Bending Spoons Reviews 

⭐ 1 star – Very concerning experience after the acquisition of Tractive

I am writing this review because of my experience as a paying Tractive customer following the acquisition of Tractive by Bending Spoons.

I was previously very satisfied with Tractive. Unfortunately, my experience now is completely different.

For almost four weeks, I have been trying to get proper assistance regarding an issue with my Tractive service. I have sent emails, replied to support cases, opened new support requests, contacted Tractive through social media and even posted a Trustpilot review. Getting an actual human response from customer service seems almost impossible.

What makes this particularly unacceptable is that I am not simply using a free service. I pay for a long-term Premium subscription as well as additional Tractive Care coverage. When customers pay for subscriptions and additional protection, they should reasonably expect the company to be available when that service is actually needed.

After experiencing this, I started researching Bending Spoons and its previous acquisitions. What I found regarding significant staff reductions following some acquisitions, changes to subscription models and the many negative customer experiences being reported is extremely concerning.

I cannot say whether Bending Spoons’ acquisition is directly responsible for the problems I am experiencing with Tractive, but the timing and my experience certainly leave me concerned about the direction in which the company is going.

Buying a successful company with loyal paying customers also means taking responsibility for those customers. Subscriptions should come with service – not just recurring payments.

At this point, my confidence in Tractive has been seriously damaged, and my experience with customer service has been completely unacceptable.

I sincerely hope Bending Spoons considers what happens to existing customers when companies are acquired and changed. Customers should not have to fight for weeks simply to receive the support and service they are already paying for.

Tania Boysen

I’ve been an Evernote user for more than 15 years and have greatly appreciated its features for a long time. However, since Bending Spoons acquired Evernote, they’ve been pursuing an increasingly aggressive pricing policy. The fee goes up by 50% every year. The additional features offered are largely irrelevant to me. I used to be able to easily share notes, and the recipients could then read and edit them. That’s no longer possible; the recipient also needs a paid Evernote plan. The costs and restrictions are so absurd that I plan to stop using Evernote.

BS bought Meetup.com and enshittified it to the point of uselessness almost immediately. Meetup's already fairly aggressive approach to paywalling basic event information went absolutely nuclear and now you can't click anywhere on Meetup.com without the SUBSCRIBE TO CONTINUE BREATHING popup appearing, which you can't click away but have to refresh the page. Paywalling information about the gender and age of attendees might look like a neat way to tax creeps who want to use Meetup as a dating platform, but in fact it taxes women who want to scope out the likely safety of an event's vibe ahead of time. And so on. This is BS's MO. It might get VCs hard and make the line go up, but it wrecks the actual product or service. Remember when those mattered? Pepperidge Farm remembers.

Scam company.
They buy apps like Harvest which had 10$/month plans then automatically charge 800$ for a yearly plan with a 500% price hype.
DO not buy any service from them! They are predators

Ça fait une heure que j’essaye de supprimer un compte. Je tourne en rond. Impossible de le faire. Ça m’enrage mais complètement. Et quand vous voulez supprimer les fichiers, impossible aussi car il demande de soit payer soit un compte gratuit pour quelques jours, en attendant, vous ne savez plus accéder à vos fichiers pour les supprimer. C’est infernal. Comment est-ce possible que ça puisse exister

They purchased Harvest, a time tracking tool that I used for many years for like $10/month. Suddenly, after they acquired it, they tried to charge me $5000!!!! Let that sink in. An attempted charge of $5000(!!!!) – While I was on vacation. Scammers.

Destroying every site/app they buy. "Innovation" means just starting to charge outrageous fees for what before that was free. Extinguishing small businesses. Meetup: If you stop paying now they offer the group to your competitor. Should be illegal!!

These Italian venture capitalists have bought Vimeo, and now Vimeo's European users might as well quit the platform.

The company is too lazy to comply with EU regulations and so prevents viewers from clicking on your profile icon/name to see your work. You can't view or be added to groups. You can't search. In fact, it's basically just a glorified googledrive, but at vastly higher price.

Read their help article Changes-to-Vimeo-com-in-the-EU-and-UK if you doubt it.

I've discovered the wonderful PeerTube however ... open source and blows away the US giants. Vimeo and Bending Spoons (who have also destroyed Evernote) will be losing me before the next renewal.

I've been an Evernote user for years. What was once a genuinely useful tool has become a masterclass in how to betray loyal customers.

The pricing tells the whole story. What cost $70/year in 2023 now costs $250/year in 2026 — a 257% increase for the exact same product. No meaningful new features. No improvements to the core experience. Just higher prices, again and again, after they knew your notes were already locked inside.

And that's the real problem: your data is trapped in a proprietary format. Getting it out requires jumping through hoops that most people won't bother with — and Evernote knows that. The business model now depends on friction, not value.

The free tier was quietly strangled. Now even paying users on lower plans can't add new notes once they hit arbitrary limits. The features they've added instead — AI tools nobody asked for — don't compensate for losing access to your own notes.

If you're considering Evernote in 2026, don't. Start in Notion, Apple Notes, or Obsidian. They import Evernote data and they won't hold you hostage when it suits them.

For those already trapped: export your .enex files now, while you still can. Don't wait for the next price hike.

Since they have acquired komoot, I am really enjoying it!

I have been a subscriber to Evernote for years. Once simple, it has become very complex, AI-driven crap. I have spent two months trying to cancel my accounts. There are no live persons working there anymore, and I don't recommend subscribing to Evernote.

My experience with this company has been great. They take old and outdated services and rework them with new software and technology. I have used Streamable and Streamyard and love it.

This company hiring process is one of the worst in this world. Either they want people to work for them or not. Do NOT waste your time applying for jobs there.
They are insanely ridiculous. Complete TRASH.

Spending spoons has acquired aol.com. The email serve is now horrible. Today I am unable access my email account because they have "technical issues". Email account in now inundated with unwanted ads.
Delivery of emails is slow. Each ad is sent 4-5 times in row before you can delete them. RECOMMEND YOU GET OFF AOL.COM It is now run by a company in Italy with very poor service.

This company buys good services and turns them into bad ones. Specific examples are Evernote and Meetup. In both cases the cost to users increased while the 'product' got worse, in absolute terms with Meetup and relative to the competition in the case of Evernote.

Destroyed apps, first evernote, now komoot and next up is vimeop.

Not impressed and they make themselves out to be better than they are

This company is squeezing the life out of Meetup.com, with its high costs for a 'privileged' membership plus that offers perks you either don't need and never asked for or basic functions like messaging others, that you used to get for free. They take over companies that people value, and ruin them. Meetup used to be great, but now it's declining fast.

Avoid!! Avoid!!! Avoid!!!
Unfortunately, they are absolutely useless people with a pity business!!!

These are the "humans"who have bought meetup, doubled the price, and now putting thousands of groups out of business. Talk about killing enterprise ...