Investors in Bending Spoons include musician The Weekend, tennis player Andre Agassi, movie star Bradley Cooper, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, and director/actor Taika Waititi, among many other famous people: https://bendingspoons.com/people (scroll to the bottom to see all names).
I wonder if any of these illustrious backers are aware of the true business model of Bending Spoons, which can only be described as scammy:
1. Buy apps that have loyal users.
2. Fire all or most of the employees.
3. Update the apps with the most possibly intrusive adware, to milk user data for cash, earning a nice return.
Most users will thoughtlessly tap "OK" when asked to agree to the barrage of new permissions requested by the updated apps.
The company does other things too, but this is its main business.
Depends on how you define "adware." According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adware, Microsoft at one point defined it as "any software that installs itself on your system without your knowledge and displays advertisements when the user browses the Internet."
I'm not sure what other term I could/should have used ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Except for Eric Schmidt, that cap table reads like a bunch of suckers trying to "diversify their success." Barry Diller, on the other hand, is no sucker.
I also like how we are attaching these people to this company as though the Weekend and Taika Watiti sat down and sculpted a plan to get rich by being dickheads.
I bet their portfolio managers did that, and then attached their names to the deal to lend it an air of credibility, probably negotiating some sweet bonuses and spiffs for themselves in the process, and now this reads like they're all a POS, which, while that may be true for other reasons, hides the likely fact that the real POS's here are the stockbrokers.
If I buy shares in Phillip Morris, then I better be ok with people smoking cigarettes and everything that entails.
Especially if I’m publicly attaching my name with “prepend supports Phillip Morris.”
There’s gradations of being a dick, but approving your portfolio managers plan to buy shady companies is still a dick move. So is not being aware of what your portfolio manager buys.
No, you're right, but I think maybe I didn't communicate my thought well.
I'm not absolving them of their participation in bendingspoons and other such companies, I'm saying to not forget that it's the soulless portfolio managers that are the minds that move the body of evil.
I do blame them for their participation, but not as much as the people offering them the opportunity to profit from the exploitation of others.
It's like the Bernie Madoff "victims". A bunch of them were in on it to some degree so they could make a quick buck. I have no more sympathy for them than they do for me.
But the majority of the people who both profited and lost from Madoff were people who were letting their 401k retirement plans be managed by a company which were ultimately being used to fund the scheme.
Not a one of them likely knew that this was how their money was being used and they are all actually victims.
The real jerks are the stockbroker portfolio managers. If they didn't offer to enable rich-jerk douchery for fun and profit, it wouldn't be a thing they were all doing.
Only soulless people hire soulless portfolio managers.
A portfolio manager, like a lawyer or attorney, is really specific and takes a lot of selection. People choose intentionally.
Madoff didn’t work with 401ks. No one had their 401k funds with Madoff. It was all rich people using private hedge funds. Also, Madoff was a fraud, not an asshole.
It’s very different to harm people with adware infected, terrible apps than to run a Ponzi scheme. Madoff deceived his investors. Bendingspoons says exactly what they’re going to do and then does it. They aren’t deceiving anyone.
The jerk stockbrokers are all demand side. If people weren’t jerks they wouldn’t hire jerk stockbrokers. It’s a thing because people want it.
Due diligence is part of being a lackey to rich guys. Barry Diller has people to worry about his people doing stupid shit. If you don’t have control of people acting on your behalf, you earn the asshole badge.
Generating the energy to fire a neuron giving the dude sympathy is energy wasted.
No, major celebrities are very careful about their brand and usually demand extra compensation to use it. I have seen some VC investments that require written approval of any use of the investor’s name or likeness.
If you have money and it ends up funding dickheads, congrats you are also a dickhead. The more money you have the less forgivable it is, simply because more money buys you better insight.
I think owning stock is a financial endorsement of what the company is actually doing- you own a fraction of the company and saying ‘I just want a return on my money, no matter what the company does’ does not absolve you from actually financially supporting bad actors. If I hoist you in to a building to steal something I am endorsing your behavior. Same thing.
