The Assumptions That Killed Quibi
Quibi’s founders initially blamed its failure on the pandemic. Photo: Brecht Bug
This was originally written for a Designlab assignment on “assumptions and failures.”
Quibi (short for “quick bites) was a streaming service launched in early 2020 that offered original, star-filled TV shows and “movie episodes”- all of them less than 10 minutes long and intended to be watched on your phone. It had very successful people leading it and a lot of big companies invested in it.
It was a complete failure.
Why? First, every successful streaming service started out as a means to watch content that was already proven to be in demand. Netflix could bet that people would pay to get movie rentals in their mailboxes because Blockbuster had proven that people would drive to get movie rentals in retail stores. And they could bet that people would want the movies they were offering because they weren’t original Netflix movies- they were the same kinds of movies available at Blockbuster. Only after Netflix became a streaming service with regular paying subscribers did it start offering original content. Original content in the same familiar formats we expect- TV shows and movies. So before Netflix became the behemoth of original content it is today, it had created a subscriber base by providing a proven set of products first.
And then Netflix made original content about Blockbuster.
Quibi did not do this. Quibi bet the $1.75 billion dollar farm on an unproven format- one with no “previous proof of concept.” While you could argue that TikTok proved the concept- it also has short videos to be watched vertically on your phone- its success can be linked to all of the things it offers that Quibi didn’t- a sense of community to its users, an algorithm that learns your interests with creepy accuracy, and the shareability of its content. To wit, every TikTok video was created for the medium of TikTok, and it shows in the quality of the content. But every piece of content on Quibi had originated as an idea for a full-length TV show or movie and then repurposed to fit the shorter medium of Quibi, and it showed in the quality of the content.
But maybe a streaming service offering mediocre 10-minute videos could have worked if the environment in which it was developed was the same as the environment in which it was launched. The CEOs originally blamed Quibi’s lackluster success on the pandemic. They had envisioned people watching it as they commuted or waited in line at the post office. It was designed for people on the go, but now people couldn’t go anywhere.
I disagree. Good content is good content regardless of its length or orientation. I know I was not the only person who suffered a shortened attention span at the beginning of the pandemic and found solace in watching hours of TikTok videos. Quibi’s defenders say it was launched at the wrong moment in history, but I don’t think it could have been launched at a better one.
