Because the costs are insane. You're not making Game of Thrones on a Patreon budget; the early seasons were $50 million each, and the series as a whole cost $1.

Because the costs are insane. You're not making Game of Thrones on a Patreon budget; the early seasons were $50 million each, and the series as a whole cost $1.5 billion. The media companies are essentially giant VC firms that assume crazy amounts of risk in the hopes that a few hits will outweigh losses from the bombs. This is why they paywall everything; subscriber revenue is steady revenue, kind of like government bonds in an investment portfolio. This is also why so many IPs are remakes, reboots, or franchises, because those are much less risky to bankroll.