logoalt Hacker News

reaperduceryesterday at 6:48 PM2 repliesview on HN

If you build a house you don't keep the builders on payroll once it's built to keep "building" it - you may need maintenance staff but that's it

A very analytical, technological, short-sighted view of things. But not necessarily how the customers think.

For many customers, a company that isn't growing is shrinking. If a company isn't willing to invest in growth, that's a red flag.

I mentioned the Vimeo thing in a meeting this morning, and the head of Communications immediately said he's going to start looking for alternatives.

You can make all the analogies and excuses you like, but look at Vimeo's sister properties (Evernote, etc.) Are they better off since they were gutted? Are they delivering more value to the customers, or just funneling money to the parent company and its investors?

I think a better analogy is some big Wall Street investment company buying up nursing homes, and making lots of noises about "efficiency." That never works out well for the patients/customers. Only for the company.


Replies

Nextgridyesterday at 10:38 PM

> the head of Communications immediately said he's going to start looking for alternatives.

He's gonna start looking for alternatives and then most likely find nothing that matches the featureset vs price of the current solution + the cost of switching, and the matter will quickly disappear.

Last time AWS or Cloudflare was down a lot of noise was made and a lot of people started looking for alternatives too - and everyone forgot about it a week later.

> Only for the company.

Yes, the point of business is to make profit, not to be a charity. Bending Spoons believes they can extract enough profit off Vimeo to justify the purchase price, either by reducing expenses, raising prices or both. This may still be palatable to the customers if they don't have any better option.

show 1 reply
listenallyallyesterday at 10:41 PM

I'd question why your "head of Communications" isn't already aware of alternative vendors for important pieces of their domain. After all, companies go out of business, get bought out, change pricing all the time. And Vimeo was bought out months ago - this person didn't start researching then, just in case? I'd suggest the CEO start "looking for alternatives" for this employee.

show 1 reply