It was likely never going to be compelling enough to compete with free a a purely-short-form mobile-focused offering. Look at how much grief Hulu got from user

It was likely never going to be compelling enough to compete with free a a purely-short-form mobile-focused offering. Look at how much grief Hulu got from users for being "paid but still with ads" for so long before at least adding the option to remove the ads, and then question how smart these other companies who think "paid but still with ads" is a great plan. Sure, you can get users with that model, but you do it if you have content that's compelling enough in spite of it, it doesn't help.