
Quibi reportedly lost 90 percent of early users after their free trials expired - elorant
https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/8/21318060/quibi-subscriber-count-free-trial-paying-users-conversion-rate
======
ObsoleteNerd
8% is not a terrible conversion rate at all, and they’ve only just started.
I’m not a Quibi user and have no vested interest in them either way but this
is the third different article I’ve seen in the last week or 2 talking about
how terrible they’re doing and now they’re about to crash and burn, because of
an 8% conversion?

Comparing them to Disney is ridiculous too, it’s Disney! With multiple
generations obsessed with their library and people literally counting down the
days until their launch, they got a 10% conversion... but 8% is horrible and
the end of Quibi?

~~~
mikeryan
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 content from that. (Note Apple is struggling a bit with
this one too). With the funding, hype and content they've spent on the
expectations are going to be pretty damn astronomical, they brought high
expectations on themselves.

3\. Their entire premise was based on this concept of quick bites of content.
With an almost 2 billion dollar war chest the right thing to do would have
been to test this theory maybe? Roll out a single show first, backfilled with
some news? Get some feedback maybe?

Quibi is led by some serious heavy hitters, so its not spoken much out loud
but I think a lot of folks in the industry felt this play was based mostly on
hubris and now there's a certain sense of schadenfreude as they start to
flail.

~~~
thiagocesar
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.

~~~
baddox
> 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
plan based on Netflix' data about their users' preferences.

~~~
1123581321
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.

~~~
notahacker
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...

~~~
hardwaregeek
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.

~~~
npunt
Yep, entirely different risk profile. Netflix already had a brand, platform,
and customers, and they already offered TV shows and weren't experimenting
with a new format. The House of Cards risk was all in execution, not brand,
concept, product, talent, etc.

------
whoisjuan
The problem with Quibi is thinking that they can charge for this content.
People are not gonna pay for quick bite videos, even if they have a high
production value. Why would anyone do that with such limited time?

The problem of all these platforms is that they think they are creating a new
market or expanding an existing one and they forget that people only have 24
hours a day to do things.

If you create something like Quibi you're competing with Instagram, Snapchat,
TikTok, YouTube, Netflix, Xbox/PlayStation/Nintendo-Switch, Mobile Games and
anything else that is trying to grab a slice of you leisure time.

Why would I pay for this when I already pay for other options with more
content and get a handful for free?

Quibi is what you get when you think you know your customers but you really
don't. It's the type of self-deluded product that is created in an echo
chamber by rich people who believe their past success is a formula that can be
reproduced at any scale as long as money is involved. The problem with that
idea is that it values scale more than ingenuity.

Doing short vertical videos with high production value and charging to watch
them is almost an absolute zero in terms of innovation.

~~~
pjc50
I dunno, doing short vertical videos with _low_ production value was the huge
innovation of TikTok? (Not counting its predecessor, Vine)

But I accept that launching it as a paid service was extremely risky. Better
to start with something free and attention-getting.

~~~
freeone3000
Vine videos are thirty seconds, not 10 minutes. It's an entirely different
proposition.

~~~
drawfloat
It's even more different: Vine videos were only 7 seconds long

------
creaghpatr
>According to the firm’s new report on Quibi’s early growth, the short-form
video platform signed up about 910,000 users in its first few days back in
April. Of those users, only about 72,000 stuck around after the three-month
free trial, indicating the app had about an 8 percent conversion rate.

I fully expect Quibi to crash and burn under the weight of the content costs
among other things, but is an 8% conversion rate bad for converting from free
to paid? What's the appropriate benchmark for this kind of thing?

~~~
mindvirus
Especially given that Disney managed 11% conversion with their awesome catalog
and brand recongition. It seems 8% isn't so bad.

~~~
Macha
And Disney+ trials do roll over into subscriptions without user action which
is mentioned as a factor elsewhere in this thread.