50% of my retirement funding is in Australian mining. Is it sustainable? Is it good for the environment? Is it an industry known for ethics?
No, no, and no.
Will they stop mining if no-one holds their public shares? Lol, no, lots of privately held mining companies exist who tend to perform even less ethically.
So, if they're going to dig the stuff up to sell to China anyway, I'm happy earning some money from it. I don't endorse their behaviour, but I do endorse the 10 - 15% return I've been getting on something they're doing already.
Let's rephrase then: why does owning stock imply financially supporting the company? After IPO, you're not buying anything from the company, you're buying from other investors.
Not only that, but your goal as a shareholder is to benefit financially from the company. If a company is a bad actor and you know it, you are expressly financing and benefitting from bad acts. I’m not sure why other commenters are trying to abstract this fact out of existence. It is not rocket science!
So if you buy stolen goods from someone who bought the stolen goods from the thief, and you knew the goods were stolen, you are doing nothing unethical. That’s all you’re saying, which is a position you can have, but it is a sad one. And you are, in fact, contributing to bad acts. The initial buyer may not have bought the investment if they knew there wasn’t a rube down the line that would take it off their hands.
> as though the Weekend and Taika Watiti sat down and sculpted a plan to get rich by being dickheads.
To be fair, Taika Waititi is known to be a bit of a very self-confident dickhead, which is why he achieved the success he did, you need that kind of unflappable-almost-delusional self-belief to make it in film, especially when you're starting from a small isolated island nation and trying to break into Hollywood.
But yeah, in this case, a financial advisor spotted a great opportunity.
Well, the compensation is not that bad for a company headquartered in Milan (Italy) and remote-friendly
> Competitive salary and stock options. Our compensation packages are designed to attract and retain the best talent in the industry. Individuals just starting their career joining on a full-time contract are offered a salary of €63,965 along with a €1,200 welfare bonus. If you already have a few years of relevant work experience, you can expect to earn between €105,737 and €143,330, depending on your expertise
That's the Google way. I was referred by 2 people on the team I'd be on but nobody on that team had anything to do with my committee interview.
So, instead of the people who know my work (from FOSS projects) it was a random gaggle of Stanford, etc people. I don't have a degree at all so to say I was intimidated and miserable and feeling very judged is an understatement.
Even my recruiter there had gone to Stanford and mentioned that her sister went to some other school and looks down at her lowly Stanford. wild place.
in older days my artsy friends would call those Stanford etc people "yuppies" or "frat guys/gals" among other things. The culture gap is real since those ordinary graduates did in fact compete and acheive in a certain way to get where they are.. so it is easy and human nature to judge others on the criteria they were judged on.. meanwhile, real skills, talent and sweat are common among the fringy outsiders, along with bad skin, odd clothing choices, low personal skills or other warts... hang in there!
That was actually my first time in SV/SFBay area (just stuck around San Mateo and San Jose) and I hated San Mateo. I'm used to gritty fun towns like Austin and Denver and San Mateo was culture shock. Netflix has the same problem being in Los Gatos, it might be worse there.
I remember one of my Uber drivers was getting their PHD in Machine Learning/AI.
They must have a huge funnel from Stanford. I'm not sure what other good schools are over there.
It always better for possible new hires to be interviewed by as many people in the team/company as possible - if they give feedback, have a veto, is that a committee?
I'm building an async community software called Booklet [1], and I use it to organize a couple NY-based IRL communities - including an indie founders group and a tech dinners series. It doesn't send calendar invites (yet!), but I find that the async format keeps members engaged over time. Plus, it's independent of social networks and communicates via email.
When I lived in SF, I used Meetup to start + run OpenLate, a tech meetup with a few thousand members. Not having access to member email addresses was the worst part of Meetup, and it's probably the main reason the site still has users. (Data portability is a big focus of Booklet).
