When Screwed by the Network is expected, viewers may not bother to watch it even if it sounds appealing.
The Firefly Effect refers to an audience not tuning in to a new series because they don't believe the series will last long enough to make up for the investment of time and emotions. You are anticipating a Myth Arc to be Cut Short, i.e. "The network is just going to cancel this, so I'm not giving it my heart." If enough people think this way it may become a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy — people don't watch because they think the show will be canceled, and then the show is cancelled because no one is watching it.
Networks thrive off comfortable content and tend to not invest in intelligent or overly complex series because it may draw in a smaller viewing audience (and thus draw in less money from ratings) if viewers are required to really pay attention. The trade-off may be a more passionate audience, but it is still a risk to the bottom line. The trope namer is Firefly, an ambitious Space Western from Joss Whedon at the height of the popularity that Fox greenlit based on his previous success. Fox was also infamous for attempting esoteric shows and then dropping them after one season before any audience could be built, even if it had some critical praise. Star Trek: Voyager is an example of how this may impact an ongoing series; although the show didn't get cancelled the initial, more ambitious premise was minimized by the third seasonnote ... making it more action-packed and network friendly.
Front 13, Back 9 is a standard of testing the waters that audiences have become familiar with, if there is a Driving Question that you're not sure the first batch of episodes can make compelling then you assume it won't last for the second batch where everything pays off. It can be a real problem for all the Lost clones and other Ontological Mysteries, which aren't worth watching if they don't get more than one season, and especially if they don't even get a full season—and they often don't. That is also the sort of TV shows most likely to be hit by this effect, but it can hit any show that makes it clear up-front that you need to be involved in the overarching plot and dynamic character to make sense of the show in the long run. That up-front demand plus the uncertainty that there will be a long run allows The Chris Carter Effect to start before the TV show does, meaning the fans never start watching.
In contrast, people usually don't think that they'll get overly attached to Crime Procedurals, Sitcoms, Soap Operas, or even Reality Shows; thus, they'll feel free to watch episodes "casually" until the attachment to the show (or characters) sneaks up on them.
Even some shows that seemed feasible only over one (22-episode) season may not be a draw due to promising a 22 hour movie. In the worst cases, outside factors may literally cause news headlines that sully first, second or third impressions where there was Hostility on the Set or a character is recast last minute, which indicates a Troubled Production that may collapse under itself. Not helping is that upper management itself tends to fluctuate, content that was approved and championed by the network president may take months before it is ready to premiere and by then a new network president is in charge and they are looking to clean house of all the "mistakes" from the last regime.
With the rise of Netflix and other streaming services during the The New '10s and creating original content, it was initially believed that this would no longer be a relevant trope as the target audience has much greater opportunity to flock to an appealing work. However, during the late 2010s and especially during The New '20s, streaming services would end up following the same pattern. Some of this came from an internal Hype Backlash, promising every show to be "prestige TV" and doomed to be lost among all other releases (traditional sitcoms and game shows became more prevalent, as cheaper content and casual viewing was still valid). This reached greater awareness during and after the COVID-19 Pandemic, viewership numbers were a closely guarded secret and no one even had a frame of reference if another season would come. This often leaves those shows on unresolved cliffhangers or with an Accidental Downer Ending. Netflix have become the poster-boy for this trope however, as unlike other services, it frequently greenlights lots of projects throughout the year and has to cancel much of what they output.
This also applies in videogames, especially live-service and freemium ones. There are companies ranging from Nexon, Square Enix, and Crunchyroll that were infamous on closing numerous free-to-play games in span of less than five years (and some even only having chance to go live in a year or two) that cautious players began avoiding those by companies infamous of doing these.
