Tumblr has ads?

[olivermoss]

I saw a bunch of doomerism about Tumblr recently and went to figure out what was going on. Turns out, in the wake of their failed Tumblr+ thing, they are now offering ad-free for forty bucks a year.

They got in trouble for adult content ban. Article from yesterday, Tumblr is settling with NYC’s human rights agency due to their ban and algorithm disproportional effecting LGBTQ+ people.

Also, the site has been having loading problems for months. I want to post the weird color gradations that go in while the images load, but the annoying site is actually loading properly today.

I don't think the site is about to die... but I would be 0% surprised if 90% of the site's data accidentally got deleted to make it run cheaper, load easier and go from being a stodgy site where it's all been done to having the sort of disruption that makes it possible for new people to actually get traction there.

I use ad-block so I don't see these 'legendarily' annoying and bizarre ads the site apparently has. I don't really care if Tumblr dies, except that Wordpress bought it for some unknowable reason and I don't want Wordpress to get kneecapped by a bad acquisition.

Comments

[bluedreaming]

Yeah I was hoping, after hearing that Automattic bought it, that something (positive) would actually happen (or at least not something like post+), since they bought simplenote ages ago and it still works fine, and dayone more recently and it also still works fine. I have no idea what they think they’re even doing.


I only ever used to see ads on the mobile app if scrolling my timeline, but since I never scroll my timeline (thank goodness for rss to email!) it was a pretty moot point.

[olivermoss]

I use it on desktop like an old.

They have made some good changes. Search works better, you can view tags by new without typing in changes to the URL, and you can sort-of track tags again.

When Tumblr got rid of tracked tags, view by new and other stuff they exploded the ability of small fandoms to function on that site. The site has gotten better, but most people don't even know that. I have no clue what the new owners are thinking or planning.