5 ms·

Because I have a historically viral video, they cancel my account?

34 points by WayToDoor 5y ago

yumraj 5y ago
I'm sorry what is the person complaining about? Should every app on AWS using more than the free tier complain that AWS wants them to pay because they have a historically popular app?
- xupybd 5y ago
  That there was an easy fix, and that fix was not suggested as the first option.
  - meowface 5y ago
    And also that the only fix proposed was "the lowest plan we offer", the Entry Level Custom Plan for $8,000/year, for someone who just made a video years ago and abandoned their account.
- halfdan 5y ago
  Going from free tier to "our cheapest plan is $8k/year" is quite a big leap. Vimeo is obviously completely within their rights, but their pricing strategy is questionable from a small content creator's perspective.
  - curryst 5y ago
    I've always had the impression that Vimeo was aiming for the more "enterprise" crowd. Most of the content I've ended up on Vimeo for is corporate, and I presumed that was a conscious decision on their part; to be the "more professional" version of YouTube. The LinkedIn counterpart to YouTube's Facebook-esque strategy. The tagline on their front page even says "Simple tools for any professional, team, and organization to create, manage, and share high-quality videos." The definition of "professional" is certainly up for debate, but the other items in that list make me think they are not talking about small content creators. I don't find it an absurd price point in that context. Many tools go from being free or very cheap to being very expensive in a single tier. GitLab comes to mind as one. Oracle is well known for what I like to call the "crack selling strategy"; the first hit's free, but every one after that is going to be really expensive. They're just not going to be able to compete on price with YouTube, and I can see how it makes sense to support a small number of high-paying customers than it is thousands of tiny content creators. I don't know what they're offering that convinces people to pay for it, but there's apparently something there.
- erichurkman 5y ago
  He's being held to a bandwidth constraint that he has no visibility into. The dashboard only shows about 2% of bandwidth being used. He has no way to a) verify if Vimeo is accurate, nor b) visibility into the other 98% of plays. Would you pay someone if they came to you and said "Pay me $8k, you're using 53x more traffic than you think. No, you can't verify that." Or would you tell them to go kick rocks?
cinntaile 5y ago
It's not like they have unlimited funds for bandwidth, it's Vimeo not Youtube. The thread also mentions that this is clearly stated in their ToS, if you use more bandwidth than the 99th percentile then you have to pay more.
bijant 5y ago
The Problem is not Vimeo, the Problem is that YouTube has established the expectation that Video hosting on the web should be free. No other Video CDN can compete with that outside of a specific niche. Google owns Video.
- m463 5y ago
  I think with strong net neutrality rules this space might be more competitive.
- rasz 5y ago
  Free? There are plenty of video hosting websites that will _pay me_ for putting a popular content on them. Pirate streaming sites are full of links to those, thats how they make money.
rhapsodic 5y ago
This is the video he's referring to: https://vimeo.com/24715531 https://vimeo.com/24715531
rasz 5y ago
I like how Vimeo analytics are broken (not counting embeds) and they are very casual about it. I think I remember Louis Rossmann getting hit with the same $8K some time ago and discovering there is nothing in between.

34 points by WayToDoor 5y ago

I'm sorry what is the person complaining about? Should every app on AWS using more than the free tier complain that AWS wants them to pay because they have a historically popular app?

xupybd 5y ago
That there was an easy fix, and that fix was not suggested as the first option.
- meowface 5y ago
  And also that the only fix proposed was "the lowest plan we offer", the Entry Level Custom Plan for $8,000/year, for someone who just made a video years ago and abandoned their account.
halfdan 5y ago
Going from free tier to "our cheapest plan is $8k/year" is quite a big leap. Vimeo is obviously completely within their rights, but their pricing strategy is questionable from a small content creator's perspective.
- curryst 5y ago
  I've always had the impression that Vimeo was aiming for the more "enterprise" crowd. Most of the content I've ended up on Vimeo for is corporate, and I presumed that was a conscious decision on their part; to be the "more professional" version of YouTube. The LinkedIn counterpart to YouTube's Facebook-esque strategy. The tagline on their front page even says "Simple tools for any professional, team, and organization to create, manage, and share high-quality videos." The definition of "professional" is certainly up for debate, but the other items in that list make me think they are not talking about small content creators. I don't find it an absurd price point in that context. Many tools go from being free or very cheap to being very expensive in a single tier. GitLab comes to mind as one. Oracle is well known for what I like to call the "crack selling strategy"; the first hit's free, but every one after that is going to be really expensive. They're just not going to be able to compete on price with YouTube, and I can see how it makes sense to support a small number of high-paying customers than it is thousands of tiny content creators. I don't know what they're offering that convinces people to pay for it, but there's apparently something there.
erichurkman 5y ago
He's being held to a bandwidth constraint that he has no visibility into. The dashboard only shows about 2% of bandwidth being used. He has no way to a) verify if Vimeo is accurate, nor b) visibility into the other 98% of plays. Would you pay someone if they came to you and said "Pay me $8k, you're using 53x more traffic than you think. No, you can't verify that." Or would you tell them to go kick rocks?

cinntaile 5y ago

It's not like they have unlimited funds for bandwidth, it's Vimeo not Youtube. The thread also mentions that this is clearly stated in their ToS, if you use more bandwidth than the 99th percentile then you have to pay more.

bijant 5y ago

The Problem is not Vimeo, the Problem is that YouTube has established the expectation that Video hosting on the web should be free. No other Video CDN can compete with that outside of a specific niche. Google owns Video.

m463 5y ago
I think with strong net neutrality rules this space might be more competitive.
rasz 5y ago
Free? There are plenty of video hosting websites that will _pay me_ for putting a popular content on them. Pirate streaming sites are full of links to those, thats how they make money.

rhapsodic 5y ago

This is the video he's referring to: https://vimeo.com/24715531 https://vimeo.com/24715531

rasz 5y ago

I like how Vimeo analytics are broken (not counting embeds) and they are very casual about it. I think I remember Louis Rossmann getting hit with the same $8K some time ago and discovering there is nothing in between.