.
Watchtower was established as a giant printing corporation and the locals were allowed to fall as independent congregations and as long as they bought the books and magazines and resold them to the public. From the beginning, control was established over the independents so that they would see a need for the books and magazines. But really, they controlled their own land.
Two major things happened to change that. First and foremost was a concern that the United States faced a possibility that profits from products that religions sell was going to be taxed. So Watchtower started charging no set amount for literature and sought "donations" for it. That sounded good, as they were a clearly established cult and cult members would contribute all their money to the cause- IN THEORY. It didn't work out quite that way.
Secondly, Watchtower saw a gold mine in the quick build arrangement and remodeling of KH's. Borrow from Watchtower to build, pay loyal brothers for their equipment and building supplies at high rates, offsetting the cost with absolutely free labor and all should be fine. If a congregation ever had surplus amounts of money, tell them they needed to remodel the hall and use the quick build arrangement. That way, the construction suppliers stayed in the money.
But even this wasn't enough. Congregations could eventually pay off the mortgage and despite the control of Mother, deny the need for remodeling. Remodeling wasn't much of a boon for Mother, but more for their loyal construction companies. Mother needed more and still kept losing more money on that dammed literature deal they thought would work out.
McDonalds established themselves as the king of the real estate model for hamburger restaurants. The sales are important, but the expansion of the corporation via real estate transactions is more important to the corporation. Whether Watchtower directly copied that or just figured it out thru the quick build arrangement, soon Mother was stealing all the properties away from those that actually paid for them.
The literature had to be a bit profitable to stay afloat, but it kept having to be scaled back to stay alive. Today, I have little doubt that it is a burden that only still exists because old-timers prefer printed materials and old-timers are their only real contributors of money. The magazines will soon die and most printed materials will cease as the presses get older and no modernization goes forward anymore.
Back to the original subject. Doctrinal changes are designed to sell more printed materials. It doesn't work anymore, so now they just don't care. If crazy changes driven by desperation come out, they don't care if it shakes off many members. Those members were not contributing enough money anyway, and Watchtower can sell more Halls if there are less members.
Edited to add- The paperback Bible could stay in existence similar to Amazon's print-on-demand. You order it and a computer prints it and binds it softbound. That's the future I see for Watchtower's printed materials. Although, they could just tell people to get a tablet Bible.
