Why did Quibi really fail?
Quibi was supposed to be the perfect prescription for the Short Attention Economy: short-form, big-talent, snackable stories to watch on your little screen while on the go.
But it was not to be. After $1.75 billion in investment, Quibi shut down.
Maybe it was the pandemic, which eliminated commuting downtime for lots of people.
Maybe it was the competition, with millions of people on YouTube & TikTok & Insta already making free stuff, and several streaming services already launched.
Maybe it was the feature set, which only let you watch on mobile.
But here's another idea: maybe we don't actually have such short attention spans after all.
This is the era of binge-watching TV shows and 3-hour-long Peter Jackson movies and 6-book fantasy series and 4-hour-long gaming sessions and 45-minute-long podcasts.
People's attention spans are fine. The real issue is creating things interesting enough to hold them. And that's a timeless challenge even Orson Welles struggled with.
Oh — and that thing about goldfish having no attention span or memory: it's not true either.