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I read a lot of posts on Reddit bemoaning Tumblr's decision to stop carrying adult content. A lot of people there and here feel that this decision spells the e

I read a lot of posts on Reddit bemoaning Tumblr's decision to stop carrying adult content. A lot of people there and here feel that this decision spells the end of the company. That may be the case, but I never understood how Tumblr was profiting from hosting all that adult content to begin with. I presume they're selling ads, in which case disassociating themselves from anything that could be considered pornographic seems like reasonable business logic. I'm not questioning whether Tumblr's decision is fair, or morally right or wrong. I just don't see how Tumblr was generating enough revenue to cover their costs to begin with. Is image hosting really that cheap?

xfitm3 8y ago
Static content is extremely cheap to host. I would compare it to S3 costs.
- radiowave 8y ago
  Not sure how Tumblr is doing things these days, but for a long time it literally was S3 costs, as that's where all the media was being served from.
whatshisface 8y ago
AT&T carries way more of it than any individual website serves, but nobody complains because they're generally thought of as a pipe that is at worst absent. If a social platform can get the coveted "at worst absent," perception in place, nobody will blame them, and by extension nobody will blame the advertisers. That's why it was against the rules (so to speak) for the media to hop on YouTube for the "Nazi" videos: the only reason any of these platforms can get by at all is because we agree not to blame them for what they host. If we stopped doing that we would end up with three or four sanitised news websites, and at most eight mainstream entertainment websites. jokes.com would make a killing.
- tech2 8y ago
  "Amusingly" this is almost exactly what EU Article 11 & 13 are likely to result in (for slightly different reasons). One can but hope sense is seen soon.
dhimes 8y ago
disassociating themselves from anything that could be considered pornographic seems like reasonable business logic We will see if their revenue and profit go up or down. Then we'll know if it's the right decision or not.
shaklee3 8y ago
Keep in mind Reddit users also predicted the death of Reddit during the pao/banning fiasco. It's only grown since then.
- superkuh 8y ago
  False. That was the beginning of the end. https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/reddit.com https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/reddit.com
  - shaklee3 8y ago
    Your link only goes back to the beginning of 2018. Pao left in 2015.and your link is comparing overall rankings of websites. That in no way tells you anything about redditt's traffic growth. https://www.statista.com/chart/11882/number-of-subreddits-on-reddit/ https://www.statista.com/chart/11882/number-of-subreddits-on...
    - superkuh 8y ago
      The banning of completely legal and non-controversial content didn't stop with Pao. That was the start. It's only accelerated. And that's what you see in the stats. Reddit is down in popularity since 2015. They abandoned their userbase and are attempting to bootstrap up into a gentrified facebook clone with new emphasis on personal identity (ie, having people post to their user profile pages instead of subreddits, and the implementation of commercial ad "personal" profiles like u/washingtonpost). And luckily for them in 2016 a partisan political issue finally provided motivation for people to leave Facebook for other sites. This explains your observations about number of subs.
      - shaklee3 8y ago
        If you make that assertion please provide data in the form of graphs or tables. All I said was pao left in 2015, and during that time I remember Reddit users predicting it would go there way of digg. It didn't.
- 8y ago

xfitm3 8y ago

Static content is extremely cheap to host. I would compare it to S3 costs.

radiowave 8y ago
Not sure how Tumblr is doing things these days, but for a long time it literally was S3 costs, as that's where all the media was being served from.

whatshisface 8y ago

AT&T carries way more of it than any individual website serves, but nobody complains because they're generally thought of as a pipe that is at worst absent. If a social platform can get the coveted "at worst absent," perception in place, nobody will blame them, and by extension nobody will blame the advertisers. That's why it was against the rules (so to speak) for the media to hop on YouTube for the "Nazi" videos: the only reason any of these platforms can get by at all is because we agree not to blame them for what they host. If we stopped doing that we would end up with three or four sanitised news websites, and at most eight mainstream entertainment websites. jokes.com would make a killing.

tech2 8y ago
"Amusingly" this is almost exactly what EU Article 11 & 13 are likely to result in (for slightly different reasons). One can but hope sense is seen soon.

dhimes 8y ago

disassociating themselves from anything that could be considered pornographic seems like reasonable business logic We will see if their revenue and profit go up or down. Then we'll know if it's the right decision or not.

shaklee3 8y ago

Keep in mind Reddit users also predicted the death of Reddit during the pao/banning fiasco. It's only grown since then.

superkuh 8y ago
False. That was the beginning of the end. https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/reddit.com https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/reddit.com
- shaklee3 8y ago
  Your link only goes back to the beginning of 2018. Pao left in 2015.and your link is comparing overall rankings of websites. That in no way tells you anything about redditt's traffic growth. https://www.statista.com/chart/11882/number-of-subreddits-on-reddit/ https://www.statista.com/chart/11882/number-of-subreddits-on...
  - superkuh 8y ago
    The banning of completely legal and non-controversial content didn't stop with Pao. That was the start. It's only accelerated. And that's what you see in the stats. Reddit is down in popularity since 2015. They abandoned their userbase and are attempting to bootstrap up into a gentrified facebook clone with new emphasis on personal identity (ie, having people post to their user profile pages instead of subreddits, and the implementation of commercial ad "personal" profiles like u/washingtonpost). And luckily for them in 2016 a partisan political issue finally provided motivation for people to leave Facebook for other sites. This explains your observations about number of subs.
    - shaklee3 8y ago
      If you make that assertion please provide data in the form of graphs or tables. All I said was pao left in 2015, and during that time I remember Reddit users predicting it would go there way of digg. It didn't.
8y ago