Plus, large numbers of shallow (one or two season) shows plays to Netflix's illusion of choice. The more different "shows" it can show in a carousel the more people feel they are getting from their subscription. That's probably going to be increasingly important to them as other content providers leave the platform, if anything.
I wonder if Netflix had adopted a UX more like Amazon's early on where every individual season shows up at the top level instead of all seasons rolling up into the same "now updated" title card for the entire show, if they would have felt less pressure to do as many parallel shows and might have supported more seasons of existing shows. It's a UX change that likely wouldn't make a big difference to viewership though because that Season X + 1 is probably always going to have diminishing returns of viewership as people fail to complete Season X but feel they need to watch it before X + 1.
Except they are removing The Office and Friends. These are my "run in the background while I do work" shows. I was happy when they raised the price because I was happy to give them money for what they gave. But after this, if Parks and Rec also gets cancelled, I'm not sure paying for Netflix streaming will be worth it for me.
I understand Netflix is probably not that more than 50% fault since they don't own the rights. But still.
Right, that's precisely my point. At least some parts of Netflix are hoping that they can create/buy enough "original" content that they can keep people when the big things they leased leave. It's not hard to see why people demanding "lots" of content that to a content executive a lot of shows with only a season or two looks "more full of choices" than had they had fewer shows with many more seasons.
I can't fault Netflix for attempting that strategy here intentionally or accidentally. I'm not sure if it will save them in the upcoming streaming wars or not. (Personally, some of the Netflix original shows I was loyal to are already cancelled; it's also rather hard to keep loyalty to any shows with only two seasons.)
(Also, not to bum you out, but to help prepare you for the streaming wars that are coming: Parks and Rec will likely leave Netflix when Comcast/NBC Universal figure out their streaming strategy [again]. They are expected to be the next to announce things now that AT&T/Warner have announced HBO Max.)
I wonder if Netflix had adopted a UX more like Amazon's early on where every individual season shows up at the top level instead of all seasons rolling up into the same "now updated" title card for the entire show, if they would have felt less pressure to do as many parallel shows and might have supported more seasons of existing shows. It's a UX change that likely wouldn't make a big difference to viewership though because that Season X + 1 is probably always going to have diminishing returns of viewership as people fail to complete Season X but feel they need to watch it before X + 1.