Quibi can’t do premium video as well as Netflix, nor quick bites as well as TikTok, falling somewhere in the meaningless middle (behind a paywall you can only access through your phone, no less). There is no audience for that.
All platforms that want consumer attention are in competition with one another. Platforms that use premium video to capture attention are in even greater competition. Whether you watch on your phone or TV, in bite-sized increments or long binge sessions, that is still finite time that must be earned. And consumers have finite resources to pay for all these things. Quibi thought by focusing on “in-between moments,” it was carving out a niche with less competition. But those moments are already saturated by social media. So in an attempt to not have any competition, Quibi made it so that everything was its competition. It competes with both Netflix and also TikTok. It competes with HBO and Instagram. Hulu and Snapchat. It’s an assault on all sides. The platform was done no favors by the rise of TikTok, which was becoming immensely popular in the US right as Quibi launched. If young consumers want to watch short-form video on their phones, they go on TikTok, which is free, wildly entertaining (some might say addictive), and can be consumed in whatever timeframe the user wants.
One of Quibi’s original sins was that it did not allow users to share videos or images from the app to social media. It also didn’t initially allow screenshots. It eventually reversed course on that, but by then it was probably too late. It provided no apparatus with which its content could go viral. No memes. No trending hashtags. It relied almost entirely on its own marketing to drive awareness.
Quibi can’t do premium video as well as Netflix, nor quick bites as well as TikTok, falling somewhere in the meaningless middle (behind a paywall you can only access through your phone, no less). There is no audience for that.