Yeah, especially with their binging strategy (and the wealth of series we have today) it seems so short-sighted.
With episodic shows it's fine if they just peter out and are cancelled, people can still check them out through word of mouth and not lose anything
Story-focused stuff without an ending, or just a never resolved cliffhanger? Nobody's going to bother, when there are so many other shows you could watch that have an actual conclusion
The least they could do is decide in advance that a show will be canceled, and give the creators one last season to wrap things up, even if it's shortened and rushed
This might be a stretch but I think these are the signs that Netflix sees itself, fundamentally, still as a "Silcon Valley" tech company instead of a film/TV studio:
- extreme focus on growth, measured via one arbitrary metric of "watched hours" (instead of sustainable profit, or *mild shock* amount of happy customers)
- extremely fast turnarounds, where a high-profile show like Cowboy Bebop gets cancelled WITHIN THREE WEEKS. (Let me breath for a second, for Christ's sake!)
- while still, after all these years, not quite understanding that much of the best movies and shows take years on years to make..
- ..and are a messy, creative process that can't be streamlined as easily as many other startup business models. (Concidentally, I think that's also the reason why most big Silicon Valley megacorps are so bad with videogames: cause they're not just technically and financially compleyx, but also creatively hyper-complex. Microsoft being the exception, after pumping billions into it for 20 years..)
- the steady belief in "their algorithm"..
- ...while underestimating the value of a legacy library of watchable, finished shows. Which is baffling, they should have learned that lesson when thridparties like Disney started pulling their shows from Netflix 5 years ago.
- lack of creative and cultural identity: caught between a place where they want to be for all audiences (but also, not really) and being a place that's the best for a specific kind of show. Disney+ being the no-brainer default subscription for family entertainment is SUCH a baffling contrast.
Netflix has long reached a new phase in their business, they need to adapt.