I'm not thinking so much about specific things the company does themselves that pisses their fans off (such as comments in interviews) because like I said I do think they owe it to their fan base to be polite. But I still disagree on the idea that they directly owe their fans anything in the story content itself.

In the case of Firefly, I honestly don't think having the entire Buffy/Angel fanbase would have been enough even if people hadn't been burned by season 6, because we're not that big a fanbase in tv terms. For myself, I saw all of Firefly that came out and I liked it a lot, especially as it got further and further. But there were some whacked network decisions surrounding its release that made you wonder if they were trying to handicap their own new show, or were just inept at marketing.