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.
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.