4 ms·

It was like that with WeTransfer too. Fine company that had been profitable for years, but with little hope of getting ever 10x bigger again. I used to work the

by WJW 9mo ago

It was like that with WeTransfer too. Fine company that had been profitable for years, but with little hope of getting ever 10x bigger again. I used to work there and had already left by the time of the acquisition, but all the old colleagues I've spoken to said the same. The main business was throwing off gobs of money and there were SO MANY failed projects to try and find new revenue streams. Everyone who was not being pushed by the PE owners could see that they would never account to even 1% of the revenues of the main product. It was only a matter of time before someone came in, said "the main business is fine as is" and fired the people who were involved in the moonshots then sat back and raked in the cash. Sure, it will probably not last forever. But if it brings in millions per year for 15-20 years until the company dies, then that is probably an outcome Bending Spoons is fine with.

aetherson 9mo ago
And honestly this is probably fine. If the main business can't grow and there have been a few years of attempts to produce complementary businesses with no success, that's a good sign that the business should be moved into a "return money to owners" model.
- johnnyanmac 9mo ago
  Sadly, "return money to owners" ends more like the owner selling off the company and leaving all the workers under them in freefall. And people wonder why loyalty is dead.
  - philipallstar 9mo ago
    Well, the workers already got paid for their time; the owner didn't for their time and (more importantly) risk. No one wonders why loyalty is dead.
    - johnnyanmac 9mo ago
      The owner got a big pay package from the sale on top of usually being one of the more highly compensated employees at such companies. What do you mean by "the owner didn't get paid"? >No one wonders why loyalty is dead. I see you missed the recent narrative of "Gen Z is lazy" and "most managers avoid hiring Gen Z" out there. I assure you many managers are baffled, bit blame the (relative) children instead of seeing how work culture has shifted since they were that age
      - aetherson 9mo ago
        Yes, the owners were paid by the sale. The argument by other people was that the sale shouldn't happen, or vice versa that the sale should happen only to people who were committed to continuing to spend the company's money on supporting employees who are stipulated to not be adding much value (and, thus, are not willing to pay much for the company). Guys, I totally get it. Nobody likes to be laid off. I was laid off a month ago. But the money that is being soaked up by employee who are, again, stipulated to be not doing anything productive goes somewhere else. This may be a tragedy for an individual person, but it's good for society overall.
        johnnyanmac 9mo ago
        > the owners were paid by the sale. the owners didn't have shares in their company? they weren't paid for their labor? They only get money when they sell off and are working for free out of a labor of love until then? >The argument by other people was that the sale shouldn't happen... I guess it wasn't in this chain, but my argument was focused on the human element. I don't care if the owners got a trillion dollars and never shared. I don't think it's right to be able to lie to your employees only to let them go with no notice a few months later. You're never going to convince me that "it's good for society" to prop up livliehoods on convinient lies and instability. That's how suddenly everyone starts talking less about Star Trek and more about Luigi.
        aetherson 9mo ago
        The founders are probably not the owners of a large majority of the business. Most of the owners are not drawing any salary. Look, lying is bad sure. It would be better if they had been honest in November. But nobody here is actually arguing that the layoffs are fine, they're only mad about the comms.
johnnyanmac 9mo ago
For a hosting space like Vimeo, I'd be surprised if this gave them 5 years. And remember, they acquired Vimeo for over a billion dollars. This isn't like some B2C 5-10 dollar a month service. Video hosting is notoriously expensive and paying clients will quickly see other alternatives if they see smoke. These are already people with specialized needs that the main market leader (Youtube) cannot fulfill. They are "active", so to speak.
- csallen 9mo ago
  > These are already people with specialized needs that the main market leader (Youtube) cannot fulfill. Isn't this just a bigger reason why these people won't leave? Assuming the acquirer isn't dumb enough to remove the core benefit that comes from their highest paying customers, they will keep providing those, and those customers won't churn. And I think this is a safe assumption, considering it's the primary goal and focus of the people at the acquirer.
  - johnnyanmac 9mo ago
    My TLDR response here would be this: Vimeo isn't Evernote and people are paying a lot more to expect more. The nature of this means that smaller bits of "product rot" will push them away faster than what a consumer would tolerate. These are already people who needed to deliberately avoid Youtube, so they aren't afraid to migrate again if needed. There's also a lot more competition with Vimeo than there is with YouTube. So options exist to find. ---- But I'll break down my thoughts further. I'm familiar with the scene (a lot of artists use Vimeo for their portfolios, as well as working with clients on NDA content), but not intimate. So I'd love someone for me to call me out here. But: There's 2 lenses here. Your lens implies Vimeo is the best service in this niche space, that reducing down the staff count to a skeleton crew will keep it as the most competitive option, and that as long as this isn't disrupted that it'll be business as usual. And we'll be charitable and assume this doesn't enshittify. Those are all valid points. I'm much less charitable, but I can still work in this lens for the sake of argument. The lens I'm looking in is more at the type of person using Vimeo, not the type of business Vimeo runs. Compare this to Evernote. It's a lot closer to Twitter or Facebook, where remaining users will use it simply because "it's familiar" more than for any competitive edge. It has everything you need, and even if costs rise, we're still talking about one lunch outing per month. It's a "sticky" product benefiting from previous goodwill and marketing. The people on Vimeo aren't "sticky". They are closer to the type of person who leaves Windows for Linux because Microsoft keeps pissing then off. In fact it's more like they are Linux users who jump around from distro to distro because they already forsook the market leader. They are "actively" on the move and aware of the tools they use. Given that Vimeo is a highly premium service when you use Enterprise, you need to be active. You don't want to be on a sinking ship and have your work crash with it. So I see two roads here. Some users will stay "stuck" because maybe nothing else does compared to Vimeo. Or because some larger pipeline relies on Vimeo and it's beyond their control. Then some users will be either leaving to another service, or actively keeping an eye out for competitors in the near future. That's what I see as "different" here. Now, taking my charitable lens off: I do think there will be a lot of small issues pushing people off, and then a few huge ones. Small things like site performance degrading as they scale back server, and worse support as they slash labor. Then the larger things will truly push people, like a price hike, change in monetization models, or failing to honor any deals made pre-bending spoons. Or even a huge data leak. Those things, big and little, break the foundation of a trusted business.

