Sigh.
I really don't know what they were thinking with trying to scare off all the little indie creatives with the pivoting to enterprise stuff, who won in that strategy? And why wasn't there room for both? They could have just left the old Vimeo in stasis for those people and created an entirely new product line that'd have been better suited, especially since they were rewriting stuff from scratch anyway.
As pointed out, if you want to win in enterprise, you have to be willing to bend over backward, which is exactly what Microsoft did/had to do to get entrenched and at least part of what locked Apple out until iOS came along.
The bit about BrightCove and the competition explains so much.
Were you actually expecting no technical debt, a clear mission statement, no internal dysfunction, no bored/confused/exhausted/dont-give-a-shit coworkers, no executive carousel, and no further ownership changes?
This story reads a bit like buying an old, beat-up, rusted-out car from a stranger on the side of the road, then being surprised it doesn't run smoothly.
Another profitable, sustainable company sacrificed on the Altar of Unicorn(tm).
Was it? "Beloved" I'll grant because who knows, someone or another loves almost anything, I guess, but was it ever "major"?
I'll admit to not being much of a video person, but to me, Vimeo was just a video player that I'd find embedded in some web page now and then. Did not come across as "major" at all, ever.
Tell HN: Bending Spoons laid off almost everybody at Vimeo yesterday
sublinear•1w ago
Vimeo sounds like it would have been better off as the basis for a product or service division of a much larger business, not undiversified and standing alone competing with social media. Why was that not the obvious play to follow when they saw Google buying YouTube? Seems like a lot of opportunities passed Vimeo by over the decades.