Haven't been able to get into Stranger Things but the other two shows started very strong. In fact, with House of Cards in particular, it was almost certainly never stronger than it was at the beginning.

I think it's just a reality that in the era of streaming very few people are going to stick out a mediocre series in the hopes that it has enough good bones that the showrunners will eventually do something with them.

Netflix made a lot of promises about what data would enable. There's very little indication it's helped Netflix to develop better shows.