Why Curiosity Stream Failed
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 พ.ย. 2024
- In this video we look at the niche streaming service Curiosity Stream. It focuses on non-fiction documentaries. It went public by merging with a SPAC in 2020. Since then the company has failed to achieve profitability and its stock price has fallen by almost 90%. So what went wrong?
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Spent it all on TH-cam Sponsorships...
Irony!
It's cheaper than other forms of advertisement
@@seyramamezah3815 more proof youtubers are scum of the earth for everybody
I spend all my money on deep OTM Options. Maybe CuriosityStream is just as regarded as the rest of us.
Fax
Huh, now that you mention it I haven’t heard any ads from them in a long time 😂
Yeah I was wondering what happened to it.
Something must have happened to Raid Shadow Legends too.
Yes same here..
Me neither but sponsorblock is a thing that might also explain it :D
But in good news, Legal Eagle etc are pushing Nebula for $300/life or $30/yr.
I liked the idea behind CuriosityStream, but when I tried it out, their documentaries had lower production quality than most reasonably successful TH-cam channels, and there was so much junk on there, that there was literally no reason to pay for it.
This was pretty much my experience as well, and there was so much short form videos. I can just watch that on YT for free lol
It was so obviously "how can we make the most Content for cheap". I signed up so quickly for the service originally and unsubbed just as fast after using it
I had an identical experience. I was excited st first to have all this information to absorb but it was so low quality, not just aesthetically, but informationally too. Major disappointment.
I had curiosity only for its bundle with nebula, i havent opened curiosity more than 10 times during 3 years of bundle... while i still use nebula daly.
It is funny that curiosity was investor in nebula and nebula is successful while curiosity is failing
Honestly I was excited for this service but their originals usually have early-mid 2000s documentary vibes. Some of it was great tho! I loved Titans tho, solid production mixed with interesting stuff about the founding of wall street
As a lifelong "science geek" I remember giving up on TV documentaries decades ago. They are too general and the information content too low. With TH-cam for instance I can find a specific, targeted, high information density video from an individual creator if I want to know about a subject, be it science, history, technology, etc.
TV docos: Here's a hour doco on WW2 battleships.
Drachinifel: here's an hour video on WW2 gun barrels, and here's an hour video on WW2 naval anti-air guns, and here's a 90min one on metallurgy, design and manufacture of their armour.....
@@somethinglikethat2176 Spot on!
Right? I can't stand the slow cinematic sensationalist framing of documentaries. Finding some nerd gushing about a cool topic online is so much more interesting.
@@randfur Totally agree.
Strategy:
Go public with a SPAC
Have buddy short stock
Have stock tank
Get fired
Retire to beach
step 6: SEC catches up
Step 7: Go to jail
Step 8: Released from jail after 5 years (early, good behavior, etc). Then go back to beach with all the money the SEC never finds.
Step 9: Start family office 🤣
😂
" went public by merging with a SPAC"
Me: closes the video because I already know how this ends
Yeah, I've seen enough of these vids to know the ending
The moment he said that, I came down here to comment on it too. Failed to corporate suicide.
Me whenever I heard 'Leverage Buyout' on theese kind of videos...
Please explain me what SPAC is I don't know🙈🙂
Same, me don't get it too
It would have been amazing if this video was sponsored by Curiosity Stream.
Just like the Temu video haha
You mean people don’t want to pay for a 10th streaming platform they’ll watch maybe once a month?
I mean, there are idiots out there with a peacock subscription
but just 20$, an other sub could be canceled before
I only pay for a subscription if there's a movie or series I want to binge watch. After it finished, I immediately cancel my subscription.
Never underestimate the power of TH-cam Premium. That’s all one truly needs.
There really needs to be some pay-per-view streaming service.
I subscribed to that CuriosityStream/Nebula bundle. You are right. Never used CS.