------
_fat_santa
Quibi seems to be trying to convert a users who would normally kill 5-10
minutes on Snapchat or Instagram into killing that same time on their
platform. The problem is that this user pool is perfectly content killing
thier 5-10 minutes on Snapchat or Instagram and convincing them that they
actually need the "Snapchat or Netflix" is going to be very hard, especially
when they charge a subscription.

If I am only willing to kill 5-10 minutes on my phone, my investment in
whatever it is ill be killing time on is very low. So I suspect it's going to
be very difficult to convince these users to pay a monthly fee for a service
when Snapchat offers a similar level of gratification for free.

------
qwe098cube
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 why people would rather watch a highly
produced quick bite while waiting in line for a coffee instead of watching a
new upload from a subscribed creator on youtube for like 10 minutes. There are
plenty of famous youtubers upload almost daily, with daily/weekly views much
higher than the total app downloads quibi has so far. And they don't have a
~2B$ war chest.

~~~
evanelias
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 coverage on Quibi even mentions it.

One major difference: go90 was a free service, and it was even zero-rated for
Verizon Wireless customers (i.e. didn't count against subscriber data caps).
Yet it remained a failure across several attempted pivots before Verizon threw
in the towel completely.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go90](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go90)

~~~
TylerE
> the lack of 15-20 minute video content with high production values,

What a truly bizarre tack if that's what they really though. A "30 minute" TV
episode is actually about 20-21 minutes minus the ads, intro, and credits.

------
dpcan
Quibi is like TikTok with celebrities that I have to pay for. I know the
content is scripted, longer, and well-produced, but it seriously just feels
like expensive TikTok, and I couldn't justify paying for it when the only
content I wanted was Reno 911, which I finished watching during the trial.

That could be the other problem. The trial is long enough to finish watching
the one thing on Quibi you downloaded it to watch.

The content is SO random that I can't imagine someone finds more than 1, maybe
2, things to watch that are to their liking.

------
CedarMills
Quibi has the problem that other platforms like it have: thinking celebrities
are the right way to entice people. Luminary Podcasts has the same issue.

Majority of gen Z / millennial folks that I know, don't care about Trevor Noah
or any of the late night comedians. They care more about famous YouTubers and
TikTok stars.

~~~
kgermino
> They care more about famous YouTubers and TikTok stars.

It sounds like they’re still interested in celebrities, it’s just a different
set of people than older generations expect.

I wonder, is that gap new or just part of the cycles of life?

~~~
xemdetia
In my personal observations of the matter it is more that it's just a
different kind of celebrity than their original draw. Nobody earnestly cares
if some hollywood star becomes a professional golfer, singer, or race car
driver. They have to build themselves up anew to this new audience who is
selecting 'celebrity status' by a different set of rules and criteria. Now if
someone in hollywood moves to another position within hollywood like actor to
director hey are still closely related to the same rules of selection so they
get a boost just from qualifying to what the audience is looking at.

Given that this is where there is just a separate group of people that
understands or learns the selection criteria for YouTube/Twitter/TikTok/Twitch
whatever and can have more synergy transferring between these outlets. It
makes sense that someone who in another setting is popular just seems to land
flat when they are having to relearn a new way of presenting themselves and
the old tools don't work. Even celebrities that start a YouTube channel that I
at least followed in passing end up feeling terrible, and I don't think I've
seen a hollywood grade external star stick with their YouTube content long
enough to actually start learning what needs to change.

------
bluedevil2k
They went the wrong route with programming. Instead of top quality content
with A/B list actors, they should have dumped out a lot of cheap reality show
content. That stuff works well 10 minutes at a time on network TV (between
commercials). Think Real World, Blind Date, Cribs. It’s cheap to make, appeals
to the target market for Quibi, and would have required a LOT less funding at
the beginning from the investors who now seem likely to lose all their money.

------
mattjack
A few others have mentioned that Quibi is not an interesting enough
alternative timewasting app to Snapchat, Instagram, etc. I agree and I'm glad
to see it fail for that reason; I want my attention span back and I'm trying
to cut these things out of my life. I notice my well-being improves when I do.

