I think the point they are making is a game like wow, if you start days later then everyone else then you are behind them. It's not like a single player game, if you're friends are doing end game and your stuck leveling, it sucks. Therefore everyone feels foreced to get early access.

Fandoms have trouble here as well. Take something like baseball. There are so many communities to follow across instances that even if a Fandom has a following, it's fragmented across multiple sites.