I think that it's much better for marketing it to a newer generation. I suspect that for somebody in their early 20s starting to watch Seinfield these days a 4:3 ratio would immediately make the show look dated. I mean surely they ran the numbers and figured out it was worth it? Otherwise it wouldn't be so common with so many TV shows.
When I was a kid in the 90's I remember that it was not uncommon to have black-and-white movie recolored to make them look more contemporary. This is arguably an even bigger betrayal of the original artistic vision and I expect done for very much the same reasons.
The show is dated. Nobody has a mobile phone. Very few computers (I think Jerry has a Mac Classic in his living room). The cars and street scenes are all from the 1990s.
I'm not voicing an opinion, I'm just trying to explain the trend, personally I also prefer the original version. Clearly for the right holders and broadcasters the cropping is perfectly justifiable and actually preferred.
I'm actually horrified to see stretching on the rise, especially in news broadcasts. "Oh, this singer just died? Let's have a disfiguring retrospective of their 80s music videos where they appear 2x as wide now."
That reminds me of how TV stations in the 70s would play cartoons formatted for movie screens and just squash them down to the 4:3 aspect ratio. I didn't understand why at the time, but I suppose it's better than editing out a huge chunk of the material. It's less disrespectful to the material than what they do today, even if it looked awful.
