Suggesting they are in a trough implies that there was an initial bump of enthusiasm which seems completely absent. There was a bit of advertising driven early uptake, but it didn't stick at all. I'm not even sure I'd consider a celebrity backed company that was backed by nearly $2B out of the gate a startup in the normal sense.

The problem with Quibi is that they never saw that initial bump. They went straight from launch to the trough.