Stranger Things season 4 was viewed for 1.4 billion hours since release.
Squid Game in the same amount of time since release had 1.7 billion hours viewed.

Stranger Things season 4 had a reported cost of 30 million an episode.
Squid Game cost 3.5 million to make.

Stranger Things season 4 was 13 total hours.
Squid Game was 8 hours total.

Stranger Things has a well known cast and is an established show.
Squid Game had an unknown cast to the west and was a new show.

Stranger Things had more money, more hours and a higher name IP/cast, but still fell 300 million hours short of Squid Game on 28 days post release views.

What happened?

Looking into this and found a few factors.

Factor One-Dubbing

Squid Game was dubbed into 12 different languages and subtitled for 31 languages.
Stranger Things was dubbed into 9 languages and subtitled into 22 languages.

The edge for Squid Game was Asia, where Netflix has 33 million users, making up about 15% of total users.

That was an advantage, where the show could be seen by more of Netflix globally and the show having an Asian cast, along with better dubbing for different Asian languages had it get an edge over Stranger Things.

Factor Two-Competition/Release Date

Squid Game came out September 17th, 2021.

That was a late summer/early fall release, which is historically a good time for TV/web content, due to people spending more time inside.

An example of this would be a year prior, Netflix set a record for views with the Queens Gambit, which came out in October of 2020.

Stranger Things season 4 came out on with part A on May 27th and part B on fourth of July weekend. A time where web use is generally down, with streaming, cable views and social media use all down over the fall/early winter.

The other issue was competition, where Squid Game had very little competition that month, Stranger Things season 4 released the same day as Disney+ releasing the Obi Wan Kenobi show, which was the most watched Disney+ opening ever.

This struggle point likely caused issues, where both being sci-fi, some picked Obi Wan and haven’t watched season four.

Factor Three-New versus season four

Netflix originally never planned on cancelling shows, saying in early business plans, they’d give any show they funded a proper finale, before cancelling.

That changed, where Netflix reported that pocular shows after the third season didn’t get new viewers and instead just had a gradual decline in viewers they lost season by season.

Reason is simple.

Say 100 people watch season one of something and only 90 like it. Those 90 will comeback, but it’s down 10. If season two loses people and it’s down to 80, that’s even more of a cut off.

Squid Game came out as something completely new, where viewers came in and checked on it, with no opinion.

Stranger Things being a season four release didn’t have that, where despite a huge fan base, they’ve lost people gradually overtime.

Factor Four-Releasing in parts

Squid Game followed the standard Netflix model of putting all episodes for the season out on one day.

Stranger Things season four opted for putting the first seven episodes in late May and the the final two in early July.

The claim was it was due to the final episodes not being done yet, but that seems like a lame excuse.

The reason I believe is just holidays.

Part one came out on Memorial Day weekend.
Part two came out on Fourth of July weekend.

Netflix wanted a presence for different holiday weekends, instead of finding another show to release for the fourth.

This is good for Netflix, but for stranger things it’s a problem.

Fans who didn’t like part one didn’t comeback and some people opted to wait until part two to begin and didn’t do it.

Final thoughts

1.4 billion hours of views in 28 days is extremely good and Stranger Things did an amazing job.

That said, Squid Game got more views and here’s probably why a low budget show with no name cast in the west did it.