CS didn't have a lot of good content, they even had CrashCourse videos as content 🤡
@@EduardoEscarezIsn't crash course on TH-cam-
@@spaghettiisyummy.3623 Yep, CuriosityStream was reselling free content on their platform. That's where I knew that service was doomed to have low quality content.
I've subscribed to both for a year now. They're both pretty shite.
I wish my parents would merge their marriage together again through a SPAC. 😢
That's hilarious lol
My guess is that it would be short lived
are you the SPAC
Hahahaha! Best comment of the year!
Try to contact Chamath Palihapitiya . With some small fee , he may able to con your parents to re-marriage.
I signed up because Nebula was included, not because I wanted Curiosity Stream. So when I found out they stopped paying Nebula (even though they were still offering it!) I cancelled and signed up with Nebula directly. But my understanding is that they were still including Nebula, because the agreement allowed that. They just weren’t paying for it after the deal was done.
Same thing, I joined CS to access Nebula. CS content has never been too interesting, and when Real Engineering posted a tweet warning about the changes in the subscription model, was when I jumped to Nebula directly.
IMO: Nebula and CuriosityStream should have merged from Day 1. The services should have included view counts, likes and comments to be as interesting as the TH-cam experience.
true! come to think of it the lack of interactivity with the community there was a major turnoff for me (comments, likes, etc.)
Two different production/sales models.
CurStr: invest in a production and sell it off (amortize it) over time.
Nebula: invest in the platform to keep the producers/creators fed and running.
hm, a bundle does that
could've put it on the same platform
It could save both.
Nebula and CuriosityStream have two different business/ownership models so its impossible to merge.
Also, in the case of Nebula, they decide to not have "social features" because for the side of the creators they're most times a nightmare.
Anytime you hear "merging with a SPAC" get ready for some disappointment.
I thought the same thing lmao I even said “aww shit”
“60% of the time.. all the time” lmao
And it got so many Advertisements because of nebula
looks like nebula did a great job milking them
@@andriusnesvarbu-o8d or the other way around
And nebula sucks too.
@@LittleRadicalThinkerAh drat again… reality hurts,
@@LittleRadicalThinker is it that bad?
I want to watch Nebula, which was bundled with Curiosity Stream. When they dropped Nebula, i dropped them. I still subscribed to Nebula.
Same!
Why?
How is the streaming speed and stability on Nebula? Most streaming services like Hulu, Crunchyroll, and Amazon prime run terribly in my state but TH-cam runs okay.
@@bunnybunnyloaf Nebula runs great for me
@@bunnybunnyloafit's been a few months since my sub ran out, but I remember the streaming quality was just a little bit worse than youtube. The difference was usually negligible but sometimes vids would buffer while youtube was still running smooth.
I’m going to go public by merging with a SPAC.
I wish my parents would merge their marriage together again through a SPAC. 😢
@@rburk121copy pasta
Wait.. uh... how do I process this comment 😂
According to my estimates you could be generating revenue of $2b by 2025 and profitable by 2026
There's actually a decent book series called The Unincorporated Man that is pretty related to your comment lol.
Nebula finessed curiosity out of everything
I've been on an old TH-cam video kick, and it's wild all the sponsored video ads that are hard coded into the videos and still playing...even though the companies are long gone or have been proven to be a scam.
Sponsored videos are like lifetime advertising.
I actually tried curiosity stream for a bit, but quickly got bored since they just didn't have a great catalogue of content I'd be interested in. Meanwhile all my favorite series were available on youtube with regular releases. No surprise to me that it ultimately failed... other than the huge amounts of advertisement from youtube sponsorship shoutouts.
Damn this soothed an itch I hadn’t realised I’d have. I’d completely forgotten about this company
If Discovery just put cameras on a fishing boat, it would be a way better show, I just want to see the work, the catch, and their daily life on a boat without discovery's script.
There's a reason Why documentary type works tend to be publicly funded, ad funded or prefunded. people in general are not always curious every month to see a random documentary of some random science-based topics. people rather be entertained on a regular and even that is not going to get a steady monthly stream, but it's more likely. Hence why theres not much of this content on tv. Streaming to just be a business model that most of us are tired of.
