Rabbit, Gone: My Open Letter to the Video Streaming and Video Chat Community
By Justin Weissberg, Co-Founder and President, Kast
The sudden shutdown of Rabbit was a wake up call.
Watching the forums and threads in the wake of that loss, what became apparent to me is that video streaming and video chat platforms are much more than just a way to share games and casually hang out. Our community of users really, really love their platforms, and they use them to keep essential relationships online — to have authentic experiences that are a part of their daily lives. If the platform they know and love vanishes, it leaves an exit wound. Our technology is part of us, and it matters, and when we lose a part of what matters to us, that’s a legitimate loss.
Moving forward, as a sector, what we need to do in the wake of losing Rabbit is to define better what video streaming and video chat platform companies should be doing to put stability, sustainability, and the long-term future of all these meaningful experiences front and center. Yes, we have to be lean. Also, we have to be nimble. However, if users can’t trust that we’re building platforms destined to last, why invest in our promise at all?
So, here let me offer three critical points for building the sustainable future of video streaming and video chat platforms, my shortlist of what we should do to create a model for the long haul.
1. Monetization Can’t Be the Elephant in the Room
Self-sustaining companies that grow, thrive, and innovate ultimately depend upon transactions. Our industry has to get comfortable with building revenue models. So, let’s be real with each other and create monetization ideas that make sense for everyone. I want to be able to have a highly productized experience that’s personal to me, and that’s what users want as well.
The future of monetization in our sector will be subscriptions, coupled with micro-transactions. Think of a Netflix-like subscription featuring one-time transactions, in which you can bundle together different services and get exclusive digital goodies. As another example, something that’s missing for video streaming (and a lot of other services) is rewarded video ads. I find this whole approach incredibly exciting, and it’s already one of the most highly monetized elements in mobile games. When you think about content that people care about, that they interact with for hours, why wouldn’t you want to dovetail those experiences with a video ad that rewards, something you can use to access new anime or buy digital assets or whatever it is that represents your interests and passions? That’s a way to monetize that feels right on both sides of the equation. My point is, we can make money less of an issue by being just as creative as our users in figuring out what is a comfortable way to transact.
2. Omni-Channel Platforms Are the Future
Video streaming and video chat platforms owe it to everyone to evolve into a cross-platform industry. What we make needs to be accessible via smart TV, web browser, mobile apps, desktop, everything. The video game industry is an excellent example of how this works to users’ and companies’ benefit. Look at it. Everyone’s shooting for cross-platform now — Sony and Microsoft just this past May, doing a handshake deal, saying that they’re going to work together on gaming, and Nintendo finally allowing Xbox Live on its Switch devices. Everyone’s coming to understand that it’s better to cooperate and be on all platforms than it is to be on one platform alone. It’s what our users want; it opens business opportunities for all, and that’s good for sustainability.
3. Offer Users Every Interface Option
We must always aim for what users want to experience. What matters most in the video streaming and video chat platform sector is listening to user feedback and creating an interface that adapts to what they’re doing with the platform. For example, people who watch movies together want to be able to be immersed in their own experience as well as be directly connected to the others that want that part of that experience. In those cases, a large video window, front and center on the screen is often ideal. Meanwhile, when it comes to other types of interfaces, some users will prefer a smaller video window on the screen so that they have the video experience but also do other things as well. Our industry must highly democratize platform interfaces to the point that the user feels as if they can have any experience they want without being limited.
We’re A Community; That Comes First
All this being said, we’re ready to help you in the near term.
You’ll hear more from us at Kast in the coming weeks and months, but, for now, let me take a moment on behalf of everyone here to wish only the best to the talented people who worked very hard to build Rabbit. May you achieve quick and excellent landings. Engineers and developers who are still up in the air from that outcome, please reach out to us if you have ideas that we’d be excited to know about at Kast. To our friends who were interacting on Rabbit, if you have use cases that the platform you recently lost helped satisfy, let’s chat and see what we can do to get you back up and running.
We’re a community, in the end, and, as a community, we’re in this together.
