Vimeo Wants Creators to Pay Up

Marques and Andrew talk about the new Vimeo policy where top creators are having to pay thousands of dollars to host their videos.

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[JerenVids]

I do web development and one of the reasons my clients use embedded Vimeo videos is that it doesn't show pre-roll ads, they want to avoid the fact that YouTube might show a really long ad on their website before the visitor even can start watching a video.

[etekweb]

This is such a weird system. I would think that if Patreon is working with Vimeo, and Patreon is using more bandwidth than its partnership allows, Patreon should have to work with Vimeo to upgrade the plan and reflect that in their fees if need be. Vimeo shouldn't even be able to contact creators on Patreon because Patreon has the relationship with Vimeo, not the creators. If a user is never even going to Vimeo's site, they shouldn't have to worry about their quotas with them.

[twilliamspro]

I would say it's patreons job to Pay these Fees not the creators as the creators didnt choose to use vimeo.

[tuerry]

I think Vimeo would be dead if it wasn’t for patreon lol

[its_tibor]

I own a video production company, I can't imagine posting my companies work anywhere but on Vimeo. It keeps the quality as compression free and without copyright problems, worth it for people like me.

[procrastinatingnerd]

I think it would be a good idea for patreon to find a different host and everyone should say bleep you to vimeo. That or patreon should be taking care of this behind the scenes. The fact that vimeo is bypassing patreon and doing this should be a red flag for patreon more than anyone.

[SuperSmashDolls]

The reason why Vimeo quoted that one creator $3000 for a custom plan was because they were uploading *very long* art tutorials. If you were to self-host on AWS or a CDN you'd be paying about the same price as Vimeo. Unless you're only uploading shorts, a "2TB" plan is basically a handful of views.

Of course at Vimeo's scale they should be able to afford better bandwidth deals than that, especially if every video creator on Patreon is using them. So either this is still a margin-inflating move, or Vimeo is so tiny that they're actually paying IP transit rates on everything.

[sidd]

This could be very bad for Patreon as creators that mostly upload video content may now be looking at YouTube channel memberships and members only content as an alternative.

[angrymikko]

So glad I went with YouTube membership instead of Patreon. I can’t imagine having all that work vanish because I wouldn’t have the money to pay for hosting.

I see a lot of people just ganging up on Vimeo for having fees. I’m not sure if you all understand just how insanely much space videos can take. Especially long form 4k footage. I don’t blame Vimeo for trying to stay afloat but those expenses would literally end me.

To be fair yt membership does come fees of its own and google cut is pretty substantial compared to Patreon. But it doesn’t even come close to those video hosting fees on Vimeo.

[msy]

The organization I work for uses Vimeo and the odd thing is that we got this email too after an uptick in views all coming from a town called Boardman, Oregon. Thousands of views from one town that has a population of 4, 000. I have to imagine there is a problem on Vimeo’s end or they have a bot problem.

[monthlysurvey]

Vimeo pushes the most popular video creators off their platform by charging them exorbitant fees? Sounds like a great business plan…

[ReclusiveEagle]

For $8000 a year you can buy your own domain, rent servers from Google, pay for templates and get 10TB of storage easily

[nashvie]

From Vimeos FAQ: Do Vimeo’s self-serve plans have a bandwidth limit?
Generally, we do not limit or impose additional fees for bandwidth consumption on self-serve accounts (i.e. the data used in order to deliver your videos to viewers). However, this policy is subject to fair use: If your aggregate bandwidth usage (across all accounts you control) is higher than 99% of self-serve users on our platform in any calendar month (currently around 2TB per month), we may reach out to discuss a more suitable plan for your needs. Most Vimeo accounts never reach this threshold.

[Joshua]

Vimeo wants to provide a legitimately premium service which means people have to pay up, so it doesn't turn into a corporate landfill for advertising like YouTube

[RamblyBear]

This whole comment section is filled with people who don't seem to have any knowledge about Vimeo's business model. Its wild how much speculation people will make from there. They are not a Youtube competitor, they havn't tried to be one for along time now. Highly recommend listening to the Decoder podcast episode with their CEO for more info on that.

[MarkFaldborg]

Youtube, realistically, will never do password protected videos, they have the support program instead it keeps everything in their walled garden. They have no reason to provide free video hosting for private videos. Especially since most patreon/pay-per-view platforms will promise ad-free versions of their stuff.

It is crazy to me that patreon works with vimeo but does not at all communicate this to creators. It should really be their responsibility that it works seamlessly instead of like this, creators finding out they owe money to a partner they did not realize they have.

In general Patreon seems to have done a lot of missteps lately. I wonder if another provider could eat their lunch with a better pay structure or more robust options.

[makatron]

Patreon should do a funding round and buy vimeo.

[philipschmitd]

In the past (2012-2016) when Youtube changed some of their Terms and Services people were quick to say „If Youtube is so Creator unfriendly I will go to Vimeo“ and „Youtube will fail in the next X years“. Nice how the turntables

[bradbell]

Vimeo and YouTube are not comparable. YouTube is modelled on commercial TV. Serial videos only. Huge audience. Ads. Vimeo once provided a place for filmmakers, but that has been phased out over years. The forum closed. Social features were reduced. People also realised on both platforms, 'no one wants to see your work.' I use Vimeo for work. It gives you a platform for publishing video and tools for controlling it to fit into branded web sites, to integrate into email marketing -- call-to-action buttons, email response on video, email platform integration -- and also as part of workflow with clients. There is versioning, so you can upload new versions over top of each other and clients can make timecode notes on the video. I miss filmmakers, inspiration, community, but the tools seem good. YouTube isn't a replacement for Vimeo. YouTube is TV, Vimeo is PowerPoint.
PS. Back in the day Vimeo got sued for copyright over gaming videos. Fighting the suit was said to have sucked the life out of the company.

[DJaquithFL]

Imagine when YouTube decides tomorrow because of this with Vimeo to reduce your ad revenue by 50% or more.