Well, some are.
Most people are not curious at all. YT makes most of its money off of mindless pop-culture gibberish. Science and intellectual content isn't even a rounding error to them.
@@obsidianjane4413and let’s not forget how much money YT is making off all these hate videos and channels. Obviously YT doesn’t releaae any precise numbers, but I reckon it must be significant.
"By merging with a SPAC." Drink up! This channel will turn me into an alcoholic I swear.
Rather sad to see them go, I'd thought about checking them out, on and off. But so it happens. Others can learn from them.
I loved the idea of curiosity stream but the streaming space is sooooo competitive
I was one of the Curiosity Stream subscribers. You hit the nail on head with this. I only subscribed for the Nebula bundle. I watched three or so videos before cancelling. Why? The player was shit and the costs were to high for me to justify the expense. I was there for TH-cam nothing more
>SPAC
> aight imma head out
I have the service and their documentaries look and feel low budget. I was under the impression that they would have a huge library of content from made by many other production companies but it’s mostly the low quality CS content.
I didn't realize the price had doubled. I just went and cancelled 😆 I got in early in 2018 but found they didn't add new content nearly enough. I had sort of forgotten I was still subscribed! I wonder how many other people are this careless
Same. It took me about 2 weeks to watch everything I wanted to watch.
@@jimmmount3287 glad I’m not the only one
Still the best UI/UX of any platform to date. I liked it too maybe just me but I ended up not using it too much. I don't streem too much anyway but i have them.
I signed up to a nebula / curiosity stream bundle a while back. Lots of TH-camrs I watch are on it. Nebula is ok, and I did try watching curiosity stream a few times but found it decidedly average tv quality stuff, so I didn’t renew.
I’d go back to nebula, but not curiosity stream
Niche is a tough sell in this space.
saw merging with spac --> close stream
The fact that Nebula is the one killing Curiosity Stream is actually funny lol
If they are going down, why not pay employees more instead? Does paying dividends indicate that the leadership has stock and pumping the stock/paying out dividends is the most efficient way for them to cash out?
seems like it, this looks like sec investigation territory, but wait the supreme court won't let them do anything about it..
It's a way to get some cash out at least (not sure if the most efficient).
If you invested your life savings of $1,000,000 in it at $10/share, and now that investment is only worth $58,000, wouldn't you want to try to get something out of it while you still can?
Paying the employees more wouldn't do that, it would just be more of your investment lost.
I already pay for TH-cam Premium, I am not paying extra for what is mostly the same channels
I think you are confusing nebula and curiosity stream.
you are confusing nebula and curiosity stream.
@@jasonmacfarlund2703 applies to both
Don’t free Yourtube show the same content?
@user-qv6ud2hx6f did you watch the video? Curiosity stream is documentaries not on youtube.
Can confirm I never used curiosity stream while watching nebula
The moment they stopped the bundle with nebula I knew it’s over
The moment when after i bought the CuriosityStream/Nebula bundle and i couldn't find anything worth watching on CuriosityStream even after 20 minutes of trying I knew it was over
"They were charged for a year of curiositystream which they didn't want"
This is exactly what happened to me
thanks for doing a video on this group.
felt like i was seeing their sponsored ads for a really long time.
i think your conclusions make a lot of sense. pretty much people not being able to afford another streaming service and a quality thing as far as seeing other documentary topics they could get on TH-cam for free.
after the 4th repetition of "documentary is cheaper to make than scripted content" i had to turn off. does gpt 3 write your scripts now? stop repeating yourself man!
But how would you understand that documentary is cheaper than scripted content!!!???
With the example given to support this being game of thrones, like wut…
LMAO his content has also been going down 90%
@@not_a_sp00klol yeah, lemme give an example [names one of the most expensive TV productions ever]
😂are you triggered? You voted for biden
Big fan of Nebula, never been a fan of Curiosity Stream, so no surprise it is failing
Before I’ve started the video guess that it has something to do with how most of their documentaries felt like ads, propaganda, or conspiracy theories.