That's personal preference obviously, and people are free to spend their time
how they want, but I think the loss of attention span is a culture-scale
problem now and excising these companies from our lives is a necessary
treatment.

I hope Quibi folds permanently and we salt the earth where it stood.

~~~
jlokier
It seems strange to me that you want Quibi to die so that you can get your
attention span back. To cut these things out of your life.

Can't you just... ignore it?

Cut these things out of your life _anyway_?

Live and let live?

~~~
mattjack
Like I said this is personal preference. I've never used it but I think it
makes culture worse so I hope it goes under.

I never know what people are going to like so maybe it will become the next
TikTok instead, or someone will make a new Quibi that I also won't use or
understand :)

------
Elidrake24
I really wanted to like Quibi. I enjoyed the Most Dangerous Game romp, I
really loved the daily updates from the BBC, and overall the idea of content
specifically made for ~10 minute sprints work perfectly for me.

The rest of the content though... Pretty bad, at least to me. One daily show
isn't enough to keep me around.

Anyone know of a solid, ~15 minute daily news report similar to what the BBC
was offering on Quibi? Preferably something with a worldwide scope. I'd
happily pay a fraction of Quibi's monthly fee for just that show.

~~~
marrone12
Reuters used to have a short form news update at
[https://reuters.tv](https://reuters.tv) but it seems like they shut it down
earlier this year.

------
TedDoesntTalk
> Sensor Tower is a reputable analytics company known for reporting accurate
> estimates

I see SensorTower quoted a lot for mobile analytics, but their methods are
completely opaque AFAIK. For all I know, one can “buy” good analytics by
giving them some money, in order to promote an app.

Alternatively, nepotism could skew analytics: the CTO’s brother-in-law’s app
gets higher usage and download ratings than a competitor.

How can we trust that such companies are honest?

------
mtgp1000
I hadn't heard of this service until just now but I worry that it is another
volley against the consumer in the war on the attention span.

It can't be good for individuals or our collective to consume all of our media
in short, predigested clips (or posts, or comments). I genuinely believe that
the average capacity for "long running" thoughts (and general idea complexity)
is being eroded.

All of our media seems to be

------
throwawaysea
I think a big problem might be marketing. I’ve not seen Quibi advertised
anywhere. I don’t know anyone personally who has tried it. I only know a few
who have even heard of it. Even if you consider the conversion rate good, I
don’t think they’ve had many people at the top of their funnel.

~~~
rchaud
They advertise constantly on Instagram

------
ogre_codes
The conversion rate isn't the biggest problem. The big problem is their launch
got so little momentum/ uptake to begin with and their platform has no
presence. In spite of their high dollar Super Bowl commercial, nobody outside
tech seems to know what they are or why they would subscribe to them.

Having an unknown service is bad enough, but they have no base to grow from.
Disney+ is _Disney_. Apple TV+ has Apple behind them and is able to offer a
free year with every iPhone. HBO, CBS, MLB, and even Hulu have big, well known
brands with known content. Everyone in streaming started with a base or with
at least free content.

It's not the 8% that's the issue here, it's the fact that they have fewer than
a hundred thousand users and no momentum.

------
lnanek2
The free trial code was pretty poorly implemented. I remember I signed up, and
it didn't let me watch immediately. By the time I verified email or whatever
the heck they wanted and tried again, the trial had expired and so I never
even got to try a single video...

------
cs702
I'm not sure which one is more "impressive," between Wirecard and Quibi, as a
mechanism for making around $2 billion disappear.

On one hand, Wirecard at least maintained the illusion that the money had not
been disappearing, for years and years. They fooled auditors, regulators, and
investors all over the world, again and again. That takes major _cojones_.

On the other hand, Quibi is managing to vaporize the money very quickly with
Hollywood glamour and spectacle. If you're going to blow things up, there's
something to be said for doing it with style. Peter Sellers would be proud of
their unintentional "performance."

At least Wirecard did it intentionally.

------
x87678r
Quibi should be ad-supported, I can't see how else it could get popular. I
look at the website and I can't even see any videos.

