A friend of mine works for one of the major studios in a development capacity and they said that the shows that get the most online reaction, rarely play out in viewership the way they do on social media, or with critics. Like, a show or movie with a negative social media reaction and/or critical reaction may also have massive viewership. So, when the studios are developing new projects, they are much more likely to lean into numbers instead of critical/social reception.

That's why you see so many things being made with the same exact people attached. Studios are just looking at pure numbers. They would like to see pure numbers along with positive critical/social reception, but it's not a priority.

However, the caveat is that prestige carries a lot of weight for SOME studios/companies because it matters to the executives. So, something like A24 isn't as concerned with pure numbers.