# Quibi shutting down **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 21, 2020, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quibi-shutting-down/923535 "2020-10-21T21:00:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Dag\_Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@Dag\_Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dag_Otto)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2020, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quibi-shutting-down/923535/21 "2020-10-23T14:55:37Z")
Forget the six months. Hire me as a subcontractor and I guarantee we’ll have this thing done by close of business today. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2020, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quibi-shutting-down/923535/22 "2020-10-23T15:10:22Z")
I’m willing to take on the [Brewster](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brewster%27s_Millions) challenge. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2020, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quibi-shutting-down/923535/23 "2020-10-23T15:26:11Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > Still amazing that they blew through almost two billion in less than a year. I wonder if it’s possible to blow through more in less time. It reminds me of the dotcom bust around 20 years ago, when companies that had bloomed overnight like mushrooms withered to nothing even faster. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2020, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quibi-shutting-down/923535/24 "2020-10-23T15:33:29Z")
I was working for one of those dotcoms, in a neighborhood populated by a lot of them and monitoring more via the media. I was amazed that some of them got funding; some of the business plans were really stupid. (And I wondered why no one just embezzled a bunch of the VC money from one of these and disappeared.) ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2020, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quibi-shutting-down/923535/25 "2020-10-23T16:09:52Z")
> [@turner](#): > > From the people who brought you Judge Crissy Tiegen… The only thing I heard about from Quibi was some awful looking buddy comedy staring Anna Kendrick and a CGI’d sex doll. The trailer passed around with a “omg wtf?” sort of reaction. A couple weeks ago, T-Mobile was offering six months of Quibi for free. I didn’t bother because the risk of getting billed $10 in March 2021 wasn’t balanced by the chance to see the Kendrick/Sex Doll buddy comedy. New articles I saw yesterday referred to Quibi as a “Netflix competitor” which made little sense for a platform that shows 10min videos. Feels more like a “YouTube competitor”. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2020, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quibi-shutting-down/923535/26 "2020-10-23T16:37:26Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > The only thing I heard about from Quibi was some awful looking buddy comedy staring Anna Kendrick and a CGI’d sex doll. There is also this. > **[Why on earth does The Golden Arm exist and why on earth is Rachel Brosnahan...](https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/culture/article/quibi-the-golden-arm-rachel-brosnahan)** > > Horror short The Golden Arm, launched on new bite-sized streaming app Quibi, is deeply weird and inexplicably bad, considering the talent involved. ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2020, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quibi-shutting-down/923535/27 "2020-10-23T16:54:50Z")
Your link also led down to this article that echos what I agreed with above about sharing the shows: > **[Let Me Screenshot Your Quibi Show, Cowards](https://www.vulture.com/2020/04/let-me-screenshot-your-quibi-show.html)** > > You can’t control the way that people talk about TV shows online. So why is Quibi trying anyway? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2020, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quibi-shutting-down/923535/28 "2020-10-23T17:11:43Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > The only thing I heard about from Quibi was some awful looking buddy comedy staring Anna Kendrick and a CGI’d sex doll. The trailer passed around with a “omg wtf?” sort of reaction. I remember seeing ads for that. But I had no idea it was connected with Quibi. Which is a sign of poor marketing. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2020, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quibi-shutting-down/923535/29 "2020-10-23T17:17:39Z")
The gimmick they tried to promote in their [Superbowl commercial](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N76DzOYxNyo) was treating “Quibi” as a unit of time (of about ten minutes). And this was a couple of months before the service launched. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2020, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quibi-shutting-down/923535/30 "2020-10-23T17:17:58Z")
When I heard about Quibi I thought the concept was terrible given that Youtube already exists for short videos. But I just assumed I was too old to be in their target demographic so it was okay if I didn’t get it. I never like to see a business fail, but I’m surprised that my first impression was right. ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2020, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quibi-shutting-down/923535/31 "2020-10-23T18:15:51Z")
It will go down with the Edsel, New Coke, Chevy Chase talk show, etc. as big failures ---
**Author:** ![Knowed\_Out](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/knowed_out/32/7380_2.png) [@Knowed\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knowed_Out)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2020, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quibi-shutting-down/923535/32 "2020-10-23T19:28:39Z")
Where did they get the idea they could get that many customers with short attention spans who constantly check their phones? ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2020, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quibi-shutting-down/923535/33 "2020-10-23T20:57:43Z")
What’s the dumbest website idea you seen? I remember there was a YouTube “competitor” about 10 years ago thats gimmick was that it would play a random video every single time you clicked on the website and that supposedly would introduce you to new things and if you liked a video you could then “subscribe” which would up the odds of another of that makers videos to pop up on your feed again. ---
**Author:** ![WildaBeast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wildabeast/32/6_2.png) [@WildaBeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WildaBeast)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2020, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quibi-shutting-down/923535/34 "2020-10-23T22:47:34Z")
> [@Asuka](#): > > What’s the dumbest website idea you seen? I remember some e-commerce site during the dotcom boom where literally everything they sold was “free” – after mail-in rebate. The initial price you paid was quite high compared to what it would normally cost, but if you dutifully filled out and sent back the rebate form you got a check that effectively constituted a full refund of the purchase price. It seemed like they sold a pretty random assortment of products; IIRC I bought some blank CD-R disks and a bottle of Saint John’s wort from them or something like that. And I sent back the rebate form, and got a check back from them both times. I think their business model was based on the idea that they would earn interest on the money you paid for the product between when you paid and when you cashed the rebate check. And of course a certain percentage of people would just forget to send back the rebate form by the deadline. The site didn’t last long. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2020, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quibi-shutting-down/923535/35 "2020-10-23T23:10:31Z")
From what I heard Quibi sounded like a sort of Reader’s Digest Condensed Version of videos, and figured it probably did not have as big an audience as its creators thought it did. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2020, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quibi-shutting-down/923535/36 "2020-10-23T23:15:11Z")
I think “Quibi” stood for “quick bite.” ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2020, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quibi-shutting-down/923535/37 "2020-10-23T23:18:20Z")
[Pets.com](http://Pets.com) was similar, although AFAIK they weren’t rebate-based, but they sold pet care supplies and food at such low cost, there was no way they could have made a profit unless they were somehow getting their stock for free, which wasn’t the case either. ---
**Author:** ![Caprismall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a4c791/32.png) [@Caprismall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Caprismall)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2020, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quibi-shutting-down/923535/38 "2020-10-24T20:19:20Z")
The old joke is that they made it up on volume. In the entertainment industry regulations require using union rules for any content 12 minutes or longer. So the underlieing ethos behind the start-up was that it cut out unions. I imagine a lot of rich folks would sink money into a project they believed was union busiting. ---
**Author:** ![LLCoolL](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/llcooll/32/3596_2.png) [@LLCoolL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LLCoolL)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2020, 11:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quibi-shutting-down/923535/39 "2020-10-28T11:29:14Z")
I had never even heard of it until the recent articles about it shutting down. ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2020, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quibi-shutting-down/923535/40 "2020-10-28T12:19:46Z")
they don’t have to use unions in some states like here in NC Which is one reason they make movies here . [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quibi-shutting-down/923535.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quibi-shutting-down/923535.md?page=3)