More to the point, I think there's a failure to understand that the earlier seasons were far more in-line with television serialisation, whereas the last couple have effectively been aired as a group of movies - each season is about 7 hours long, which is significantly less than the LOTR franchise and about the length of the average cinema trilogy. That distinction may not be as clear as, say, the difference between the Start Trek TV shows and the Star Trek movies, but it is the kind of shift in mindset you have to watch with now.
I also think that a lot of book readers watched the early seasons with the narrative already in mind, and the show only served to illustrate the main points, leaving character thoughts/motivations something they could refer to as words written on the page. Without the books to lean on, those same book readers have increasingly had to rely on a more film theory approach (which is not as pretentious as it sounds - it's what we all do when we watch a feature film). The newer experience is going to mean a change in the way the show feels for them, whereas it's remained fairly consistent for the rest of us.
Plus, there's the fact geeks don't like their niches going mainstream. They've been able to create a new in-group by vehemently railing against the counter-culture they used to be a part of. Unlike something the MCU, GoT is loved by everyone, not chiefly nerds.
The internet is the worst.
