Originally published at: Tumblr launches subscription service | Boing Boing
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The fact that nobody ever made money on tumblr is the best thing about it, and the reason I’m still there
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Tumblr is very much like Flickr. Both platforms were amazing and should’ve been a slam dunk to make them profitable but both were handled terribly, i doubt any Tumblr user would want to pay for the service these days.
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When I read this my first thought is that it’s a prelude to officially bringing back adult content. They probably think there’s an opportunity to leverage the brand goodwill to compete with OnlyFans.
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I doubt that’d be the case but assuming that might be true, the success of OF has already created other competitors in that space so Tumblr would be late to the party. Had they not banned adult content i think they could have seriously competed with OF from day 1, and they could’ve pivoted towards paid content.
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When I think “internet of shit” Tumblr comes to mind.
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Not Facebook? 
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Yeah I’ve been on Tumblr for a long time and I haven’t seen a single user who wants this. Also, you can’t block someone if they start paying you, apparently. I block a lot of porn blogs.
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I like what I post, and what the three people who I follow and follow me post. At this point, Tumblr is kind of just a group text between us, and a kind of travel log / record of my existence over the years. Would you pay $3.99 for any of this? You be the judge!
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“Why don’t you pay us for access to the thing we destroyed” is not a great pitch, frankly.
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I’ve been a filthy casual on Tumblr for 6 or 7 years now. I love the format, which for me offers the best joy-scrolling of any social media platform. I go to Tumblr to fill my eyeballs with art, pop-culture mulch, and general weirdness (the same reason I came to boingboing). I would happily pay a low monthly fee just to remove adds, etc.
This pay-wall scheme if done in a healthy way, managed and informed by content creators could maybe work on the platform, but given Tumblr’s history of absolutlely not giving a fuck and the resulting feral nature of the user base, I’m guessing it’s just another turd in the Tumblr punchbowl.
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Indeed. And given the inept handling of Tumblr and it’s userbase over the years, I wouldn’t want to give them my payment details for anything ever; I’d rather support users that are on tumblr via some other means such as patreon or possibly onlyfans.
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That’s what irks me the most about it as well, and a lot of the 'bots on there are programed in a rather clever manner to hide their shenanigans in re-posts of content from user’s the bot is following, which can have a knock-on effect of having your blog getting whacked by the abuse AI along side the bot…
capitalism ruins everything in the end
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Now you may be onto something there because Tumblr’s ads are batshit. Why do I have so many ads about shaved soap???
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First though: Huh, tumblr still exists. Well who would have expected that.
Second thought:
Remembering the utter toxicity of some of the userbase, the bullying and the shitty interface, I can confidently say that no, monetisation was not the most significant shortcoming.
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I block all the pr0n bots who “like” my popular posts, and the ones that follow me. Why TF a tumblr pr0n bot would follow me, I can’t understand at all.
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tumblr ads can be removed with browser extensions. That’s another reason to be pissed at tumblr - you need extensions and XKit to make it bearable and functional. These are Firefox and chrome extensions:
(There’s an option in XKit that removes tumblr radar in Firefox.)
(There’s an option in XKit that removes tumblr’s BS recommends in Firefox.)
I also have extensions that get rid of tumblr’s endless scrolling.
ETA: PS: I have been on tumblr since February 2011.
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Seriously I’ll post something like “I found the fabric I was looking for” and I get 6 followers that are nothing but “click here for my naked pics.” I do not get it. I had 2 likes on the post and it’s not like my blog is popular.
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