jacobion

This. Even without mentioning the shows that go to 15+ seasons and become formulaic, there are a lot of things out there which have 5-7 seasons with some filler in each season, a couple of poor seasons, the last season usually significantly worse, when 3 tight seasons with a meaningful super-arc would have done better justice to the idea. If you really love it, you can watch it again.

I think it's significant that two much loved, much mourned shows with huge fandoms, Gilmore Girls and Arrested Development were revived on Netflix and neither really came up with any fresh ideas.

Analysis I have seen of the effect of streaming on programming choices has been the direct opposite of this:

1. Unlike network television, space isn't limited, so you can make a good show which will only appeal to 20% of the audience.

2. The amount people watch doesn't affect revenue, just whether they renew or not. So it's now better to make one show that someone will really love, than seven shows that they will be vaguely into, but see as interchangeable with seven others on a different platform.

If anything, I think Netflix originals are overoptimised for creating cult hits along niche audiences.

I don't fully understand this. Suppose that you remake say, Batman, with Batman as a black woman instead of a white man. Even assume that there's some nefarious political agenda forcing that decision. How does that make the show less entertaining? It seems like how good the show is would be orthogonal to that choice. And it doesn't take any more effort to have a black woman star than a white man, so it's not like that choice reduces the energy they can put into making the show good.

On the other hand, if quite a few people just prefer to watch the version with a white man, that seems like it would correlate to the shows being cancelled, independently of how entertaining they are..