by WJW 9mo ago

aetherson 9mo ago

And honestly this is probably fine. If the main business can't grow and there have been a few years of attempts to produce complementary businesses with no success, that's a good sign that the business should be moved into a "return money to owners" model.

johnnyanmac 9mo ago
Sadly, "return money to owners" ends more like the owner selling off the company and leaving all the workers under them in freefall. And people wonder why loyalty is dead.
- philipallstar 9mo ago
  Well, the workers already got paid for their time; the owner didn't for their time and (more importantly) risk. No one wonders why loyalty is dead.
  - johnnyanmac 9mo ago
    The owner got a big pay package from the sale on top of usually being one of the more highly compensated employees at such companies. What do you mean by "the owner didn't get paid"? >No one wonders why loyalty is dead. I see you missed the recent narrative of "Gen Z is lazy" and "most managers avoid hiring Gen Z" out there. I assure you many managers are baffled, bit blame the (relative) children instead of seeing how work culture has shifted since they were that age
    - aetherson 9mo ago
      Yes, the owners were paid by the sale. The argument by other people was that the sale shouldn't happen, or vice versa that the sale should happen only to people who were committed to continuing to spend the company's money on supporting employees who are stipulated to not be adding much value (and, thus, are not willing to pay much for the company). Guys, I totally get it. Nobody likes to be laid off. I was laid off a month ago. But the money that is being soaked up by employee who are, again, stipulated to be not doing anything productive goes somewhere else. This may be a tragedy for an individual person, but it's good for society overall.
      - johnnyanmac 9mo ago
        > the owners were paid by the sale. the owners didn't have shares in their company? they weren't paid for their labor? They only get money when they sell off and are working for free out of a labor of love until then? >The argument by other people was that the sale shouldn't happen... I guess it wasn't in this chain, but my argument was focused on the human element. I don't care if the owners got a trillion dollars and never shared. I don't think it's right to be able to lie to your employees only to let them go with no notice a few months later. You're never going to convince me that "it's good for society" to prop up livliehoods on convinient lies and instability. That's how suddenly everyone starts talking less about Star Trek and more about Luigi.
        aetherson 9mo ago
        The founders are probably not the owners of a large majority of the business. Most of the owners are not drawing any salary. Look, lying is bad sure. It would be better if they had been honest in November. But nobody here is actually arguing that the layoffs are fine, they're only mad about the comms.

