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I understand the shock people have with an unexpected bill but also, this is the result of people expecting and getting used to "free" stuff for too long and su

I understand the shock people have with an unexpected bill but also, this is the result of people expecting and getting used to "free" stuff for too long and suppliers eventually realising that returns are diminishing with ads and they need to charge for stuff. What would happen if Google suddenly decided that GMail was not making money and were going to charge $50 per year per user? Outrage or just acceptance that people need to pay the bills (and in some cases, give their shareholders a nice Christmas bonus ;-) So the simple fact seems to be that people need to work out how much their videos are worth. 4000 videos is a lot, so is paying $3K per year really a lot to ask?

ipaddr 5y ago
Outrage. Offering people a free service to suddenly demand payment may get some to pay but the negative press might put them in front of regulators. Google will simply degrade the product and offer a better one for a fee. The bigger question is.. is watching that video worth 5 cents to someone. If not that video will disappear or be scaled down in quality so it costs 1 cent.
- hannasanarion 5y ago
  Vimeo was never a free service though. No matter how big your channel is, to upload to Vimeo, you have to pay, that's how it's always been. The fees have, to date, been on a flat schedule, ranging from $100-$600/yr for various weekly upload limits. This has apparently become unsustainable for Vimeo, as there are no longer enough "minnows" who upload fewer videos on the platform than their subscription pays to subsidize the "whales" who upload more than what their subscription pays for.
  - bdougherty 5y ago
    That's not entirely true. There has always been, and still is, a free account, but of course it doesn't have all the features and has a very low upload limit.
  - ipaddr 5y ago
    Vimeo was always a free service. Signup now and upload a video.
throwmeariver1 5y ago
All the examples in the article are from paying customers…
tarentel 5y ago
The people interviewed were paying. Someone going from $900 to $3000, which is a lot and at least according to one of the people interviewed isn't worth it as they plan on switching platforms. Actually, everyone interviewed it sounded like they plan on leaving.
ryanbrunner 5y ago
A payment model of "your bandwidth is unlimited unless you hit this barely mentioned and completely opaque threshold, at which point you'll be charged a completely arbitrary amount" is downright predatory, and is nowhere near the same as being asked to pay for services (which the creator in question already was doing)

ipaddr 5y ago

Outrage. Offering people a free service to suddenly demand payment may get some to pay but the negative press might put them in front of regulators. Google will simply degrade the product and offer a better one for a fee. The bigger question is.. is watching that video worth 5 cents to someone. If not that video will disappear or be scaled down in quality so it costs 1 cent.

hannasanarion 5y ago
Vimeo was never a free service though. No matter how big your channel is, to upload to Vimeo, you have to pay, that's how it's always been. The fees have, to date, been on a flat schedule, ranging from $100-$600/yr for various weekly upload limits. This has apparently become unsustainable for Vimeo, as there are no longer enough "minnows" who upload fewer videos on the platform than their subscription pays to subsidize the "whales" who upload more than what their subscription pays for.
- bdougherty 5y ago
  That's not entirely true. There has always been, and still is, a free account, but of course it doesn't have all the features and has a very low upload limit.
- ipaddr 5y ago
  Vimeo was always a free service. Signup now and upload a video.

throwmeariver1 5y ago

All the examples in the article are from paying customers…

tarentel 5y ago

The people interviewed were paying. Someone going from $900 to $3000, which is a lot and at least according to one of the people interviewed isn't worth it as they plan on switching platforms. Actually, everyone interviewed it sounded like they plan on leaving.

ryanbrunner 5y ago

A payment model of "your bandwidth is unlimited unless you hit this barely mentioned and completely opaque threshold, at which point you'll be charged a completely arbitrary amount" is downright predatory, and is nowhere near the same as being asked to pay for services (which the creator in question already was doing)