Bending Spoons Buys Video Platform Vimeo for $1.38 Billion

Bending Spoons has entered a definitive agreement with Vimeo to purchase the video platform for $1.38 billion. From a report: Per the agreement, Bending Spoons will acquire Vimeo in an all-cash transaction and take Vimeo (VMEO), a public company, private. Vimeo shareholders will receive $7.85 per share in cash when the transaction closes.

[...] Vimeo, once a significant player in the streaming video space, has lost massive ground to other platforms, including YouTube, in recent years. Rather than fight a losing battle in the creator space, Vimeo has catered more toward business and enterprise users lately.

Subscription hikes

[angularbanjo]

in 3⦠2⦠1â¦. (based on other spoons Iâ(TM)ve seen them bend)

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[EvilSS]

oh yea, they are the ones who bought Evernote and jacked up the price by like 200%. Cancelled my sub when they did that.

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[deKernel]

I as well. I didn't mind paying the $35.00/year but almost $150/year was too much for what had changed.

Re: Subscription hikes

[Z00L00K]

So a scam - like Uri Geller. At least his spoon bending was amusing.

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[ghmh]

It's not the spoon that bends, it's your mind. Oh, wait...

Good news!

[TwistedGreen]

What exactly is Bending Spoons? I have a hard time understanding these privately-owned multinational conglomerates that don't actually produce anything.

Are we supposed to be glad that Vimeo will be managed by a seemingly magnanimous private holding company, or worried that it will become someone's private cash-cow?

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[JaredOfEuropa]

They buy other companies, then jack up fees and mercilessly cut costs and corners, for a nice short term increase in profit. Then they sell it. If that fails, they strip it, load it with debt, and let it go bust.

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[nightflameauto]

They buy other companies, then jack up fees and mercilessly cut costs and corners, for a nice short term increase in profit. Then they sell it. If that fails, they strip it, load it with debt, and let it go bust.

Just say venture/vulture capitalists. We all know what that means.

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[ffkom]

Just say venture/vulture capitalists.

More accurate to call them a Private Equity investment company, as they are not seeking to invest in young startups.

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[nightflameauto]

Just say venture/vulture capitalists.

More accurate to call them a Private Equity investment company, as they are not seeking to invest in young startups.

Very few vulture capitalists look for young startups. They look for companies that are semi-profitable or very profitable to gut, rape, kill, reanimate, then continue raping the living-dead corpse. Like Bain Capital has done to countless businesses. Bending Spoons may be smaller scale, but they're using the exact same playbook.

Re:Good news!

[fph il quozientatore]

They are an EAAS company (enshittification as a service).

They do Criterions Channel's video

[king*jojo]

And do wonderful things like putting 'annoyance bugs' on the screen when watching a live stream through a browser (a big red rectangle that says "LIVE" sitting in the corner of the screen, in case you somehow forgot) in order to push you to their app so you can't block trackers, etc.

So this could actually be a positive thing (but I somehow doubt it)

Expect similar enshitification as at WeTransfer

[snu3k88]

After Bending Spoons acquired WeTransfer: 1. 75% of staff were shed from WeTransfer 2. WeTransfer quietly updated its terms of service to allow the use of uploaded files for AI training Expect accelerated enshitification at Vimeo.

Ugh. Another one bites the dust.

[PhantomHarlock]

I have a paid account at Vimeo that I use to privately share videos for clients. They are known for their high quality / high bitrate streams and tools for business users. I imagine now the price will get jacked up and then the service ultimately shut down when everyone abandons ship after they've looted what they can out of it.

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[easyTree]

Why not preempt the enshitification and leave now?

Buff .... ering

[bill_mcgonigle]

It's odd how every time I need to look at a Vimeo it stutters and buffers like it's 1997 no matter what device, OS, or network I'm on.

Literally the only video site that this happens to me. I thought it was my DSL line back in 2009 but home gigabit has been a thing for a while and oddly similar results.

oh?

[iluvcrap2000]

Is Vimeo a thing still? Thought it Died? bah.