johnnyanmac 9mo ago

For a hosting space like Vimeo, I'd be surprised if this gave them 5 years. And remember, they acquired Vimeo for over a billion dollars. This isn't like some B2C 5-10 dollar a month service. Video hosting is notoriously expensive and paying clients will quickly see other alternatives if they see smoke. These are already people with specialized needs that the main market leader (Youtube) cannot fulfill. They are "active", so to speak.

csallen 9mo ago
> These are already people with specialized needs that the main market leader (Youtube) cannot fulfill. Isn't this just a bigger reason why these people won't leave? Assuming the acquirer isn't dumb enough to remove the core benefit that comes from their highest paying customers, they will keep providing those, and those customers won't churn. And I think this is a safe assumption, considering it's the primary goal and focus of the people at the acquirer.
- johnnyanmac 9mo ago
  My TLDR response here would be this: Vimeo isn't Evernote and people are paying a lot more to expect more. The nature of this means that smaller bits of "product rot" will push them away faster than what a consumer would tolerate. These are already people who needed to deliberately avoid Youtube, so they aren't afraid to migrate again if needed. There's also a lot more competition with Vimeo than there is with YouTube. So options exist to find. ---- But I'll break down my thoughts further. I'm familiar with the scene (a lot of artists use Vimeo for their portfolios, as well as working with clients on NDA content), but not intimate. So I'd love someone for me to call me out here. But: There's 2 lenses here. Your lens implies Vimeo is the best service in this niche space, that reducing down the staff count to a skeleton crew will keep it as the most competitive option, and that as long as this isn't disrupted that it'll be business as usual. And we'll be charitable and assume this doesn't enshittify. Those are all valid points. I'm much less charitable, but I can still work in this lens for the sake of argument. The lens I'm looking in is more at the type of person using Vimeo, not the type of business Vimeo runs. Compare this to Evernote. It's a lot closer to Twitter or Facebook, where remaining users will use it simply because "it's familiar" more than for any competitive edge. It has everything you need, and even if costs rise, we're still talking about one lunch outing per month. It's a "sticky" product benefiting from previous goodwill and marketing. The people on Vimeo aren't "sticky". They are closer to the type of person who leaves Windows for Linux because Microsoft keeps pissing then off. In fact it's more like they are Linux users who jump around from distro to distro because they already forsook the market leader. They are "actively" on the move and aware of the tools they use. Given that Vimeo is a highly premium service when you use Enterprise, you need to be active. You don't want to be on a sinking ship and have your work crash with it. So I see two roads here. Some users will stay "stuck" because maybe nothing else does compared to Vimeo. Or because some larger pipeline relies on Vimeo and it's beyond their control. Then some users will be either leaving to another service, or actively keeping an eye out for competitors in the near future. That's what I see as "different" here. Now, taking my charitable lens off: I do think there will be a lot of small issues pushing people off, and then a few huge ones. Small things like site performance degrading as they scale back server, and worse support as they slash labor. Then the larger things will truly push people, like a price hike, change in monetization models, or failing to honor any deals made pre-bending spoons. Or even a huge data leak. Those things, big and little, break the foundation of a trusted business.