Finally, there is finishability. Emails are concise, overcoming the readers’ sense of being overwhelmed by limiting the length and the number of items made available. Contrast that with the “infinite scroll” of endless content on many websites and social media platforms which can never be fully read and can leave readers frustrated.

That's one reason why the anthology model works so well. Each season of True Detective or American Horror Story is an entirely new show, one that is wrapped up by season's end. Audiences like the finishability of these anthologies. We crave endings — and with stories that begin and end in a single season, we know we'll get finality, and fast.

"Finishability." I learned a new word this spring when I visited The Economist's headquarters in London with a group of study abroad students. In these days of declining print readership, media observers have tried to decode the continuing success of this highbrow British export. …Tom Standage, digital editor at The Economist, pointed to "finishability" as a key to success. Each week the magazine engages readers with information about politics and science, economics and world affairs they can finish in an hour or two.

I get plenty of personal filtering from friends on email and Twitter and through endless RSS feeds I choose to dip into… but I still want an editor to choose an old-fashioned, finishable package of articles.