Quibi reportedly lost 90 percent of early users after their free trials expired • Hacker News Board

Re: Quibi reportedly lost 90 percent of early users after their free trials expired

#151

Post by enitihas » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 10:59 PM UTC

baddox wrote: post #97

thiagocesar wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple, Quibi, Amazon are trying to plan the perfect breakout show. It doesn’t work like that. A lot of the networks’s and Netflix’s breakout shows were not planned to be great. That’s why they just greenlight a bunch of random pilots and see what sticks to the wall. It’s extremely hard to create hits.

> It doesn’t work like that. A lot of the networks’s and Netflix’s breakout shows were not planned to be great. That might be true for a lot of breakout shows, but not all of them. House of Cards was arguably Netflix' first breakout show, and Netflix outbid other networks for House of Cards when they were just starting to focus on original programming. That was always painted in showbiz media as a very deliberate pla…

House of cards also had the benefit of having a 2 time Oscar winner on the cast.

Re: Quibi reportedly lost 90 percent of early users after their free trials expired

#152

Post by notatoad » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 10:59 PM UTC

jeromegv wrote: post #62

duxup wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did the user have to provide a credit card, are a lot of these 8% maybe just folks who forgot to unsubscribe? I feel like this conversion rate thing really "depends".

On iOS this was just in-app purchase, so you agree to start paying in 3 months when you sign up. So you never really have to manually type your credit card but you had to remember to unsubscribe within your iTunes subscriptions.

same on google play. and as far as i'm aware, those two are the only platforms that Quibi is offered on. Cancelling my trial before i was billed was really simple on Google Play, but i did have to remember to do it.

it's also interesting to note that the only way to get a quibi subscription is via the two major app stores, which both take a 30% cut. So unlike netflix, apple, disney, etc who all allow purchasing via lower-fee methods, quibi is paying 30% for every subscriber.

Re: Quibi reportedly lost 90 percent of early users after their free trials expired

#153

Post by notahacker » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 11:07 PM UTC

enjeyw wrote: post #147

notahacker wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Netflix pinning a lot on winning a bidding war for Fincher sound suspiciously like investors placing massively outsized bets on the Dreamworks/Disney guy with the startup savvy CEO being the Next Big Thing in digital media...

The difference is that the sample size for Fincher is a lot larger - 9 of his 10 films have grossed >100mil, so we have very good confidence on his hit rate. Startup Savvy CEOs have 2, maybe 3 successful companies under their belt, so it's harder to judge how much of their success is due to repeatable factors.

Katzenberg revived Disney and cofounded Dreamworks so he's not exactly short of samples of his ability to produce hit movies. Also getting the scaleup eBay CEO to sort out the internet bit was a bonus...

Re: Quibi reportedly lost 90 percent of early users after their free trials expired

#154

Post by peteretep » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 11:10 PM UTC

enitihas wrote: post #150

thiagocesar wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple, Quibi, Amazon are trying to plan the perfect breakout show. It doesn’t work like that. A lot of the networks’s and Netflix’s breakout shows were not planned to be great. That’s why they just greenlight a bunch of random pilots and see what sticks to the wall. It’s extremely hard to create hits.

Amazon does have breakout shows. They have won the last 2 emmy for best actress in a comedy TV series.

> Amazon does have breakout shows. They have won the last 2 emmy for best actress in a comedy TV series.

I’m not disputing either of your presented facts, per se, but the first of those is absolutely not implied by the second.

Re: Quibi reportedly lost 90 percent of early users after their free trials expired

#155

Post by enitihas » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 11:15 PM UTC

wolco wrote: post #139

bonestamp2 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon already created a pretty perfect show in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (89% on Rotten Tomatoes). That is going to be really hard for them to top.

They should pack up because Amazon made a super hero show and got 89% on rotten tomatoes. Wait till you see what Disney is offering... you are going to cancel Prime.

Does Disney have any good comedy series?

