>It used to be that if you watched a show, you knew it might get cancelled and if you didn't want that to happen then you tried to get more people to watch it.

In the past, shows that were cancelled were sometimes just pulled from air midseason. There was no streaming service around that acted as a graveyard for incomplete series. They mostly just disappeared. I'd also suggest there was somewhat less competition between providers - there's much more TV now.

Also, assuming you mean the 90s and 00s - most TV really wasn't anything to write home about to get engaged with as it is now. It was really only HBO and AMC acting as prestige flagbearers.