Quibi

Quibi stands as the most spectacular capital incineration in recent streaming history. Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman raised $1.75 billion to build a mobile-only streaming service for "quick bites" of premium content, but it launched in the exact month when COVID-19 lockdowns trapped everyone at home watching TV on big screens—a catastrophic timing that immediately rendered the core premise absurd. Quibi peaked at just 910,000 paying subscribers against a target of 7.4 million, meaning it missed expectations by 88%. The company shut down after exactly six months and 12 days, burning through roughly $2.8 million per day. While the content was fine, the thesis—that people would pay $5/month to watch shows only on phones in 10-minute chunks—was fundamentally delusional, outperformed by the free, ad-supported TikTok model that Quibi explicitly tried to compete with and failed to beat.