865 karma · joined July 25, 2011
The only two downsides to this that I see would be the possibility of being spoiled by others' discussions of the already-aired episodes (ironic) and potentially having to wait an extra few weeks to watch the whole season.
Exclusively going to either end of the spectrum has clear disadvantages:
– On the binge end, if everything is released at once, almost no one on the planet will be on the exact same viewing schedule. Some people will watch the entire season at once, some will watch an episode per night, and so on. It makes it difficult to discuss the show with anyone because you first have to establish how much each of you have watched. Does it make discussion impossible? Absolutely not, but it presents a barrier.
– On the other end of the spectrum, limiting the availability of a show's back catalog will obviously limit a show's audience. Most of the successful shows of the past few years grew their audience over time, which requires access to that back catalog. Netflix, being the most popular service for this kind of thing, is the logical place to license your content if you care about improving your show's future prospects. Again, not being on Netflix does not make it impossible to catch up, but it presents another barrier.
Breaking Bad is the ideal example for this model. It's a great show that built its audience through word-of-mouth; if their back catalog wasn't available, the word-of-mouth recommendation would be DOA because most people would not have broken through the barrier. Similarly, if they had just dumped season 5 onto Netflix, it would have eliminated the week-over-week hype cycle that built over the course of the season and climaxed with a finale that was watched 700% more than the show's pilot.
Also, releasing every episode at once almost entirely eliminates cliffhangers. That's no fun.
For example (and I'm not a chess player), if you told me that Carlsen and Gates played and asked me to guess how many moves it would take for Carlsen to win, I would've put it in the 15-20 range. Nine was a genuine surprise. Even more enlightening, though obvious in retrospect, was how quickly and seemingly without thought Carlsen was able to play each move, almost as if he knew what move Gates would make before he made it. It makes perfect sense, but it was fascinating to watch and it made me appreciate how much of a second-nature chess truly is to Carlsen.
For example, an Airbnb venue with 5,000 likes would be considered 'better' than one with 500. But add in negative feedback, and consider if the same venue with 5,000 likes also had 4,500 dislikes, while the venue with 500 likes only had 50 dislikes.
Negative feedback helps us discern between if something is 'better' or simply 'popular' -- the latter can be gamed with marketing, while the former is much harder.