Lois van Baarle, a digital artist based in the Netherlands, joined Vimeo 13 years ago as a student studying animation, back when it was still an indie creator platform. When van Baarle started making subscriber-only Patreon content in 2020, Vimeo seemed like the best option for hosting her videos \u2014 Patreon itself didn\u2019t offer video hosting, and YouTube didn\u2019t have the same features to protect her work, like controlling where her videos could be embedded.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was already paying $200 a year, which I think is pretty expensive,\u201d van Baarle says. \u201cBut I thought, well, it\u2019s a quality platform.\u201d She\u2019s uploaded 117 subscriber-only videos so far, and each one only gets around 150 views on average, van Baarle says. Her most viewed video has around 815 views.<\/p>\n

So the notice Vimeo sent van Baarle on March 11th shocked her. Her bandwidth usage was within the top 1 percent of Vimeo users, the company said, and if she wanted to keep hosting her content on the site, she\u2019d need to upgrade to a custom plan. Her quoted price: $3,500 a year. She was given a week to upgrade her content, decrease her bandwidth usage, or leave Vimeo. <\/p>\n