Tumblr Users Like To Build Up A Lot Of Myths About This Site That Still Get Thrown Around Like They're

Tumblr users like to build up a lot of myths about this site that still get thrown around like they're fact, but I think the biggest myth they've convinced themselves is true is that the site is unprofitable because of the users.

Tumblr's unprofitable because its model doesn't fly under the current state of internet advertising. It's also had a string of owners, leadership, and people in charge of coming up with ideas for Tumblr that don't know what they have and would be damned if they knew what to do with it. You can't make money on social media unless you collect worthwhile info from users to sell to advertisers. You also don't make money on social media by copying existing features.

Tumblr's core prop, which they has somehow survived Yahoo, Verizon, and now Automattic, is anonymity. You can't sell that information that you don't collect. Outside of that, Tumblr's a long-form blogging platform which flies in the face of short-form attention-grabbing content like Tiktok and Twitter.

The people who have been in charge of making decisions at Tumblr have never known what to do with it. A lot of them just copied other platforms' features. It got really frustrating working there, being forced to make something you knew would just languish for months before being left to rot or, hopefully, mercifully, be removed.

Meanwhile site improvements were neglected because they don't make a quick buck. This was the main reason I quit, because I just gave up on trying to make the place better only to be forced into adding a new feature that no one wants to use.

Case in point, Tumblr live. I can assure you that none of the engineers or the people who run the Staff blog, or anyone else who does actual work work at Tumblr, wanted to support it. It's not even the first time Tumblr had live video.

The thing is, though, I'm not sure that just improving the site without adding anything new would lead to long term success anyways. You need a steady stream of new users to replace the old. It's also incredibly expensive to run a social media site that hosts images and video. AND you have to moderate it, which is expensive and difficult. Even if Tumblr just made all these things better, I'm not convinced it would keep the site alive much longer. Tumblr's too expensive to maintain on this model that doesn't make enough money from advertising, and it's too expensive to be maintained on user donations.

Anyways, the point is, the Tumblr users that like to proudly declare they have the power to make this site lose money are actually helping the site make money by posting and using the site. Even if you have an ad-blocker never pay for merch or whatever, your presence and activity here adds to Tumblr's usership statistics, which they use to court more advertisers. The people who have actually been keeping this site unprofitable are the people who own it and the decision makers who dictate what the next feature will be.