To be honest, both items that you listed trace back to the same root causes: Clueless and cheap ownership and incompetent management. Everything else is just a symptom.
I did a protest of my own back when the Dallas Burn played a season at the High School "American Football" Stadium. I did not go to a single game that year. That was the only year since the first year of MLS (1996) that I did not go to a Burn/FC Dallas game. I was mad. Here was a Professional Soccer League Team being sent down to a High School Stadium. I called TV Stations, Radio Stations, Newspapers, etc. I was mad. I found out no one really cared about my opinion so I felt the only way to show my opinion was to take action by not going to a single game at that High School Stadium that year. Kind of like a silent protest. Thank GOD for Pizza Hut Park.
Protesting is everyone's right who purchased a ticket. The real concern is the truest form of hatred...indifference. I would say the 15k or so indifferent fans - as represented by red, vacant seats - are who the FO should be focused on. The people on here who protested and the people who just show up (I'm probably in this camp, although frustrated) and support the team are just trying to help and should be the least of their concerns. Here's to hoping we scrape together a nice run of points and put all this to bed.
Just to be clear, I do believe that everyone has a right to protest when their team is in a state of sucktitude like ours is at the moment. In fact, I would have participated and been more outspoken, but having a group of first-timers there, I felt like it would not have helped bring them back. If I would have known about the protest sooner I probably would have just waited to bring them to the Galaxy game.
I did the same thing as well as not watching a single game on tv....would have given me a headache. ANY credibility the team MAY have had was thrown away that season. They have yet to recover from it.
If it were just about this season, yes, it would have been too early. But let's remember that it's been 1/3 of this season PLUS a decent chunk of last season. We're almost at one year since the bus driver was hired - time flies when you're having fun, eh? - and I believe he now has an overall record of 5-11-10. That's bad enough, but when you consider that that number is only getting WORSE with this season's 1-6-2 - meaning he did better BEFORE he got the offseason to start remaking the team in his image - aren't we getting a pretty good idea just how competent the coach's ideas are by now? Both the coach and management of this team deserve any form of protest that we can come up with, and it's based upon much more than just what's happened on the field this season. Whatever took place at the game on Saturday not only was not too early, but should probably just be the beginning.
Or Steven Gerrard. Or the ultimate is to back up a couple of years and get Roy Keane in his prime. 10 Keanes and a keeper would never lose a game.