There's a key difference between the Econ 101 model and the real world that I feel is not talked about enough, but is explanatory for a lot of discrepancies in

There's a key difference between the Econ 101 model and the real world that I feel is not talked about enough, but is explanatory for a lot of discrepancies in the market: People don't pay for actual utility, they pay for expected expected utility. So franchises are a reasonable solution to this problem: Franchise Ep. 1 was good, so consumers will go to Ep. 2 because they expect the chances are it's at least almost as good, as opposed to taking a ganble on some other thing they've never heard of before. For the studios, it's also a good way to cash in on something that was not an immediate success, but grew a gradual fanbase as well. Other solutions to this problem include: subscriptions (paying a fixed cost each month for access to a large library in which you don't have to pay an additional cost for each thing you may or may not like), bundles (paying for a group of things that includes at least one or two things you know you like, and using their quality to vouch for the other things in the group), and money-back guarantees (which doesn't work very well for consume once content).