I've seen https://lu.ma used thought it's built more around one-offs than recurring meetups of the same group. Also, and I think it's closer to meetup, https://app.getriver.io/ -- though I don't think it has too much traction yet.
My AGPL, micro-federated platform Jonline has support for events with anonymous (or logged in) RSVPs. Still very early, and there are definitely still bugs, but you can deploy yourself and/or contribute!
Probably. Purely anecdotal and it may just reflect the company I keep, but Meetup seems to have dropped off my radar and that of people I know. I can easily believe that many groups paused during the pandemic and never kicked back off again; I've certainly seen that behavior with a lot of groups generally.
It can be tough to get people to pay an ongoing fee for something that's often used for people to do casual recreational activities rather than one of the many free alternatives--even if they're not quite as suited for the purpose.
Meetup had a way to do this: make it opt-in by organizers, then increasing organizer price later on, perhaps even drastically, to incentivize the new structure. Over a year, say, even on organizers who didn't opt in, they could likely double their revenue per subscription with minimal churn.
Instead, their messaging strongly implied that, while it was still being tested, this would be mandatory, destroying community trust. An absolutely flubbed rollout.
There are plenty of tools for organizing activities. Meetup’s real value, which no one has replaced yet for various reasons, is in getting new people to join.
Anyone know of a simple badge printing setup that could work with things like Meetup, etc? Just an iPad app that can take a CSV of names and companies, say, that can connect to a Zebra printer. Everything I'm finding wants to rent you the software and the printer, I just want to scrounge them up once and for all.
Never heard about this app. Dont like 'download the app' popups in a time where webapps are perfectly fine. Give me one reason why you want to force users to use the app?
> I'm not sure what your point is. Someone requested an alternative, an alternative was proffered and the personal interest disclosed.
It's great that people can post alternatives, but personal interests aren't what I took umbrage with.
>> In the Netherlands we use Erbij, (https://erbij.app), which is now going international.
This implies that there is nationwide traction for the app which there isn't. It has 300 reviews on the app store. That's called astroturfing (or, lying).
Why is an adware company allowed to advertise its app with the name of a government organization ("NOAA Weather Radar")? Since they can just sell the app, I assume it's not them writing it for the government on contract.
Specifically, “Endorsement, trademarks, and agency logos
You cannot use government materials in a way that implies endorsement by a government agency, official, or employee. For example, using a photo in your advertisement of a government official wearing or using your product is not permitted.
You also cannot use federal government trademarks or federal government agency logos without permission. For example, in general, you cannot use an agency logo or trademark on your social media page to suggest endorsement or sponsorship by the agency.”
NOAA does have a licensing program, but I somehow doubt that this app was part of that program. Assuming that’s true, then this is likely a case of poor enforcement.
Is that the law, or is that more the government saying, through its publicists, how it would like its image to be used?
Seems crazy that, say, an outdoor clothes retailer couldn't share a photo of a group trek where the park ranger was wearing its gear. Or that SpaceX couldn't publish a photo of NASA astronauts flying in its spacecraft - even with NASA's permission.
A while back, I tried to create a T-shirt using a version of the NASA logo, and it got shot down by NASA because it violated their restrictive licensing terms:
It is the law. You can use those photos (including competitors photos) for any use other than marketing. Other uses, for a company, don't really exist. It is often explicitly upfront in the media pages of most government agencies.
SpaceX can use the photos as such for factual reporting, which usually ends up being marketing for them indirectly. That is allowed. If SpaceX were to market themselves actively as having government ties, that would not be allowed.
In a similar vein, I notice most startups using government logos in their marketing. That is also not allowed - even if the agency is using your software. You are not allowed to display those logos, except for "factual marketing" - say, a white paper on the government agency using your software. Even mentioning something on the lines of "DOD improved its purchasing efficiency by 10x (heh!)" is forbidden explicitly.
I'm not sure about most of the agencies themselves, but the FDA is very strict about enforcing this rule and has often fined Big Pharma for this infraction many times.
