Quibi, the short-form mobile streaming service was launched in April this year. American film producer Jeffrey Katzenberg and former eBay CEO Meg Whitman were the people behind this app.
In an open letter to the company’s employee, Quibi said, ‘it has considered and exhausted every option available’. The post further went on to explain how they built a talented team and had some big Hollywood creators to make content for the app.
Why Quibi failed
Quibi believes that the reason it failed was that the idea wasn’t strong enough. Well, that’s kind of right. But, one of the biggest reasons for their failure according to me was its timing.
Quibi was built for the fast-paced world. Not this home sitting lazy world. The pandemic was the worst time for an app like this. And it ensured that the company fails.
Another reason for its failure could be attributed to the fact that Quibi never had a free ad-supported tier. Every new streaming service has this tier in its initial phase of launch. But Quibi had a very weird sort of pricing for a new streaming app. There was a $4.99 version that had ads, and then there were more expensive ones without ads. Quibi did give a 90-day free trial, but that wasn’t enough to lure in customers.
Quibi is now planning to sell over its assets in the coming month. Which also includes the content so far and the underlying technology platform of the app. As of now, Quibi hasn’t mentioned when the existing customers would lose access to the service.
