this post was submitted on 28 Nov 2023
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Technology
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Tumblr is still around???
This gets asked every time Tumblr is mentioned online. It's still around and has a large, thriving userbase. It's one of the last slices of old-school internet that exists today and, because of that, is very resistant to modern monetisation tactics and enshittification which makes shareholders cry in their sleep.
Yeah despite Yahoo trying like hell to kill the platform, its user base has steadily grown since. 2014: https://www.statista.com/statistics/183857/unique-visitors-on-tumblr-in-the-us/ (about half of its user base is in the US).
Yep. A crowd settled back in after the dust settles from the porn bans. But the owners are still profit driven and you know, anything that isn't growing by a huge amount every year is dead to them.
People keep saying it's dead to them but the company's own statements seem a lot more optimistic, imo. I think they're just refocusing, and dumping a lot of the extraneous "let's be an everything platform" features the userbase didn't want anyway. Tumblr isn't a giant cash so far as I know, but its userbase is sizable and stable, and recently grown since reddit and twitter took a tumble.
As a platform, there's a lot to recommend it, I think. It's one of those situations where the experience you get out of it depends on how you curate it. So like, you can go down fandom rabbitholes, or webcomic rabbitholes, or you can entirely ignore that and just subscribe to ocean science blogs, or to photography blogs, or so on. There can be drama in some parts, but that can also be entirely avoided in your feed if that's your preference. I like it a lot better these days than I did like 5-10 years ago.
I'd agree on that. If they can drop the video stuff and focus on what makes Tumblr a good space and it's unique features they could last a good long time and we can avoid the complete homogenization of social media.