Those scenarios aren’t the same: those photos are a literal state of fact, not an endorsement. SpaceX can say they fly NASA missions because that’s a provable fact that they were awarded a contract to do so and anyone who wants to search the public procurement records could verify that. Where they (and NASA employees) would get into trouble would be saying that NASA thinks they’re the best, or that you should give them your business, too. It’s the idea that the reputation of a public agency is being committed to boost a private business that causes the legal concerns.
That seems like a very reasonable law, but it's not consistent with what was linked above and what other commentators are saying really is "the law".
> You cannot use government materials in a way that implies endorsement by a government agency, official, or employee. For example, using a photo in your advertisement of a government official wearing or using your product is not permitted.
No exemption made for photos where the government official really did use your cowboy hat or starship! No exception for situations where the government really did endorse you as a service provider of rugged outdoor clothing, or manned space missions.
After all, if the situation was just "you aren't allowed to fraudulently claim the government used or endorsed your product, when they did no such thing" it would barely need mentioning.
I think this is more confusion around language for something which isn’t quite that simple. The page that quote is from is a summary, not the actual statute, and each agency will have different policies, as well as terms written into contracts for actual procurements. In general, I’ve found literal statements of fact to be uncontroversial (e.g. if you say X.gov uses Y, and anyone who looks at sam.gov can confirm the same), but it gets increasingly more likely to raise challenges the more it looks like a recommendation, especially if it includes superlatives about the product or service.
Anyway, if this is remotely relevant, get a lawyer and ask the agency in question since they’ll likely have some nuances.
If you read their Wikipedia page [1] they sound like an Italian Saint. A lot about the various awards they have gotten and other "charitable" activities.
But reading the comments here, I get another impression of the company.
Evernote finally pushed me over the edge when they limited free plans to 50 notes last month. They had made so many changes to the ui and price increases that it was becoming a worse and worse product.
Apples free notes app replaced it and other than being SLIGHTLY annoying that I have to log into the web app on windows machines... I dont miss evernote at all.
There’s a Linux app for OneNote? I’ve been looking for one that isn’t just “use the online version in the browser”. Which isn’t half bad except for the fact that it loads pages on demand and so is slow on first load.
For my use case, the app is not half bad, except it's being Electron. The underpinnings hold so well, because .enex format is good, and the application understands Markdown formatting cues for the most part.
Also, the professional plan has GPS tagged notes, which I tend to like. Evernote doesn't have much alternatives for what I use it for. Notion doesn't work offline, Obsidian is too information dense and not easy to collaborate with. I use Obsidian + publish for my digital garden, but it doesn't work well for other things I use Evernote for.
I never had the data loss people mentioned about, either.
Lastly, I don't care about AI stuff in either Evernote or Notion. I neither trust the tech, nor I consent to train these "things" with my data.
I think the downhill slide has begun - they recently changed the terms / capabilities on their free version to make it even more limited and, presumably, to get more people to upgrade.
It's good to know this because it gives me the push I needed to finally move off my very limited use of the app.
So that's what they want you to believe, but unless you are part of the accepted editor cabal, any changes you make will be reverted by someone actually part of the cabal
I have no idea if you are or not. I'm challenging your claim about anyone being able to make edits as that's what Wiki wants people to think since most people will take that at face value. The reality is, that if you are not an accepted member of the cabal, then your edits will be reverted.
So yes, if you are not part of the cabal, I would expect your edits to be reverted...at some point in time. I have very little faith in the system.
If you are part of the cabal, how long did it take to learn the handshake? /s
I don't know what it means to be a member of the cabal. I just showed up one day and started writing edits.
I have about a thousand edits now. Some of them were reverted, but most weren't. I think the reason people perceive there to be a "cabal" is that they edit articles that are either very contentious to begin with (national identity, gender, politics) or are high traffic and most of the content has already been discussed at length.
Even in those areas, I think there is not a cabal, just lots of angry individual people who oftentimes end up being banned if they get angry enough.
