They won't dare admit it during this production era but for the next production era, they'll 100% go full-on into the multiverse route. From what I can tell, that seems to be the general direction everything's moving in, across franchises. More and more, there are entries that ignore other entries within the same franchise.
Star Trek is also pretty unique in being both primarily TV series based and not originating from novels or comic books, and with a clear dividing line between said TV series plus films being canonical while novels and comic books are not (well, minus what may have been said at the time of publication of the Jeri Taylor VGR novels or the ST09 Countdown prequel, all of which didn't last).
DC and Marvel efforts are by necessity far more... multiversal. Something like Law & Order or the CSIs or the NCISes are all based in the current day real world, so their continuity problems would mostly be limited to keeping character backstories straight. Star Wars, Terminator, and Alien are all primarily film based with TV series off shoots.
Stargate franchise backdoor rebooted the inspiring film and then managed to make 18(!) connected seasons. But if Amazon ever moves forward with doing anything with that franchise, would it do a reboot or a continuation? X-Files is of similar heft if you throw in MILLENNIUM and THE LONE GUNMEN, and again would fall under if Disney moves forward with Ryan Coogler, would it be a reboot or continuation.
If anything, it's quite remarkable Star Trek made it from 1966 all the way until 2009 without some kind of reboot. Had Harve Bennet managed to get his SFA film made (or with his TV background somehow tried and succeeded in making a SFA TV series) it might have come far sooner.
I think it’s in the commentary to First Contact but I remember Brannon Braga and Ron Moore spend some time advocating a total reboot of Trek, and that’s 20 years of Trek lore ago too. Their argument was the timeline had basically become too complex and detailed to remain coherent while also boxing in a writer’s ability to make choices about a story. That you shouldn’t have to wonder whether something violates a line of dialogue from season 2 of TOS or season 4 of DS9 if you’re trying to write a Star Trek story. Also, the timeline is a double-edged sword. For some it’s a rich fictional future history that adds depth to the story. But, for others, it might make Trek seem hard to jump into. If in order to totally understand an episode of Strange New Worlds, I need to have watched Star Trek V to know who Sybok is, some people might think that’s a problem.
This would make sense in the 1990s when they had to knock out sometimes 52 new episodes a year and didn't have easy access to web databases. But now it's only really an issue if they are already going back to a pre-established time period and not fitting everything in. If they move forward, or just create a new species instead of radically altering something already established, they're bound to run into issues.
If anything, it's probably better not to have too deep a knowledge of Star Trek to enjoy SNW. Otherwise you'd keep running into red herrings. The analogy I've used before would be watching a film or TV series set in a country you'd lived in, but the producers hadn't. Too many things would just be off or outright wrong and knock you out of the narrative.
I have friends IRL who are interested in watching Star Trek but think it's impenetrable. I'll have to guide them through it. I figure I'll show them TOS, show them TNG, show them all the movies, not necessarily in that order (I myself started off with the movies), but that's what they're already aware of through Pop Culture anyway...
Star Trek definitely needs curation. Luckily, the 80/20 rule applies, and since most of everything was episodic, it's not too much a problem with an assist.
That said, several friends have tried to get me into anime series, some of which have over 500 episodes. I've always argued that's just too ~much~, but one response that did make me stop and think was, well, what if you really like it? Then you have tons and tons of material to enjoy.
