Learning From Quibi | Hacker News Reader

Learning From Quibi

salildalvi.substack.com

25 pointswho-knows24 comments

This post is missing some numbers to put the size of Quibi's failure in context. "Quibi spent over $1 billion on commissioning original content in its first year, totalling 8,500 short-form episodes and including over 175 shows." according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quibi#Content. This is a cost of about $10k/minute.

(For comparison, SpaceX spent ~$85m (https://craft.co/spacex/funding-rounds) to blow up three rockets and launch a fourth one into orbit.)

Quibi's failure is on the same level as Theranos & Magic Leap given the amount that was spent. Quibi might not be a scam like the other two, but it's strange that they spent so much money before they had any users nor revenue. The most important lesson here is probably that launching & iterating will result in better outcomes than a giant investment on a speculative product.

It's quite amazing that they spent that much money and not a single one got shared to anybody I know.

That's a colossal failure.

They'd have been better off splitting that money up and handing that money to every single performing and visual arts student in the US.

They would have gotten at least one viral thing out of it.

What is shocking is not that everyone pointed out there is no way to share clips or maybe memes of shows right in the beginning, its after hearing this, they didn't bother to change this problem. Like you made the mistake, but its not hardware, you can change the app, and they never did? Or maybe they did sometime? but now nobody cares.

They're from the "prevent sharing at all costs" mindset.

I don’t really see how those three have any similarities. Quibi is similar to a movie flopping - sometimes happens even to good movies. ML seems like they thought they can get the tech improved but were in too early. Also happens all the time. Theranos was a scam from very early on.

No movie has ever had a budget anywhere near $1.75 billion. This is more like... making the 5 most expensive movies of all time, in a row, and flopping all of them.

That's a completely different level of failure.

But nobody would pay for it if there was zero or not enough to convert trial users content, so they needed lots of it to engage and keep users.

They absolutely did not need to speed a billion upfront on an unproven format. Nobody had tried this format before, so they could not have been confident that there was a market. They could have instead, for example, commissioned a few of their more promising shows and offered them for free to gauge interest in the format.

Magic Leap is not a scam.

> In this way, Jeffrey Katzenberg said to us, “I understand something about the world that others do not.” And yet, in saying so, he missed the essential lesson that could have been gleaned from his own industry: Popular culture is an existential conflict between what is “good”, what people like, and what people watch. This dialectic is the central feature of cultural businesses.

Dialectic and existential conflicts aside, I don't think the "gray area of public taste" really applies here. Quibi's content was BAD. [1,2,3] If there is an existential lesson here about entertainment platforms, maybe it's Don't:

* launch a $2B app

* with no library of content

* that is strictly walled off from your customer's social media

* and your customer's TV.

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3IRvX9UaIk

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKyZWJ75nDM

3. https://twitter.com/zachraffio/status/1250273191810875392

Quibi seemed to do a lot wrong. But when it comes to how bad their content was, I've seen some writers say Quibi produced first draft scripts other studios had passed on without a re-write. They thought they could run with proof-of-concept quality scripts to avoid hiring writers.

You've got three choices. You either make it easy for people to make their own content, sell them content they already want but in a better way, or be the only way they're getting that content. Apple didn't try to invent a market for purchasing music when it didn't already exist; they said "hey, this is like buying CDs but easier and better." Netflix said "hey, all those shows you like? Come watch them at one place with no commercials, on demand." Youtube Red/Premium/Plus/Whatever the hell they're calling it now is just paying for a better version of the same experience. Whoever invents and patents a way to put a sticker on the side of your head and make you feel like you're having sex with a pornstar will make a billion selling it however they want.

Quibi picked the worst of every possibility. They weren't freer than Youtube. They didn't have the library of Netflix. They weren't more convenient to watch than either of them. Quibi would've worked great if it'd launched in 2007. Now, not so much.

I read that Quibi does not own its content. The content creators do.

I don't understand. How could Quibi possibly spend $2B in 6 months when it doesn't even own its content. What exactly did it spend those $2B on?

Disgusting amounts of advertising and endorsements?

It's more complicated than just "Does Quibi own the content"- Quibi struck deals with content creators for the creators to create the content and own it, but to give Quibi an exclusive license to the content for 2 years. So whilst it's technically true that the content creators still own the content, the vast majority of the value is in the rights to that content. They justified this as some creator friendly move, but frankly I think they knew that by 2 years time Quibi was either huge or dead.

This basically means there’s no reason for any one to pay more than scraps for the rights to the content as they will have under 1.5 years with it.

Well most of the content is crap anyway, but right now there's a lack of content due to Amazon/Netflix/Apple etc. bidding up the market and covid limiting supply. So 1.5years of exclusive is probabbly 90% of the value of the content, and if it's still valuable afterwards you can license it from the original creators. Stuff drops off Netflix all the time.

I struggle to understand the thesis of this post. Its entitled "learning from quibi" but what did the author learn? I have no ides after reading it.

At most i think the author is saying a succesful company is based around finding something bad in the world, and doing it better, and that quibi thought they were doing that but were actually deluding themselves. Which sure, in retrospect is pretty obvious, but its hardly an insight to say that a business which failed because nobody thought their product was worth it, essentially had a bad product.

An interesting piece, though I would have liked more about the failures of YouTube/TikTok and other platforms that simply aggregate user content.

The author suggests a fund to help develop IP, but YouTube and TikTok don't need that. The YT/TT approach is "let a thousand flowers bloom and users/algorithms will pick the best".

I think a lot about the teenage girl who went viral on TikTok for writing musical numbers based on the 2000s TV show Avatar: The Last Airbender [1]. That is not content anyone would fund up front. If you're not a Zoomer/Millenial with nostalgia for the show, the idea doesn't even make sense! And yet it was a brilliant idea, hugely popular, and it didn't cost TikTok a dime. That's the future.

[1]: https://nerdist.com/article/avatar-the-last-airbender-musica...

Indeed, pretty sure youtube tried the whole directly funding popular channels back in 2012 [1]. They moved away from that

Honestly though, i'm not sure that people making essentially viral fan fiction videos is "the future" as that's already been a thing for a while.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube_Original_Channel_Ini...

You’re being a bit literal. The fan video is an example of “the future.” The future is:

> “let a thousand flowers bloom and users/algorithms will pick the best”

“ What I am describing here looks like a VC fund, but has some features of an incubator. I would not suggest that it makes sense to assemble a permanent team of developers and producers. But instead a light team of product experts who can bring expert-level development in when needed, and on good economic terms (either by paying fees or by sharing equity).” this just sounds like a record label or Hollywood studio

I learned much about why Quibi failed from comments rather than that article. That article is poorly written and seems more confused than the Quibi founder.

Everything we needed to know about Quibi was that Meg Whitman was involved. Then there was no point in looking closer.

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