But I don't generally edit in high traffic areas generally because I don't like long litigations on talk pages. The last time I saw the "cabal" in effect on Wikipedia was when I tried to rephrase some things on a page related to a controversial topic. There were two users working together to load the page with some very biased terms. I tried to remove them but was swiftly reverted. I think that's what you mean when you say the cabal.
I gave up editing that article because a long fight didn't interest me. Since then, both of the users trying to guard that article against edits have since been banned from editing in the area that article was in. The "cabal" as you see it is usually just a small number of very interested editors with a strong opinion. If their opinions are too strong, then they're usually in violation of Wikipedia policy and they get cleaned out eventually. I don't like to fight with those people though.
My favourite thing to do on Wikipedia is clean up around the edges.
If you follow this link, you'll be taken to a random article which is tagged as being written in a promotional tone. There are around 25,000 articles like this on Wikipedia at the moment.
These articles could use attention from an average, unbiased person to help tidy them up and read more neutrally. I see fixing Wikipedia articles like a kind of gardening. There is a lot to do in areas which are not trafficked so highly.
One the one hand, never take rankings and awards like that seriously. On the other hand, people in these comments are irrationally angry about the fact that people are getting fired in this deal without knowing any of the business reasons behind it.
They did the same recently with Filmic [0], of the Filmic Pro iOS Camera app.
I guess this is what the exact opposite of acqui-hire looks like. Acquire only for the app's customers, and their currently ongoing subscriptions, and nothing else.
Does anyone know if they maintain these apps well over time, or they just rot?
Unfortunately defining what that means becomes rather tricky once you consider that the company owning the app can change ownership. That ownership can be shared and go through arbitrarily many indirections, and if it's a publicly traded company, some of its shares change ownership all the time.
I think the legal concept of "beneficial ownership" is the intent here: We want to know the ultimate (natural) person(s) who control the app's assets and for whose benefit the app is monetized.
There is no simple rule that can be applied at scale. Determining beneficial ownership requires a case-by-case review of not just the chain of legal ownership, but management, contracts, incentives, etc.
Any fixed rules can be gamed. For example, a company could license out its name as a "franchise" who is legally independent but whose franchise contract has so many arms of control that they de facto function as a single company. Another example is that a majority donor of a nonprofit controls the nonprofit even if they have no board seats or de jure power to appoint or fire board members.
For public companies, it is extremely easy. Just start off with a warning every time certain filing (Section 13) is made. You could conceivably do this automated.
For private, large companies, its a simply attestation. You could open source monitoring for changes - if the company makes an PR announcement of any kind , or if a member of the public reports submits proof of change of control exercise in their contract, ask the company to update their attestation and compare.
They don't provide it ? They get a nice little red banner alerting users of shadiness going on.
It is tricky, as was explained in the comment you replied to. Maybe you could explain how it is not tricky instead of just making random statements without contributing anything
Here is an example of the complexity. I just purchased a single share of Google. Your Google Maps application has thus changed ownership. Boom, I just sold that single share, now the ownership changed again.
I realize this sounds tongue in cheek but a PE firm trying to get around ownership disclosure requirements can do something just as easily, both with public and private companies.
Indie app A, owned by a developer, Joe. Company B buys A outright, including employing Joe. They keep the brand around for name recognition.
How does the app store know this? None of this has to be public info if A & B aren't public. The company registration hasn't changed. At best, maybe the bank account number changed.
This should be a law really. Any subscribers to any service should promptly be notified about the change in parent company and clear language changes (like ads and new permissions etc.)
i'm not sure i quite understand the situation. is the implication that bending spoons is some kind of private equity firm but for apps that will suck the soul out of these 17 apps? i haven't heard of this company before but browsing their site at least the marketing speak points towards it not being the case... could someone explain?
They’re not private equity… they’re like a bottom tier tech conglomerate that’s been growing rapidly lately. They most famously bought Evernote.
They buy apps/products that mature and don’t need a lot of work, fire all the workers and hire a skeleton crew to manage them in a cheaper labor market.
