Here's something that I wrote elsewhere about this topic:

Back in the days, there was really only one way to watch a television series: by catching it whenever it was on TV, perhaps over a period of several years. Watching a good TV series became a ritual that defined your day: I still remember that when I was maybe six years old, I always had to be at home at 7 PM, because that's when PTV would start showing cartoons.

Today, if I want to watch a TV series, I can buy the DVD or download it from the Internet. If the series is good enough, I might watch through it in a week, or even a day or two. And even if the series is really good, watching it in such a short time is insufficient to really build an emotional bond with it. I'll remember it as “that really good TV series” - not as “that TV series that I love”.

There's a pick-up artist technique called time distortion. The basic idea is that you take a person out on a date with you, then go to multiple different places and do different things while you're out. This is used to trick the brain of your dating partner into believing that you've known for a longer time than you've actually had, which makes her trust you more:

By bouncing your girl to multiple targets and doing different things, this creates separate and powerful memories in her mind of being with you at different locations. This can create trust each time she bounces with the PUA, as well as shorten the time of the 7 hour period, as her time spent with you is so memorable, that she feels like she has been with you longer than she actually has.

When a story that already has a fanbase is released in multiple installments, each installment gives a fan a new opportunity to connect with other fans and catch up with the latest installment together. This can give the reader many powerful memories of having read the story and it being a positive experience. As an example, a year back I spent four months in the United States, sharing a house with several other people who were reading the fan fiction story Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. I have several memories of somebody checking the Internet, then shouting “METHODS UPDATED!”, and practically everybody in the house running to the nearest computer to catch up with the most recent installment. I also once mentioned that Methods had been updated to one person who was supposed to be working, and she then said that I shouldn't have said that, because now she'd have to go read it instead of working. And so on - I have probably at least ten distinct Methods of Rationality -related memories from that trip. It means that Methods of Rationality will always be a fanfic that has a special significance for me, because it is bound together with my memories of California. Likewise, Star Trek: The Next Generation and Babylon 5 will always have a special significance for me, because they were series that I watched together with my parents in the late evening over a period of many years. That wouldn't be the case if they hadn't be released in small installments over an extended period of time.

Some webcomics are paced so that they work well one page at a time; others aren't.

As usual, there are tropes about that.

I do this with books too. AFAI am concerned, there's no shortage of novelty amongst books (quite the opposite) so I don't have to ration myself.

The opposite seems true for good tv, though. So that I try to ration (and usually fail) :)