It was never about the money!! A multi-billionaire business cannot be out of money! And thx so much for bringing up Robert Downey Jr. because Disney is very clearly being selective on what or who they spend their money on and it has nothing to do with the quality or performance of the show nor whether or not they have the funds to spend.
And thank goodness for bringing up the point that the statics were being done by third parties AND the fact that the some of the graphs are kinda purposely misleading to make the Acolyte's performance look worse than previous shows AND the fact that these numbers don't account for all American households or global streaming. So in conclusion, all the numbers are inaccurate and likely unrepresentative of the truth.
In addition to viewer retention... The acolyte literally brought in soo many new SW fans because they don't need to engage with years of old content to understand the show!! Why throw away all that effort and potential when subsequent live action content can be cheaper moving forward because a bunch of new things don't need to be made??