They also harvest data from the apps and resell it.
Yes. That and they optimize the pricing to squeeze as much profit from captive users (or those that don't know better). They increased the pricing for Evernote quite aggressively, and reduced the free features if I recall correctly. Selling to Bending Spoons is pretty much giving up and letting the vultures have a bite at the remains.
My sense is that all-in-one information repositories (or black holes if you're feeling less generous) are less of a thing than they used to be. Admittedly, my circles don't use Microsoft products a lot but, for example, I haven't heard OneNote come up in a conversation in years.
I've always wanted to build a digital burial business like this, actually. It feels like a great way to tax late adopters' unwillingness to take on the risk of switching to a newer, better platform. As a late adopter myself of a great many things I feel like I understand the crotchety reluctance well enough to make a good go at it - maybe I'll unlearn my own risk aversion along the way.
It's not just the risk. Something like Evernote, for example, if someone has been using it religiously for years, there's a real cost associated with migrating to something new (and probably no better unless it's a completely different workflow).
You're not really joining a company whose mission is to make the world a better place, or at least just create a nice product.
You're joining a team of jackals trying to squeeze any money out of users that depend/love a specific product while putting these applications on minimal support.
I just think that at the end of the day it's nicer if you can think you contributed to the world, or even just one user making his life any better, that company just has none of it, it's mission is just plain the opposite.
Just how do you move from there? I helped Bending Spoons squeezing any money left in application X by butchering all non essential features and rising the price 3 times?
You can cringe all you want but "Will I be proud of the work I do here?" and "Do I think the work I do is a net benefit or drain to the world?" are pretty damn low bars for screening potential employers.
You have to really try to put in 40 hours of work a week and create negative value but by god they seem like they're best in class.
Like many places in the world the devs only care about the salaries. One reason why products made in specific countries are usualy low in quality. The devs dont give a damn.
> a company whose mission is to make the world a better place
I’m looking at the apps in the article and see a private app impersonating NOAA, one to “create stylish, impactful content for social media,” and a series of cheap knock-offs of best-in-class apps. They deserve to exist and make money, and there is no shame in working on them. But it’s hard to argue anyone was responding to a higher calling.
Developers are expensive. It’s hard to argue for geographic premiums on top of that, or maintaining the staff required in a build-up during maintenance or run-down, when WFH has challenged the first and basic economic reality (driven home by positive real interest rates) the latter.
> They buy apps/products that mature and don’t need a lot of work, fire all the workers and hire a skeleton crew to manage them in a cheaper labor market.
What's wrong with rightsizing workforce to be commensurate with work?
Rightsizing [for what] is the question. GP assumes the goal is to do just enough to keep the product alive. This usually means a degraded customer experience.
> Why would anyone put lots of people on a product that is mature and doesn't need a lot of work?
Nobody is suggesting anyone put 'lots of people' on a mature product. However, there are always things that need to be done.
Apps need to be updated for new devices, OS/library/security updates, and general bug reports to name a few. That's just on the app side, the same is true for any build pipelines/hosting infrastructure.
These apps don't run themselves regardless of how mature they are.
You're right in that fewer people are needed and I'm all for optimizing but what I feel like you're missing is that it's quite easy to over-optimize for cost at the expense of users.
Of course you can maintain mature products with a smaller workforce.
I’m pointing out that intent makes a difference. If Bending Spoons plans to put the apps on life support and squeeze out revenue - a fair assumption - then user experience will suffer.
True, but considering the popularity and age of The Matrix, I'm guessing most people assume the hot tech company is referencing techno futurist movie from the 90s and not a charlatan from the 70s.
Except such a name would be considered inappropriate in a wide range of situations. Also worth pointing out a large number of people enjoy being on the receiving end of penetrative sex.
