Did the SW genre become too big?

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Did the SW genre become too big with stories that have no place in a true spaghetti western?

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The taste of the mainstream audience changed over the time. The interest in classical SWs got lost , so the filmmakers have to change their point of view in storytelling. The results are comedies and stories far away of the “standard SW narrative". Don’t forget, that SW-Producers wanted to make money. They always wanted to please their paying customers.

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Market oversaturation - but that’s how the Italians work. Something makes money and then churn out hundreds of imitations until audiences have had enough. The peplum years were 1959-1964; The giallo was 1969-1974; the Italian westerns 1964-1973 so they got 10 years out of it.

70 movies a year being released in 1967/68 - more than 1 a week. Audiences couldn’t keep up and the box-office average dropped leading to a fall in production. In contrast in the UK Hammer and its imitators made about 100 British horror movies 1957-1974. Versus 500-600 spaghetti westerns in 10 years.

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Also, the economy changed. Italy went from a dirt poor country with a movie theater in every cow town to an industrializing country and at some point television killed the movie star…