Hmm. It's just interesting to me because whether people are watching or not, they've already prepaid for the show, unless they take merchandise sales as a gauge of popularity.
Netflix has a very tight lipped and complex way of gauging whether a show/film will be worth making or continuing.
I can't remember whether it was a podcast or interview I read, but one of the reasons they approached both Kevin Spacey and Fincher to (re)make
House of Cards is because part of their algorithm showed that when a user starts a movie with Kevin Spacey or a movie by Fincher, an overwhelming majority finish it, which apparently they don't see with a lot of actors/movies. That might not sound like a lot, but to them it was a small part of why they thought the combination would work.
One of the most important things to them (besides subscription numbers) is keeping users on the platform for as long as possible, so they want you to watch another movie after you've watched one, or more than one episode of a show at a time.
For all we know,
The Get Down might have not only had low numbers, but it might have actually made users who didn't like the first 20 minutes or so turn Netflix off completely instead of finding another show. That was 100% made up, but it's just an example to show what kinds of things they study besides raw numbers or tweets etc. to judge a show's popularity.
That plus spending more than
GoT and not achieving
GoT popularity is an easy way to see a show get cancelled lol
It's actually easier for them, it's just not public info.
