Is viewership valuable to Netflix? I would argue not as they make money on signups, not use.
Viewership costs money, so if a show cannot attract new users or retain current ones, you might want to throw away that viewership.
Viewership costs money, so if a show cannot attract new users or retain current ones, you might want to throw away that viewership.
I believe the reason most people miss this is that for traditional networks, more viewers are strictly better; more viewers result in more ad revenue, and the marginal cost of an additional viewer is zero. For Netflix however, this is inversed: an additional viewer does not add any revenue (assuming they were already subscribed), but still adds cost.
The economic model of Netflix seems to be at odds with user interests.
So the goal is too attract new customers.. which is best done by the new hot show, not season 2 of the last hot show.
So little incentive to renew