I'd actually like a good alternative to Youtube, this could have been it.

~~~
bmarquez
Quibi actually already has an ad-supported plan, you pay $4.99 a month and get
a 4-15 second ad every time you watch a new episode.

It's incredibly annoying when you have to watch ads every time you queue an
episode to download for offline viewing.

------
jacquesm
A ~10% conversion from free to paid is something quite a few companies would
sign for on the spot. Depending on the industry you can see < 1% to < .1% and
still be happy. All that matters is whether or not the customers that do
convert stay long enough to make it worth your while. If 50% converts but they
all cancel after month 1 that's a lot worse than if 10% converts and they stay
for 30 years.

------
RIMR
Oh no, that reminds me that I need to cancel before I pay for another month.
Truly terrible service. Amazed they got the funding they did.

------
JadoJodo
Obviously this is anecdata but: I've not been drawn to Quibi at all because
I've tried to be MORE purposeful in my entertainment choices ("I feel like
watching that new Funny Movie tonight"), not less ("Eh, I've got 10-minutes
until the dentist calls me in. Better fill that with a random thing on
Quibi").

------
rameezt123
sensor tower is great for mobile app estimates but really falls flat on its
face with streaming.

first, downloads do not mean payment or usage. you can download an app long
before you use it.

second, as netflix confirmed years ago, 70%+ of sign-ups happen on TVs –
probably even more during COVID – so app activity is not a meaningful lever of
insights.

[https://www.vox.com/2018/3/7/17094610/netflix-70-percent-
tv-...](https://www.vox.com/2018/3/7/17094610/netflix-70-percent-tv-viewing-
statistics)

------
deeviant
I have serious doubts as the viability of Quibi, mainly from my experience
with sci-fi short-story compilations.

Sure there have been some great short story compilations, but paradoxically,
the better they are the worse they feel. As you just get invested in a great
story/world only to have it end a short time later.

------
pkamb
Where is the vertical video app that lets you watch your favorite
YouTube/IG/Twitch-type “content creators” on your phone in the same
easy/addictive format as Stories?

That seems to be what people want, not network produced scripted tv made brief
+ vertical.

~~~
umeshunni
> Where is the vertical video app that lets you watch your favorite
> YouTube/IG/Twitch-type “content creators” on your phone in the same
> easy/addictive format as Stories?

I think you just described TikTok.

~~~
pkamb
Yeah, this kind of content/UI is definitely available on Instagram, TikTok,
Snapchat, and probably Facebook.

YouTube and Twitch though seem to have some of the strongest "content creator"
culture and are both still stuck in landscape videos and other sub-optimal
phone UI.

------
dboshardy
I acknowledge this is my cynicism mostly talking, but I get the impression
that Quibi has switched to the "guilt the consumer into subscribing" marketing
strategy given all the press about it (including interviews with executives).

------
Hamuko
I can't imagine Apple TV+ having any better conversion rate unless people just
forget to cancel their subscriptions at the end of the trial. There's just so
little content there and basically nothing that people talk about.

~~~
kin
I got a year of Apple TV+ just for getting a new Apple device. If you cancel
early, you cancel for good. I put a reminder on my calendar to cancel at the
end of a trial. I have yet to even attempt to watch anything because of poor
reviews and klout. I remember during the Apple TV+ announcement that Tim Cook
was using phrases like "the best stories" and "the best content". I thought it
was so arrogant.

~~~
bluthru
Apple is diluting their brand with this nonsense.

~~~
verisimilidude
I think there's a place for Apple to get this right. They have a music
streaming service that makes sense. They're a major player in the podcast
space. They've long sold digital music, TV, and movies. Apple has been in the
content game since the early days of the iPod. A properly executed Apple TV+
could fit with their brand.

But you're right, they're fucking up.

To me, Apple's content tends to be way too safe. It's boring. (Or, at least it
was boring when I saw it.) If I want straight-down-the-middle-of-American-
culture-type content, I already have Disney+ and way too many other choices.
If they want to grab my attention, they need to take some risks and/or find
their niches.

