So I realize each crowd has it's idiots and loudmouths. The OSR has TSR Purists, which are both.
TSR Purists have the irrational belief that TSR has done no wrong in it's existence, and it's games are superior to all who've come after, which is to say TSR Purists don't understand how revision works.
First thing's first, a quick reminder of what happened to TSR: They were famously mismanaged and competed themselves out of existence. A few contributing factors: the Dragonlance SAGA boxed had a perfect bound book, map, a few saddle stitched books, and over 80 unique cards in it for $25. Even in the 90s, that should have been a $40-$50 set. Today it'd be double that price. The original Planescape boxed set included a GM screen and multiple double sided posters for $35 when it should have been $45 simply due to all the art in it. While these games were great, there is no way TSR wasn't bleeding money producing them, and that's obvious by just looking at the production quality. They made a hail mary at one point to get money by re-layouting and re-issuing AD&D2E to be AD&D2.5E. Every copy of 2E I've gotten a hold of has the errata corrected that is mentioned as the requirement for revision, meaning it was likely just a first printing issue, which I assume are very rare out in the wild. This means they were reissuing the books to reissue the books and get those sales. It didn't help that they fucked up the layout and spent very little on the art the second time around.
So TSR died. And only a few years later the OSR was born. The OSR is not one company, not one group of people, not contingent on even having an audience. There's people who produce stuff for the OSR on DrivethruRPG who I assume see next to zero sales. The OSR isn't going anywhere.
Now, TSR Purists, regardless of their own opinions, are the target audience of OSR products. The OSR originated with the TSR Purists simply trying to support the games they love in the times of OOP games. At some point, perhaps even beginning with Basic Fantasy (but more realistically starting with Sword & Wizardry White Box), the idea behind OSR games changed to be something more tenable and less focused on the past/nostalgia. Now it's about taking the games in new directions, evolving games differently but keeping a baseline in old rules. I call the difference between these first generation clones and second generation clones. Purists don't understand the difference here, but that's because they think both are inferior to TSR products.
And I'm here to say they're wrong on both counts.
First generation clones are cleaner, easier to use versions of the same game. That means they are better at onset. OSE is better than B/X D&D as a usable product to bring people into the fold. The only problem is it's got a few dumb issues related to it's creator that make Basic Fantasy a better game for newcomers into the OSR
The funniest part about TSR purists is that TSR has come back from the dead as a marketing gimmick/scam.
EDIT: This last statement was confirmed this week when they changed their name to Wonderfilled from TSR. The scam petered out, apparently.
