Other studios do "episode at a time" pilots, Netflix does "season at a time" pilots. Pretty much everyone misunderstands; and thinks a whole season implies more seasons.
But that's a problem. Watching a whole season makes you more invested in the show, so you're pissed off when it gets cancelled.
I also agree with OP that encouraging binge watching is not good. Netflix pumped out more content than any cable TV package I've ever had in the past, but by allowing binge-watching people binge and then get bored and say Netflix has no content.
If they spread out these shows it would be healthier for the viewers and would create a perception of more content.
> by allowing binge-watching people binge and then get bored and say Netflix has no content.
People don't say that Netflix has "no content" because they binge watch. People say that because Netflix does genuinely have dramatically less content than it did 8-10 years ago, because of the proliferation of competing streaming services.
If Netflix still had access to all the content it has hosted over the years, people wouldn't be making those complaints.
Yes and no, a lot of people say it has no contents because some stuff was pulled, but they still have a sh*load of content compared to what you got before, but people have already binged on all of it, so there's nothing new to look forward to most of the time.
Netflix also makes it super hard to find content and according to a recent Hollywood Reporter article the forces within Netflix that pushed for more middling, cheaper content over high quality content won. I think it shows. Really high quality content is imo more likely to appeal even to people who usually prefer a different genre. Netflix used to have that on the form of shows like House of Cards and even recently had the Queens Gambit which was apparently made by the person within Netflix who lost.
There are currently less than four thousand movies on netflix, and about 1.5 thousand of those are "netflix originals".
Maybe that sounds like a lot, but it really isn't. If you're browsing through random movies on IMDB and come across something interesting, the chance that Netflix will have it is vanishingly small.
> But that's a problem. Watching a whole season makes you more invested in the show, so you're pissed off when it gets cancelled.
This is because consumers have been conditioned since last century to assume this is how things should be. Netflix is trying to create a new [better] experience, and this is how they are going about it. Pilots of shows suck! Almost always the second episode the characters are more realistic, more developed. Sure, it hurts when the season gets pulled, but it was a much better experience during the run. Why say it's a problem? It's just "different" from what you personally expect.
People have limited time and investing in a storyline is not free.
> This is because consumers have been conditioned since last century to assume this is how things should be.
Or people aren't conditioned to care about what the idiotbox tells them at all. They are simply upset that something they like is being summarily made unavailable, like any other product.
If they release it piecemeal, I'll just wait longer to resubscribe to their services. If something is on HBO that I really want to watch, I won't subscribe to it until the season is either entirely wrapped up or at least will be within the month of the subscription.
But in that case you don't matter as a customer, because either way you only subscribe for binging one show.
I would bet that some people would pay for always getting the newest content, if only for being able to talk to their friends about the newest episode each week.
This is not a good comparison, because except in very few cases, the audience of a pilot is not the general public. In fact, the general public will never have the chance to see the pilot unless it's picked up, and in that case they'll still have to wait until the entire season is filmed.
By contrast, Netflix uses the viewership ratings from the first season to determine whether to renew for a second season.
