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Tumblr is reportedly on life support as its latest owner reassigns staff (arstechnica.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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It's not quite the end of Tumblr, but when management is supposedly sending memos with the Lord Tennyson quote about having "loved and lost," it doesn't look like there's much of a future.

Internet statesman and Waxy.org proprietor Andy Baio posted what is "apparently an internal Automattic memo making the rounds on Tumblr" to Threads. The memo, written to employees at WordPress.com parent company Automattic, which bought Tumblr from Verizon's media arm in 2019, is titled or subtitled "You win or you learn." The posted memo states that a majority of the 139 employees working on product and marketing at Tumblr (in a team apparently named "Bumblr") will "switch to other divisions." Those working in "Happiness" (Automattic's customer support and service division) and "T&S" (trust and safety) would remain.

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Verizon banned porn. The new owners have turned more of a blind eye to it. I know, hard to keep up with all the different owners and their individual policies.

Its different corporate masters passing Tumblr around. At least try to see how different owners have different policies. I think we all knew that Verizon was utter crap as an owner and did untold damage to the brand. But I actually was rooting for Tumblr to make a comeback this time.

Alas, Automattic couldn't save Tumblr after all the damage to its reputation.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They didnt really try to.

A lot of the new money making features were half assed, and got abandoned pretty quickly after release. Lots of users who wanted to support them have complained that they seem to not want the money.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

They’ve also added features no one wants. For example, the recent “Tumblr Live” nonsense, which is basically Twitch meets Shorts. It’s at the top of your feed and you can’t permanently turn it off - you can turn it off for what was a week, then a month. They wasted money and time to get that feature going, one that you know cost a lot because hosting video isn’t cheap, when NO ONE goes to tumblr to look at random cam girls.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Lol, never used Tumblr, but that sounds terrible. I hate how they want to change all social media to the exact same thing, instead or leaving us with different choices.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah, same. It’s like they think unique identities is bad.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

It’s about aiming for the lowest common denominator to maximize user number and engagement. Autoplaying short vids in a feed that you didn’t curate - all things optimized to trick your monkey brain for one more scroll or one more click. Works on everybody from children to elderly.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Except in Tumblr’s case, no one goes to tumblr to watch videos on the first place, and the way they have it set up is awful. It’s at the top of your feed, and you have to tap any of them to watch them in anything larger than a tiny square.