Honestly, it wasn't a surprise. It was a bit surprising how quickly they went down, but I'm guessing they had a lot of lofty plans that didn't really extend toward, "How to make money." They were very good in positioning the platform as "Not YouTube," but to advertisers, what does that mean? Especially when the top-rated content on the platform was often stuff that wouldn't appeal to advertisers.
As to being a creator on Vidme, they treated my channel very well (I was featured early after joining, and won a contest they ran), but when their monetization plan was basically, "Ask us how much you earned via email to the owner, and we'll pay you by PayPal when you ask us, maybe."
Overall, I think Vidme really showed how difficult running a platform for streaming videos can be. It's super-expensive, requires a ton of overhead and maintenance, and it doesn't really lend itself to making money.