Am watching this on Magellan TV and Wondrium and Nebula.
Hey, does anyone know if a documentary is cheaper to produce than a television drama????
If only it was mentioned in the video 🤣
It absolutely is. That's why reality TV is a thing
if you just recording random animal in wild and improvise the script, so that cheaper because animal not have wages
That's me. Got the Nebula bundle, only opened Curiosity once. 😅
Yeah. When they had the bundle I never watched a single Curiosity Stream video despite having the app installed and everything. When the bundle ended, I subscribed to Nebula. Mostly because of Patrick H Willems.
Same. Used Patrick’s link to sign up. Never watched a single Curiosity Stream doc. Film Tube content on Nebula alone is worth it.
I do feel like there’s an argument that documentary content is evergreen, and that the subscribers they currently have are probably pretty loyal, especially at the low yearly cost, but that there probably aren’t many more subscribers they can profitably acquire. If that’s the case then it probably makes sense to pull back on the investment and instead focus on managing expenses and getting the most out of what they have.
I sub to curiosity but dropped it soon after. I wanted to check out the history documentaries but they were pretty lacking imo. Pbs docs is way better. Very good breakdown, i think you hit the nail on the head here.
Many of those “documentaries” like Deadliest Catch are effectively dramas at some level. Human conflict and drama is the big draw for TV - in any form.
I did get a bundle with nebula and then was charged for a second year full price cause I forgot
It just doesn't have as great historical documentaries as youtube has especially on more ancient times.
Yeah, I originally subscribed to CS because of their content, but the quality felt worse than some of the stuff I watched on TH-cam, so I didn't actually watch it much. Then overtime the TH-camrs made Nebula, and partnered with CS, which felt like a great deal, so I switched to the bundle. However, overtime I almost stopped watching CS completely and was just watching TH-cam and Nebula, but I stuck with the bundle since it was still a better deal than Nebula on its own. But after the bundle died, I just switched to Nebula, since it had the content I was actually watching, even if it wasn't as cheap as CS.
Used to have cable, now we pay for each channel through streaming services.
I was one of those people you mentioned who bought the nebula bundle and never once looked at curiositystream
Dividends can only be paid out of retained profits, in the UK at least. If they’ve never made a profit, how can they pay a dividend?
They have positive operating cashflow
@@cathode5115 that isn’t relevant. It’s fraud in most countries in fact. No profits = no dividend can be paid
Was waiting for the Curiosity Stream pitch!
I wanted to sign up, I was really interested good science content. Then I saw they were promoting Deepak Chopra on some panel discussion on consciousness.
That’s when I knew the content would be garage.
The content made by Curosity Stream is okay if you want something to play in the background while you do other things, but documentaries are something you have to be in a particular mood for and I can't say they're something I'd pay a recurring subscription fee for specifically, especially when you can find older made-for-TV documentaries on many of the same topics in just about any other platform you're already paying for. Seems like their business model was centered on people forgetting they had a subscription because it was cheap enough to be overlooked as a monthly expense.
7:45 ouch... I was thinking 'wow that's a great collaboration' until I heard this... curiosity stream should have negotiated a bit harder
That’s how sponsored ad works. The problem is CS was essentially paying their competitors (TH-camrs). Hello Fresh also pays cash for TH-camrs for ad reads, but they are not in the same niche.
I havent checked out Curiosity Stream since my 1 yr Curiosity+Nebula sub ran out some months back and haven't gotten around to renewing it, so seeing this on my feed was a shock, to put it lightly
it was a GREAT idea that deserved to succeed, hopefully something similar takes its place
Nebula funds originals now that are wat better than whatever CuriosityStream made
Funny that MOST youtubers were running ads for them. At least this one wasn't an outright scam.
