You know that exact feeling. You’re in a meeting, someone shares their screen, and the cursor starts dragging across a laggy, infinite canvas of sticky notes. You’re looking at Miro. It’s not quite a whiteboard, it’s not quite design software, and it’s definitely not a project management tool. It’s just… there. And now, this universally tolerated, mediocre software just sold for $1.355 billion.
You aren’t the customer of modern SaaS. You are the captive livestock being sold to the highest bidder.
Why does a tool that everyone secretly hates command a ten-figure valuation? Because the venture capital model doesn’t subsidize software to make it better—it subsidizes software to achieve distribution. They don’t need Miro to be good; they just need it to be entrenched. They build habits, embed themselves into enterprise workflows, and lock you in. Then, the founders cash out.
Enter Bending Spoons. If you haven’t been following their playbook, they are essentially private equity vampires. They don’t buy companies to innovate; they buy them to extract. They don’t care about the technology. They bought the habituation. They know you’re not going to migrate your 500-board enterprise architecture overnight. They know the switching costs are too high.
The SaaS playbook isn’t about building the best software. It’s about building an inescapable cage, then selling the keys to a vampire.
The tech community sees right through it. As one user bluntly put it when the news dropped: “Another dead tool whose users will be sucked dry. Vampire equity at its best.” Another founder, whose startup was acquired by Miro in 2021, watched bittersweetly as their creation gets fed to the machine. The founders and early employees get the exit. The users get the bill.
This is the dark paradox of the modern software industry. A widely disliked, mediocre product commands a massive valuation purely because its enterprise lock-in forces users to keep paying. Bending Spoons isn’t going to add features that make your life easier. They are going to turn the screws. Prices will go up. Features will stagnate. The free tier will wither.
We celebrated software-as-a-service, but what we actually got was software-as-a-hostage.
The cycle is entirely predictable now: VCs subsidize the growth, the founders take the exit, and private equity squeezes the actual users to extract predictable returns. The user base is the real product being sold to PE.
The next time you’re dragged into a laggy whiteboard session, remember what you’re looking at. It’s not a tool. It’s a trap that just paid off for its founders, and a bill that’s about to come due for you. Stop trusting the subsidized tools. Start looking for the exits.
FAQ
Q: Why would anyone pay $1.355B for a mediocre tool?
A: Because they aren't paying for the software. They're paying for a trapped user base with high switching costs. The mediocrity doesn't matter if the enterprise lock-in forces you to keep paying.
Q: What's the practical implication for Miro users?
A: Expect aggressive monetization. Prices will rise, free tiers will shrink, and development will stagnate as private equity extracts maximum margin from the captive audience.
Q: Is the entire SaaS model just a scam?
A: Not entirely, but the VC-backed SaaS playbook is. It subsidizes distribution to create lock-in, then sells the captive users to private equity. You are the livestock being sold at market.