Vimeo: A Case Study in Management Desperation?
March 19, 2022
Video is expensive. Bandwidth is a killer. Even storage is a problem at scale. Then there is marketing, customer acquisition, customer retention, and paying those who deserve the big bucks. Vimeo wants to generate revenue, and it has been struggling to be upfront about its predicament: Money.
A couple of years ago, I put my DarkCyber videos on Vimeo. I was curious about the platform. I think I had a dozen or so 12 minute programs on the service. I received an email explaining that because I was a commercial customer, I had to pay a lot of money. I liked that angle crafted by 20 somethings sitting in a cramped, uncomfortable conference room figuring out who was commercial and who was not.
My criteria were:
- I was retired
- My videos contained zero advertising
- I made the programs available to those attending my lectures at FLETC, the ISS Telestrategies’ conferences, and the National Cyber Crime Conferences, among others
- I don’t sell anything any more.
The Vimeo automated system informed me that I had to pay up or have my videos deleted. I cancelled my account and deleted the videos. I mentally noted that Vimeo was floundering. Where is that life preserver? Ooops. Not near me.
I read “Vimeo Is Sorry, and Here’s How It’s Changing.” The write up dances around the central problem of Vimeo: Making money. There’s hand waving from Vimeo management. There’s information about Vimeo’s contradictory statements about “policies.” There’s information about exceptions for special people.
Enough. Vimeo is stuck. Vimeo’s management is apparently rudderless. And most important, I find the firm’s splashing around in the pool mildly amusing. Will it gulp water and drown? Will it become the new Rumble or BitChute? Will the firm’s decisive management team knock YouTube for a loop.
Splish. Splash. Vimeo is taking a bath and there is no party going on.
Stephen E Arnold, March 25, 2022
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