I signed up for Nebula and CS bundle. Once I lost nebula access and the price went from $14/year to $40 I canceled. I never watched CS.
14:17 this is the whole point
It failed because it was youtubbers making TH-cam just for a subscription fee. Least surprising news of the year
You’re confusing Nebula with Curiosity Stream
If I was a private equity firm I'd buy up curiosity stream and operate at a loss cause their content is so cool sometimes
I signed up, as a documentary lover. I never extended trial, here's why:
1) Immediate similarity to Discovery Channel TV documentaries. Not a good thing (cheap, scripted feeling. Boring camera work, average acting or over acting). It just felt like 2010 Discovery stuff all over again, a format I was happy to leave behind (after years of TH-cam content).
2) TH-cam content was, at the time, more interesting to me, thematically.More contemporary and more niche, more fun.
3) Video presentation and visual style were miles behind free productions on TH-cam.
4) the constant spamming if Nebula/curiosity stream literally everywhere on the Internet started to really work on my nerves. Very pushy marketing. I don't want to pay for something I already get on TH-cam for free.
0:07 Well that's your first mistake lol
I gift my dad CS every year and he loves it.
What I think can be successful is a youtube that is tailored to specific content areas. Like we use to have forums as the main thing on the internet until youtube.
My only interest in Curiosity Stream was the connection with Nebula, since a few YT CC I watch are part of it. Ultimately, I remain only in YT, paying for premium to avoid ads and support my favorite creators on Patreon.
I had curiosity stream for some time. Their library of content looked interesting on paper, especially the oft-cited human evolution and dino docos. But they were not very fun to watch, average narration and just didn't grip me in spite of how interested I am in the topic. Also their pricing in India was more expensive than Netflix even. Quickly canned the subscription in 2-3 months.
I wanted to subscribe to Curiosity Stream for so long since they are ok with international customers but my wife does not speak English and she would need subtitles, which they don't provide (other than in English, sometimes).
Too bad, we both love documentaries.
If they made sure to have subtitles in different languages, I would immediately subscribe.
I saw some of their Documentarys actually on German TV it seems that they try to be an outsource partner now for them. And they where actually pretty good.
I just never felt compelled enough to visit their website. Weak marketing or Weak product offering
Well, I guess I contributed. I subscribed for a couple of years but rarely used it. For $20 a year, I would have kept with it, but when they auto renewed me at $40, I cancelled and requested a refund.
I forget which smarty pants site I joined but it wasn't what I wanted.. I want documentary deep dives into topics. All the videos were just learning elementary stuff like "cheetas are fast" "whales are mammals" etc... i unsubscribed right away
Curiousity Stream has not failed. They are about to make a huge comeback!
If a university is showing films, instead of providing lectures, it is more like a high school than anything else.
If you consider teachers actually caring about students and learning rather than treating them as cash cows then high school is superior to university
@@Metalixl agree. I think the biggest crime in education is the low expectation served to highschoolers during the students' crest of intellectual potential.
In Alabama, that potential is wasted having kids bash their heads into each other playing football. Stupid state.
@@DumbledoreMcCracken sorry, but if people are aware of this, and what it to change, why hasn't it actually changed?
So... basically we missed the short. You guys are extremely late.
You can still short them, they are up a lot this year on no real news
@@cathode5115 Naaah. I'll pass. Just checked $CURI and it's trading for a buck. I tend to avoid trading in the sewers. We missed the short. Life sucks.
If you ask me,
While documentaries are cheaper to make, good ones still take time to make and they are less guaranteed to garner an audience (lest they devolve into cheap reality tv style tricks or outright misinformation like Tiger Kings or Supersize Me or whatever insanity Ancient Aliens claims to be).
So you can’t have an entire business model of just documentaries.
Better to have a variety of fiction and non fiction.
The moment I heard the word SPAC, I knew it was a scam and going to 0. Paying a dividend just makes it faster.
i had a subscription to them via Nebula. dropped the Curiosity stream part cause i wound up paying for Discovery's thing as my Grandparents want to watch their shows and not what was on Curiosity stream.