This is what I appreciate about the other major tech company with a me-too
streaming service: Amazon. Prime Video is willing to take risks on weird genre
stuff, and some of it is really good. I could never see Apple releasing
something like Fleabag or The Boys. That perception is probably why Apple TV+
has been so forgettable. _Boring_ has no place in Apple's branding.

~~~
Hamuko
> _They have a music streaming service that makes sense. They 're a major
> player in the podcast space. They've long sold digital music, TV, and
> movies._

The transition from a music store to a music streaming platform made sense.
"Hey, you know the music that you could have bought so far? Well, now you can
stream it."

Not so much for the movie/TV show business. "Hey, you know the TV shows and
movies you could rent and buy? Well, fuck those, we have ten original titles
that you should watch instead."

Apple TV+ doesn't feel like it builds on top of the experience and connections
made with the movie/TV show renting/selling business. I just opened up the
Apple TV application on my iPhone and the What to Watch list is rather sad.
First one is USS Greyhound, which might actually be a decent watch. Next one
is "Greatness Code", doesn't really look like my cup of tea, but probably it's
probably not crap. In third there's "The Gentlemen" \- oops, only available
for purchase at 13.99 euro!

------
droningparrot
I'm sure there's more to it than this, but I think that a bit of unfortunate
timing may have contributed to Quibi's demise. This may have had a chance in
the pre-lockdown world when everyone was rushing around, and had a few short
moments of boredom in between.

With most people no longer commuting and most forms of entertainment and
recreation closed, a lot of people have fewer things competing for their time.
I think many people are now spending their time on things that use up longer
chunks of time: watching TV or movies, going outside, and hobbies.

------
jimbobimbo
Is Disney's conversion rate and subscriber numbers a valid benchmark for
startup's conversion rate and subscriber numbers though?

------
poof_he_is_gone
Their Princess Bride home movie is fantastic.

------
jyriand
Never heard of this service. Seems like they have too much money at hand. When
you have billions you start to think that every problem can be solved with
money and that inhibits creative solutions. Instead of organic growth based on
the value they can provide, they try to buy their way into the premium league.

------
alkibiades
you mean audiences didn’t flock to “gayme show”? did they try at all to make
content they think people want rather than blindly just getting celebs on it?

------
bhouston
Quibi always sort of seemed like it was going to fail hard.

------
koiz
Create bad content and no one will care.

------
hello_friendos
I loved Quibi's short form dramatic and comedic content.

Shape of Pasta is a cooking show about rare pasta types -- sometimes being
made by only a single person in a village!

Run This City - A documentary about Jasiel Correia, the youngest mayor in
Massachusetts who get's caught in numerous controversies.

Nightgowns follows Drag Queen Sasha Velour's Nightgowns tour, this program
worked particularly well on the service.

There are a couple more shows that I live Dishmantled, Let's Roll, Singled
Out.

The issue is that these shows had 7 - 10 episodes each. Most of Quibi's
content is daily news programming. It honestly felt similar to the daily news
shows I can get on Snapchat for free.

If Quibi had more shows like the non-daily news shows I think I would have
stayed longer, but Quibi's content is mostly daily news.

~~~
9nGQluzmnq3M
I mean, I like pasta as much as the next guy, but if their best show is "a
cooking show about rare pasta types", I'm not in the least surprised they're
having trouble getting people to pay for this.

~~~
lnanek2
I actually know a lot of asian women who like watching what's essentially food
tourism TV series and even recommend them to me. Food is definitely a genre
that has fans. Besides big fancy ones that go to new cities and regions every
episode, there's also smaller fun ones like how the Japanese have a live
action and cartoon version of a guy who goes to a different food shop every
episode.

------
rydre
I doubt the retention rate. It's probably much higher then 10%.

------
jariel
? !0% is a pretty good conversion rate though.

That's a positive number. If they had designed their business around 'the next
2 years' and not 'everyone will buy all of it right away' well then maybe they
stood a chance.

