Tell HN: Bending Spoons laid off almost everybody at Vimeo yesterday

Post by bradleybuda » Wed, Jan 21, 2026, 5:46 PM UTC

nness wrote: post #4

ayhanfuat wrote: post #3

From "Vimeo to be acquired by Bending Spoons in $1.38B all-cash deal" ( https://techcrunch.com/2025/09/10/vimeo-to-be-acquired-by-be... ): > Bending Spoons has a pattern of acquiring companies, then laying off staff and cutting features. For example, Bending Spoons acquired note-taking and task management app Evernote in 2022, after which the company laid off most of its U.S. and Chile staff and moved operations to E…

I don't understand this model. Such significant layoffs would indicate that there is no real appetite for expansion or growth. Their goal might be be to acquire, dramatically cut costs, and then run the product for as long as they can at a profit before breaking it down and selling it off (or hope for a buyout by a bigger player.) But that wouldn't make sense — customers of a depreciating SaaS product surely churn af…

Post by rmccue » Wed, Jan 21, 2026, 5:48 PM UTC

ortusdux wrote: post #8

CoastalCoder wrote: post #5

I just recently found that Vimeo is hosting MST3K, with free playback of the original episodes (Joel and Mike). So for selfish reasons this makes me sad. I'm guessing MST3K will need to find another host, perhaps with less generous terms. Edit: I really hope that doesn't mean RiffTrax will also have problems.

They are also the backend for Dropout, which has just shy of 1m paid subscribers. So I understand your selfish sadness feelings. https://vimeo.com/customers/dropout

Post by dingnuts » Wed, Jan 21, 2026, 5:48 PM UTC

pc86 wrote: post #52

Fnoord wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is called bait and switch. And the company name referring to bending spoons (Uri Geller) gives away the way they see themselves.

Bait and switch is something completely different. If you started buying Evernote 10 or 15 years ago, and use it a lot, then Evernote gets acquired and the terms change, that's shitty but is not remotely a "bait and switch."

Post by chpatrick » Wed, Jan 21, 2026, 5:50 PM UTC

ayhanfuat wrote: post #3

From "Vimeo to be acquired by Bending Spoons in $1.38B all-cash deal" ( https://techcrunch.com/2025/09/10/vimeo-to-be-acquired-by-be... ): > Bending Spoons has a pattern of acquiring companies, then laying off staff and cutting features. For example, Bending Spoons acquired note-taking and task management app Evernote in 2022, after which the company laid off most of its U.S. and Chile staff and moved operations to E…

Post by MrDarcy » Wed, Jan 21, 2026, 5:51 PM UTC

jjice wrote: post #36

nness wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand this model. Such significant layoffs would indicate that there is no real appetite for expansion or growth. Their goal might be be to acquire, dramatically cut costs, and then run the product for as long as they can at a profit before breaking it down and selling it off (or hope for a buyout by a bigger player.) But that wouldn't make sense — customers of a depreciating SaaS product surely churn af…

Yeah this is what I think Bending Spoons does, mostly based on the Evernote situation. Product has paying users and it's in a "complete" state. Cut costs to optimize profit for a bit and hope not everyone leaves. In the case of Evernote, it's probably really hard to get 10 year users off of it at this point, so they can double subscriptions and they're locked in. My assumption is that there's a serious amount of peop…