I can't speak for anyone else but the number of times pacing has been an issue and caused a campaign I played in to fall apart is rare. Most of the time real life got in the way (jobs, school, family, etc.) and sometimes a particular DM enjoyed playing more so he would "pause" his campaign to "do some work on it and come back to it" and then we would move on to my campaign knowing that I would run a long campaign and we would never get back to the other. This is the same guy I mentioned in my prior post that only finished 50-60% of his games so his track record wasn't horrible.
But, that's kinda my point. For you, this isn't an issue because you almost always have enough time to satisfactorily complete your campaigns. So, obviously, pacing isn't an issue. Fair enough. However, there are some of us out there where this isn't true.
What's the solution? Simply accept that I only get to read the first three chapters of every novel I pick up, or switch to short stories? For me, I'd rather switch to short stories. Which brings me to the next reply:
The problem I’ve found isn’t pacing. It’s just real life. The campaigns that ended for me either did so due to people moving away, work or school schedules becoming untenable, and things just fizzled, sometimes not far into a game. Now you could always say speed things up and jump to the end for one last hurrah but personally I would’ve felt that was unsatisfying, kind of a letdown.
But, that's not quite what I mean either. It's not a case of running a regularly paced campaign and then jumping to the end. It's more a recognition that this campaign that I'm starting is on life support from day one. That it's very likely that there is a hard limit to how long it will have before real life steps in and steps on its neck.
So, again, the solution to me is to advise DM's to plan accordingly. If you're running a game for your university classmates - and everyone's buggering off for the summer break, that means you've likely got 8 months to run your campaign. It might pick up again after the break, but, most likely not. So, plan accordingly. Cut stuff out. Run tightly focused campaigns where you leave off the side bar stuff.
I imagine it's rather like running a season of Adventurers League really. ALthough, I'll admit, I've never played AL. But, if each adventure MUST be completed in 4 hours and you'Ve only got X number of adventures per season, those constraints are going to significantly limit what your advnetures look like.