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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 yea
by sxp 6y ago
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 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 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.
- bsder 6y agoIt'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.
- bruceb 6y agoWhat 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.
- pjc50 6y agoThey're from the "prevent sharing at all costs" mindset.
- dilyevsky 6y agoI 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.
- Deimorz 6y agoNo 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.
- sofixa 6y agoBut 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.
- xnyan 6y agoThey 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.
- croes 6y agoMagic Leap is not a scam.