The endless TH-cam ads for Curiosity Stream never made me get interested enough as to actually try the service. I just kept thinking: "if it is that great, why do they keep trying to promote it all the time?". Also, the ads gave me the impression that it would be very similar to TH-cam, just paying and that didn't sound like a good deal.
I got the Nebula/CS bundle because I wanted Nebula. I got CS but never Nebula, which is all I really wanted. I made sure I canceled before it was over and revoked their ability to charge my debit card, just in case. CS wasn't bad but for me, it wasn't worth $20/year much less $40/year. TH-cam has tons of high quality, free documentaries. Just my opinion.
Idk I love the type of content curiosity stream offered but there wasnt much on there that I hadnt already seen before.
I've just subscribed to Curiosity Stream. Retired mathematician, hearing impaired. EOFY special price. It works fine to my laptop, so I'm partially satisfied. But it's abysmal to my Smart TV, and the assistance from curiosity stream is at about the same level. Despite several requests for help, there's been essentially a single response, and that was 100% generic.
The market for any boutique streaming service with specialized content is going to limited because, whether it's documentaries or something else, Netflix probably already has enough content in the category to serve most people's needs. Even if you do manage to come up with something that the major streaming services aren't really providing, they'll probably just start producing more of it once a smaller service demonstrates that there's a market.
Here’s is why TH-cam/Nebula has an advantage - the parasocial factor. People watch creators they know and trust talking about topics they may not be interested in. Netflix doesn’t give you that.
I hope someone with the storage space saves these documentaries so they don’t become lost media
Because they advertised on TH-cam? My rule is that anything that advertises heavily using TH-cam sponsorship is not worth the money.
Lot of this appraisal is spot on.
But the elephant in the savannah is this - saturation.
To succeed corporations or startups BOTH need to bring their A game.
Lazy money grabs based on patronising assumptions won't work.
In this case, Nebula is both curated, created & watched by intelligent inquisitive ppl.
But Curiosity Stream is wildlife porn, and that gets boring fast.
Also, not convinced Hendricks actually knows much beyond the management suite dogma.
Discovery spin-off channels are a sign of the typical money grabbing mindset, peddling gross-out porn, 'alternative' history & science & other ultra-low braincell content.
You know these ppl would stream REAL porn if it was legal.
I had it for 3 years, and I barely opened it. It simply doesn't have content to watch...
A bit similar with Nebula. I'm not subscribing after the split.
When I saw $20 per year and the scope of what they would need that for, I already figured this would be an unprofitable business plan to start off with without some type of heavy investment to keep them in the black. Especially if they didn't have any other monetization to supplement that. Even $10 a month per customer would have been more profitable in the long run regardless of how their churn rate would be. If the documentaries were good, people would stay on naturally it keep coming back to reactivate their accounts. They didn't think that part through.
I was very hyped about Curiosity but the delivery was subpar. It took me too long to find anything watchable there. Many of the "documentaries" where just lectures or podcasts - just ppl filmed while talking. And almost history exclusively - aside maybe from cosmos exploration science was underrepresented IMHO. If they would deliver what was promised it could have been a major success.
I was thinking they declared a dividend to pop the stock so they can sell more worthless shares to the public 😂😂 that's the new game now, sell to the wall st bet crowd
i don't think there's a ton of overlap between dividend investors and wall st bets redditors though
20% yield ⚠️ 🚩
advertising on a platform that offers free versions of the thing your selling, good thinking guys. youtube has practically unlimited docs on every subject, some of which are high quality
Weird ... because Ive been happily streaming shows on Curisity Stream for the past 2 years.... I enjoy their content
I love Nebula but Curiosity eh. Was cool when it was a bundle but after that canceled it and kept Nebula. But ffs they need a tv app!
I use their app on a Roku TV
I was always tempted to try curiosity stream, just never had the time or energy to bother. It was not really about money.