this post was submitted on 12 Apr 2026
77 points (80.8% liked)

Technology

83831 readers
3656 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related news or articles.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

The layoffs are the latest restructuring by Bending Spoons, the Milan-based tech conglomerate that acquired Vimeo for $1.38 billion in an all-cash deal that closed in the latter half of 2025. While Bending Spoons may be unknown to many, it has quietly become one of the tech industry’s most prolific buyers, now owning Meetup, WeTransfer, Eventbrite, and many others.

Bending Spoons identifies a popular product it thinks it can improve inside and out, and buys it from owners who have reached their limits.

After the acquisition, Bending Spoons is anything but a passive owner, making changes to the products’ user experience and features, as well as to the underlying tech; monetization strategy, including pricing; and team organization, including headcount.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Peekashoe@lemmy.wtf 105 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (2 children)

This is an incredibly undeservedly positive profile for this company. So many paragraphs here look like they were written by Bending Spoons or are uncritically repeating direct claims by the company.

The company’s playbook has become clear: acquire underperforming but popular tech brands, then transform them to serve millions of users more efficiently through controversial changes to beloved products and substantial workforce reductions. It followed this pattern with Evernote and WeTransfer, and is now repeating it with Vimeo.

...

Despite often being described as a private equity firm, Bending Spoons describes itself more specifically as a company that acquires and transforms digital businesses. Having grown to a headcount of 400 to 500 employees (whom the company calls “Spooners”), its main focus is on making improvements to products and services that others have created.

"Transform them to serve millions of users more efficiently"? "Its main focus is on making improvements to products and services..."?

Awfully strange ways to say their business model is "find companies with entrenched or locked-in userbases and then turn goodwill and inertia into profit by laying off all but a skeleton crew, increasing prices and lowering services and quality." Good thing that is totally different from what a private equity buyout does.

[–] EvergreenGuru@lemmy.world 36 points 4 days ago (1 children)

It’s 100% covert advertising. The users of Vimeo know better and are likely jumping ship ASAP. This is to convince people who haven’t left or don’t know better that things are fine and Vimeo is open for business.

[–] Hadriscus@jlai.lu 6 points 3 days ago (1 children)

yep we are. Vimeo was the home of indie filmmaking and vfx demoreels. it is more or less forgotten now

[–] gopher@programming.dev 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Where are people moving to from Vimeo?

[–] Hadriscus@jlai.lu 5 points 3 days ago

I've seen more artists gathering their work on ArtStation, and Youtube

[–] 667@lemmy.radio 14 points 4 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

In the biz these are called advertorials.