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Tons and tons of people support youtubers with donations or on patron, which is in effect paying for content. I recognize the difference but I don’t think you c

by soared 6y ago

Tons and tons of people support youtubers with donations or on patron, which is in effect paying for content. I recognize the difference but I don’t think you can really make your claim so confidently.

whoisjuan 6y ago
My claim is not that people aren't willing to pay for content. My claim is that people are not willing to pay for "this" content at that price point (5 USD) in a saturated market with dozens of competitors launching at the same time with premium content offerings (Disney+, HBO Max, etc). Also you have staple names like NBC launching services in this space for free (Peacock). The problem with Quibi is actually a ROI problem and that's why it doesn't work IMHO. If you raise north of 1 billion to build this you are confident that your revenue is going to be significant. I think that there's not a sizeable market for this type of content, in this current market at that price point. As a reference point, Patreon has only paid $1 billion to creators since its inception. Granted, Patreon is still growing at an accelerated rate and the trajectory seems to indicate that there's a lot of room to keep growing for the foreseeable future, but you can see that if you were to map Patreon payouts to a potential Quibi revenue trajectory they are far from turning green. I don't think that's a good parallel but just making that comparison since you mentioned that example.
- catalogia 6y ago
  What's NBC? I think that's something my grandmother used to talk about sometimes. I'm being semi-facetious here. I think "legacy media", particularly network broadcasters, are coasting off brand recognition earned in a bygone era that younger generations never experienced and never will. That's obviously not sustainable in the long run.
  - whoisjuan 6y ago
    I know you're being cheeky, but NBC owns "Friends" and "The Office". Those two series alone account for a large number of streaming hours in Netflix.
    - catalogia 6y ago
      Fair point, but both those shows initially found popularity before the streaming era. Is NBC still capable of producing content that people will binge-watch 10-20 years later for a nostalgia kick?
      - bobthepanda 6y ago
        SNL is still fairly popular, as are Brooklyn Nine-nine, Late Night, The Tonight Show, etc. And 30 Rock and Parks and Recreation wrapped up not that long ago. They also do have a major ace up their sleeve as the official American broadcaster of the Olympics.
        dwighttk 6y ago
        Do people binge-watch Late Night or Tonight Show episodes from 15 yrs ago? Or even SNL besides individual sketches?
baddox 6y ago
But that's still very nearly the opposite sort of business model as Quibi. Youtubers generally start out with very little investment and build their audiences manually through grassroots interest. I don't know of anyone who has raised over a billion dollars and created a huge expensive production company upfront before then launching a Patreon account and getting enough $5/month patrons to make it worth it. That idea sounds ludicrous because it likely is ludicrous.

by soared 6y ago

whoisjuan 6y ago

My claim is not that people aren't willing to pay for content. My claim is that people are not willing to pay for "this" content at that price point (5 USD) in a saturated market with dozens of competitors launching at the same time with premium content offerings (Disney+, HBO Max, etc). Also you have staple names like NBC launching services in this space for free (Peacock). The problem with Quibi is actually a ROI problem and that's why it doesn't work IMHO. If you raise north of 1 billion to build this you are confident that your revenue is going to be significant. I think that there's not a sizeable market for this type of content, in this current market at that price point. As a reference point, Patreon has only paid $1 billion to creators since its inception. Granted, Patreon is still growing at an accelerated rate and the trajectory seems to indicate that there's a lot of room to keep growing for the foreseeable future, but you can see that if you were to map Patreon payouts to a potential Quibi revenue trajectory they are far from turning green. I don't think that's a good parallel but just making that comparison since you mentioned that example.

catalogia 6y ago
What's NBC? I think that's something my grandmother used to talk about sometimes. I'm being semi-facetious here. I think "legacy media", particularly network broadcasters, are coasting off brand recognition earned in a bygone era that younger generations never experienced and never will. That's obviously not sustainable in the long run.
- whoisjuan 6y ago
  I know you're being cheeky, but NBC owns "Friends" and "The Office". Those two series alone account for a large number of streaming hours in Netflix.
  - catalogia 6y ago
    Fair point, but both those shows initially found popularity before the streaming era. Is NBC still capable of producing content that people will binge-watch 10-20 years later for a nostalgia kick?
    - bobthepanda 6y ago
      SNL is still fairly popular, as are Brooklyn Nine-nine, Late Night, The Tonight Show, etc. And 30 Rock and Parks and Recreation wrapped up not that long ago. They also do have a major ace up their sleeve as the official American broadcaster of the Olympics.
      - dwighttk 6y ago
        Do people binge-watch Late Night or Tonight Show episodes from 15 yrs ago? Or even SNL besides individual sketches?

baddox 6y ago

But that's still very nearly the opposite sort of business model as Quibi. Youtubers generally start out with very little investment and build their audiences manually through grassroots interest. I don't know of anyone who has raised over a billion dollars and created a huge expensive production company upfront before then launching a Patreon account and getting enough $5/month patrons to make it worth it. That idea sounds ludicrous because it likely is ludicrous.