Regina Rini om 'Squid Game' in TLS:

'Which attitude is right then? That life is profoundly precious, or that we shouldn’t get too attached to it? Well, both. But the two thoughts do not play well together. Squid Game and the whole mass murder genre grab our attention because they yank on these two attitudes at once. Life is cheap, and life is precious, and being too precious about life is a cheap way to be. We sit and watch the guns fire and the scoreboard flash because the spectacle helps us to see – but from a comforting distance – that one day our own number will be up.'

Read the article here.

If Netflix (and to certain degrees most movies but also novel) is successful, it's because of the comforting distance. Murder and mass murder, war and horror have always attracted audiences. The best war movies claimed to be anti-war movies, but the demystification of old-fashioned heroism didn't undermine the attraction of war and atrocities, in movies and series that is.
Killings and a seemingly just cause are still an unbeatable combination.

(I haven't seen 'Squid Game' but I enjoyed 'The Hunger Games' - also mentioned in this article.)

Life is cheap and life is precious, it all depends on whose life it is.

Should we blame the masses for their all too human hunger for murder, suspense, a bit of torture and some gore, all seen from the comforting distance of the screen?