[WalterBright]

Being cold, miserable, lonely, wet, dirty, uncomfortable, and hungry for 60 days just seems hellish. And then, as #2, you came away with nothing.

The curious thing is they all claim to be survival experts, but they don't know how to build a proper fireplace (either burning down their shelter or asphyxiating themselves). None of them who used a fish net would take it out of the river during a storm, so it isn't destroyed. And there were always contestants who would spend all their calories building a log cabin, and then starvation would force them out.

[unsupp0rted]

I suspect the showrunners intentionally put in people who are bad at survival or mentally/emotionally weak (which comes out during internal testing), so that they can eliminate a few people in the early episodes.

You want at least one or two people to hear a bear and tap out in ep 1 or 2. And it has to be guys tapping out: if you include women, they have to be the hardiest contestants, so they don't tap out too early.

[AngryData]

That is my biggest problem with these survival shows. So many claim to be skilled survivalists but then make elementary mistakes on the regular. And then people with a year in boyscouts worth of knowledge are touted as survival geniuses as they starve.

That said I haven't watched the newer Alone seasons so maybe they got a few better people. They definitely do throw a few people in that they expect to fail though.