Guess now they know at which company to apply to in order to be a great cultural fit then
But yeah I was using the word fucking as a metaphor, like in common english it's not only used to describe physical penetrative act but it's common to use it to describe unpleasant situations, so no need to come to teach anything, so worth pointing out if your braincells are playing peekaboo instead of talking to each other
Those I have the feeling that redirect the guilt of being fired to the people affected, while their only guilt was working for a company, it can happen to anyone, you work for someone, this gets bought secretly and then you're out of job, how are you gullible or inattentive then?
It smells a little like a money laundering company. Large acquisitions of loss making companies. Unclear initial source of funds. A history of making decent products worse then firing everyone. How does the money flow?
Bending Spoons also bough Evernote a while ago. Pretty much doubled the price.
With that I thought they could go stuff themselves and went to unsubscribe, but they offered a drastic discount if I didn't. So they managed to keep me for another year. :/
But if they don't get their Python SDK in order soon I might drop them anyway.
20 employees per app? I'll never minimize the amount of work it takes to create software, but even so, that seems like a lot. Moreso when you consider how many employees' skills could be applied to multiple apps.
Is 20 people per company a lot? It's not just a person and some software.
Robokiller for example is a paid service with a business division. You're talking developers, sales teams, support, and everything else that goes with it.
Bending Spoons is a european company, and one of their major advantages is that salaries in europe are lower, obviously they need to fire the american employees of any company they buy to play that out.
You’re not wrong. Been using it since ~2015, seems like it’s time to move on. Maybe this is the kick I needed to build something out myself, been thinking about it for years.
Obviously sucks to be one of those 330 employees, but I wonder if we really need all these junk apps that just harvest user data. Hopefully they can get work doing something fulfilling.
Every time a data harvester moves operations to Europe for cheaper labor, it seems like a game of Russian roulette. When will the day come that the EU drives Bending Spoons out of existence?
The US should adopt intent nationalistic laws against international businesses collecting American’s data. Not because of National Security (but that’s what the politicians can say) but simply because Americans are the most valuable markets and it’ll drive many of these companies out of business, and generally disrupt the market.
Better said is: Every time a company does radical shift in company structure by shady management, it seems like a game of Russian roulette. Law-wise, your data is more safe in the EU than in most of the US even for an American citizen. An American company/management under bad privacy laws can just sell your data at the highest bidder.
Companies like this aren’t on the EU’s radar. It’s the big tech monopolies that get the negative attention and big incumbent businesses that get positive attention.
Individual countries in the EU can make things more bureaucratic than they need to be for smaller businesses but that has little to do with the EU.
Teams cost money, so that’s a cost-cutting measure. They’ll replace it with a better team, where ‘better’ is defined from a $$$ perspective.
There’s a wide range of options here:
- zero person team, and hope to recover cost from buying from existing subscribers and new buyers/subscribers over time before the app dies.
- replace them with marketeers, and hope to get enough more new buyers/subscribers before the app dies.
- smaller team, making it easier to break-even.
- cheaper developers, making it easier to break-even.
A new development team might just be a skeleton team to keep the app running across OS upgrades, or it might be a much larger team, or anything in-between.
Also, they could dump the entire thing onto their existing team and just let them deal with it. If the pressure makes you crack then you just weren't up to snuff, right?
It does seem like a really short term business plan: Buy up a bunch of apps, milk them of all their worth, gambling that it will be more than they paid, before the users all leave. Then take the profit and slaughter a new set of apps.
In this case I do wonder how much those apps are actually worth, IAC is apparently happy to take $100M for them, which would indicate that in their current form they aren't going to make $6M each in the short term.
Both companies seem rather strange, they don't appear to have any actual coherent business plan.
I wonder if any of these illustrious backers are aware of the true business model of Bending Spoons, which can only be described as scammy:
1. Buy apps that have loyal users.
2. Fire all or most of the employees.
3. Update the apps with the most possibly intrusive adware, to milk user data for cash, earning a nice return.
Most users will thoughtlessly tap "OK" when asked to agree to the barrage of new permissions requested by the updated apps.
The company does other things too, but this is its main business.