Outside Inc layoffs

[seventyseven]

Unconfirmed for now, but the word is Outside Inc (owners of Pinkbike, Cyclingtips, Velonews among others) are laying off 12% of their staff today, "mostly roles in content and journalism". Source.

As a cycling enthusiast, this is of course incredibly disappointing. I understand the monetization of online media is incredibly difficult, but quality journalism is even harder to come by. Hopefully everyone affected by this is able to land on their feet.

And in light of this, a few words of appreciation the participants of these forums: you guys make it really fun to stay on the cutting edge of bike tech (even if you have to wade through the odd holy war, not that the moderators don't do a great job also!). And of course also to Starbike for their facilitation. Cheers.

[TobinHatesYou]

Caley Fretz, Dave Rome among the casualties. CT is certainly headed toward zombie status. I’m sure this is Outside’s brilliant strategy to buy up content publishers and turn them into pure ad platforms, then eventually shuttering them.

CT’s founder, Wade Wallace, seems to be working on a reboot.

[LeDuke]

Iain Treloar just wrote an article which is basically lamenting these layoffs without saying it. I wonder if it will get pulled.

https://cyclingtips.com/2022/11/i-dont- ... out-today/




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[blaugrana]

It's quite hard to understand the move. In particular, Dave Rome was my favourite bike tech journalist, and his article series on tools were fantastic. Maybe that's just me and no one else read them, or maybe it's simply more profitable to just churn out press releases disguised as "bike reviews". In any case, subscription cancelled on my part.

[stoney]

I can't say I'm sad to see Caley Fretz go.

[Orbital]

Maybe they’ll find a voice somewhere else. I was shocked when local sports radio made wholesale changes. Then I found all my favorite hosts created podcasts. The content was even better because now they have no one to really answer to or cater to.

[XCProMD]

I can't say I'm sad to see Caley Fretz go.

Me neither. Having said that, not good news.


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[maquisard]

Why, Caley Fretz drove CyclingTips to what it is today?

He is the biggest loss in my opinion. I subsribed to the VeloClub membership but have cancelled.

I hope Wade Wallace is able to achieve a reboot and Outside becomes insolvent.

[misteryellow]

Not surprising. The ad game has been rough lately with the economy in a recession. They probably grew very fast during covid thinking it would last.

[Sockman]

I can't say I'm sad to see Caley Fretz go.

I can't say I'm sad to see Caley Fretz go.

Me neither. Having said that, not good news.


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Care to elaborate? I for one think he did an awesome job of engaging new audiences, providing interesting content & being a journalist with integrity!

[OnTheRivet]

I can't say I'm sad to see Caley Fretz go.

Same, snarky jackass.

[gravity]

Well damn i thought i was the only who finds Caley Fretz super annoying! He is the reason i rarely go to CT for anything (used to browse CT more than once a day)

That being said, sad to see ppl lose jobs. I hope he will annoy ppl somewhere else.

[CarlosTheJackal]

Some more links.

James Huang has just posted https://cyclingtips.com/2022/11/jra-wit ... et-adrift/

Hambini https://youtu.be/l73RUpz_W-c

Outside Inc clearly see the business as not profitable in its current state and decided to wield the axe. It doesn't really matter how good someone is, it's the value they bring to the business.

[maquisard]

If you read Wade Wallace's tweets -CT was profitable before he sold it to Outside. That situation will undoubtedly have been hurt by recent falls in online ad spending but I think the general understanding is that Outside have wrecked a viable business.

Outside's strategy seems to be to buy up all the competition, they had PinkBike, Velonews and CyclingTips and Trailforks. Then they dumb it down, and collect the ad revenue until the titles are no longer viable. Future did exactly the same thing when they acquired cyclingnews.com into their Bikeradar abomination. Cyclingnews.com is now unusable due to the volume of ads.

I hope Wade Wallace, Caley, James, Dane, Dave, Iain and all are able to reboot what was CyclingTips into some other form. I will subscribe.

[jever98]

I can't say I'm sad to see Caley Fretz go.

I can't say I'm sad to see Caley Fretz go.

Me neither. Having said that, not good news.


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Care to elaborate? I for one think he did an awesome job of engaging new audiences, providing interesting content & being a journalist with integrity!

+1. Under his leadership CT was producing interesting content - James, Dave, Iain in particular. On the nerd alert podcast I found him enjoyable to listen to. But tastes differ, I guess.