Re: Quibi reportedly lost 90 percent of early users after their free trials expired

#156

Post by perardi » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 11:16 PM UTC

evanelias wrote: post #118

qwe098cube wrote: post #65

I never understood their pitch in first place. Why pay for quick bites when I get decent content (~10min) for free on youtube? Generally, I would assume people watch netflix/amazon/disney content for entertainment and expect their originals to be of the usual or slight longer duration. That's content to enjoy watching over a longer period of time. People like this format, hence binge watching is a thing. I can't see…

Verizon attempted a similar content/audience strategy to Quibi several years ago, with their content platform called go90 [1]. Their pitch centered around the lack of 15-20 minute video content with high production values, and the assumption that this type of content would be successful with millennials and commuters. They burned over $1B and it was a colossal failure -- apparently so forgettable that none of the cov…

I remember seeing those ads on the CTA.

And then promptly went back to either reading stuff in Instapaper, or listening to podcasts, or playing Pokémon Go if we were moving at a slow enough speed.

Re: Quibi reportedly lost 90 percent of early users after their free trials expired

#157

Post by bawolff » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 11:27 PM UTC

bonestamp2 wrote: post #135

reedwolf wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Apple, Quibi, Amazon are trying to plan the perfect breakout show. Apple is making a series out of Isaac Asimov's Foundation books. [0] :-D [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgbPSA94Rqg

I'm sure a lot of us are looking forward to it -- it's good source material, but there's no guarantee that they will pull it off well, or that even if they do a great job, that it will be a hit.

Its pretty terrible source material if your trying to make a mainstream hit.

The foundation is great, but its not your traditional laser-battle big budget mainstrean action-sf thingy.

Re: Quibi reportedly lost 90 percent of early users after their free trials expired

#158

Post by flywheel » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 11:28 PM UTC

jm4 wrote: post #105

mikeryan wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in this industry and generally agree with your assessment. However a few things, the general industry perspective went like this: 1. David Katzenberg and Meg Whitman were creating a consumer service targeting a demographic they don't fit in a field they've not worked in. (Consumer apps for a younger demographic) 2. They got 1.8 Billion in funding. For fuck's sake you should get one breakout hit piece of conten…

Their mistake is they're trying to do something that all the other established players could essentially replicate overnight. Their big innovation is the shows are shorter? On top of it, their execution is poor. They put out the standard shows you would see anywhere else except edited so that a single episode turns into a half dozen shorter ones. They pretty much positioned themselves out in no man's land between Net…

I don't think their product is really that viable. The amount of setup, process, work, materials and money it takes to produce a 10 minute clip is just about the same amount it takes to produce a 30 minute episode.

I've enjoyed some short-form episodic content on Amazon before, but it always left me feeling short-changed, and wishing the episodes were 30 minutes. It was too quick to go through the entire series and then it's done, I have to search for more content that is high quality, which is few and far between. Maybe it's for people with ADD who can't follow a plot longer than 10 minutes long?

Quibi is relying on a gimmick, and one that isn't even difficult to copy and has been done before. I've so far not heard of any reason that would compel me to spend my time on their site when there's so much other content out there.

I'm also not sure why anyone would want Meg Whitman on board at a company like this, unless she's somehow responsible for bringing some of that 1.8 Billion in funding, and even then she should only be on the board, not in the C suite.

Re: Quibi reportedly lost 90 percent of early users after their free trials expired

#159

Post by hardwaregeek » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 11:40 PM UTC

notahacker wrote: post #136

1123581321 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We know now that they didn’t really have that data at the time. They just heard Fincher was available and bought his idea unseen for a lot of money so no one else could get to propose to him.

Netflix pinning a lot on winning a bidding war for Fincher sound suspiciously like investors placing massively outsized bets on the Dreamworks/Disney guy with the startup savvy CEO being the Next Big Thing in digital media...

House of Cards was an adaptation of a widely acclaimed British TV show, directed by one of the best Hollywood directors, starring an A-list actor. Plus it probably didn't cost 1.8 billion.

Re: Quibi reportedly lost 90 percent of early users after their free trials expired

#160

Post by mkl » Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 11:40 PM UTC

JadoJodo wrote: post #112

root_axis wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HBO seems to be able to consistently churn out hits, and not just "hits" but cultural touchtones that ripple throughout pop-culture.

But they also have a history of original programming that dates back to the early 90s (and earlier). They've had time to perfect those ripples.

Even their first original show Oz (1997) [1] was good. It was clearly experimental and low budget (it's set almost entirely inside a prison so needs very few sets, props, costumes, etc.), but designed around that limitation to focus on the writing and characters. Netflix tried a similar strategy with one of their first original series, Orange Is The New Black.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oz_(TV_series)