When we sit down for a meal or to unwind, one of the first things we tend to do is pick out a web show to watch on our phone. As a result of this growing popularity of streaming platforms these days, there has been a dip in people’s attention span too, feels actor Sharib Hashmi.

“Log paanch minute mein hi decide kar lete hain [if a show is good or bad]. Today, no one will spend two hours watching bad content,” he says.

This, in turn, has made the web space more competitive. “There is more pressure to deliver good content; that’s your primary responsibility on OTT. There’s a treasure of content here. If you want to shine, you have to be excellent,” says the 47-year-old, who was recently seen in the film Mission Majnu.

Having done a host of OTT projects, including Scam 1992, The Family Man and Asur, Hashmi is a fan of the transparency the web offers. “The only thing that matters is word of mouth. I saw that with all my projects. Scam released with less publicity, the platform was not even that popular back then. But, the show was a huge success. If the product is good, you don’t even need to promote it. Word of mouth makes people come sniffing. The response is also immediate,” he reasons.

Does this make social media equally vital, to gauge whether or not a project is successful? “Yes, we are dependent on social media,” he says, adding, “With the web, it’s not as if you have purchased a ticket. When you go to watch a film in a cinema hall, people tend to stick around at least till the interval, probably because they feel they have paid and need to get their money’s worth. But on OTT, if they don’t like something, das minute mein move on kar jaate hain.”