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I'm befuddled that Automattic is still investing in adding features (e.g. federation) to Tumblr. There's just about no chance of them actually making money from

I'm befuddled that Automattic is still investing in adding features (e.g. federation) to Tumblr. There's just about no chance of them actually making money from it, because its users are just about the most monetization-hostile users on the Internet. It doesn't help that the CEO actively antagonized a large portion of the site not too long ago.

drivingmenuts 2y ago
If they're converting Tumblr to Wordpress, I bet it will get folded into their main hosting solution eventually and Tumblr will cease to exist.
- evanelias 2y ago
  That doesn't make sense. The primary use-case (and traffic driver) for Tumblr is a social network for logged-in users, similar to Twitter but with some differences in the feature set. The public blog network is a minority of traffic. If you've never actually been a Tumblr user, you won't have an understanding of the product at all.
tylergetsay 2y ago
What else would they invest long term capital into? Developing PHP is the only thing that could come to mind
rglullis 2y ago
Their play is not to make money from Tumblr users, but to grow the total number of users connected to ActivityPub. Then they can go to BigCos and say "here it is, you can drop Twitter/Threads/Instagram/TikTok and control your social media presence directly." It's not that different from what Facebook is doing with Threads. They are not interested in making money from social media, they are just hoping they can become the main infrastructure provider.
- riffic 2y ago
  basically bring your own domain like Google Workspace or O365. I'd love to see the Mastodon project (or any other AP implementation) adopt that managed services model.
  - bhhaskin 2y ago
    I don't believe there is anything stopping someone from starting a managed Mastodon service.
    - danielheath 2y ago
      It’s absurdly expensive to offer, because none of the major implementations support serving multiple domains in a single process, so you end up with a lot of duplication.
      - rglullis 2y ago
        Takahe is the only one that is doing it, but unfortunately Andrew stopped working on it.
        riffic 2y ago
        this looks dope, I'm going to have to take a closer look now that I've heard of it. Does seem the project is in danger of being sunset unless new support comes in the way of the developer: > TLDR: I am looking for new developers and maintainers for Takahē who want to help in exchange for my mentorship, or I'll have to sunset the project. https://aeracode.org/2023/11/06/life-critical-side-projects/ https://aeracode.org/2023/11/06/life-critical-side-projects/ The repo is still being updated so it doesn't look like it's in too much danger: https://github.com/jointakahe/takahe/commits/main/ https://github.com/jointakahe/takahe/commits/main/
        rglullis 2y ago
        It seems that most of the work is going on at a fork, now: https://github.com/avaraline/incarnator https://github.com/avaraline/incarnator
ToucanLoucan 2y ago
> It doesn't help that the CEO actively antagonized a large portion of the site not too long ago. I love that this statement could apply to either Tumblr or WordPress. CEOs are such an expensive liability lately.
- Philpax 2y ago
  It's the same CEO! Ol' Matt pissed off the Tumblr userbase and then followed it up a year later with the WordPress debacle.
  - ToucanLoucan 2y ago
    Oh shit, somehow I hadn’t put that together! Ha! Well played!
AlienRobot 2y ago
Ironically, I found the opposite. Tumblr users will pay Tumblr to "blaze" posts of other users, sending the post to everyone on the platform. I don't think there are many platforms in which users are willing to give the platform money. If you asked me whether I'd give money to support Reddit, I'd say just let it crash and burn.
- pjc50 2y ago
  Very few social platforms have figured out that the right way to get money is from the readers supporting the posters, not from the posters themselves. Reddit gold is a pale version of this. Neither Twitter nor Bluesky show any signs of getting it.
  - AlienRobot 2y ago
    Hard to say that isn't the "right way" when they are making money with it. If we're talking hypothetical right ways, I think what "social" media gets wrong is to envision an anarchy for its users. People are never equal in a society. A teenager isn't the same thing as an elder, nor is a doctor the same thing as a nurse. I think I've read before that anarchy doesn't work because eventually people find someone who is reliable and naturally that person becomes their authority on the subject, creating an hierarchy. Social media tries to put all users in the same bucket even when it's well-known that most users belong in the "never posts anything" bucket while very few users belong in the "power user" bucket. There are passive users and active users. While hierarchies can become ugly fast, I don't think resigning on implementing them in any form is the right answer, specially now that everyone is on the Internet.
AndrewDucker 2y ago
Paying Tumblr user here - I'm delighted to give them money to not have adverts!
evanelias 2y ago
> I'm befuddled that Automattic is still investing in adding features (e.g. federation) to Tumblr. The article is saying the opposite though: they are not adding federation directly to Tumblr's own codebase. Instead, federation will come about from some planned future migration of Tumblr onto WordPress.com infrastructure, which already has that feature.

drivingmenuts 2y ago

If they're converting Tumblr to Wordpress, I bet it will get folded into their main hosting solution eventually and Tumblr will cease to exist.

evanelias 2y ago
That doesn't make sense. The primary use-case (and traffic driver) for Tumblr is a social network for logged-in users, similar to Twitter but with some differences in the feature set. The public blog network is a minority of traffic. If you've never actually been a Tumblr user, you won't have an understanding of the product at all.

tylergetsay 2y ago

What else would they invest long term capital into? Developing PHP is the only thing that could come to mind

rglullis 2y ago

Their play is not to make money from Tumblr users, but to grow the total number of users connected to ActivityPub. Then they can go to BigCos and say "here it is, you can drop Twitter/Threads/Instagram/TikTok and control your social media presence directly." It's not that different from what Facebook is doing with Threads. They are not interested in making money from social media, they are just hoping they can become the main infrastructure provider.

riffic 2y ago
basically bring your own domain like Google Workspace or O365. I'd love to see the Mastodon project (or any other AP implementation) adopt that managed services model.
- bhhaskin 2y ago
  I don't believe there is anything stopping someone from starting a managed Mastodon service.
  - danielheath 2y ago
    It’s absurdly expensive to offer, because none of the major implementations support serving multiple domains in a single process, so you end up with a lot of duplication.
    - rglullis 2y ago
      Takahe is the only one that is doing it, but unfortunately Andrew stopped working on it.
      - riffic 2y ago
        this looks dope, I'm going to have to take a closer look now that I've heard of it. Does seem the project is in danger of being sunset unless new support comes in the way of the developer: > TLDR: I am looking for new developers and maintainers for Takahē who want to help in exchange for my mentorship, or I'll have to sunset the project. https://aeracode.org/2023/11/06/life-critical-side-projects/ https://aeracode.org/2023/11/06/life-critical-side-projects/ The repo is still being updated so it doesn't look like it's in too much danger: https://github.com/jointakahe/takahe/commits/main/ https://github.com/jointakahe/takahe/commits/main/
        rglullis 2y ago
        It seems that most of the work is going on at a fork, now: https://github.com/avaraline/incarnator https://github.com/avaraline/incarnator

ToucanLoucan 2y ago

> It doesn't help that the CEO actively antagonized a large portion of the site not too long ago. I love that this statement could apply to either Tumblr or WordPress. CEOs are such an expensive liability lately.

Philpax 2y ago
It's the same CEO! Ol' Matt pissed off the Tumblr userbase and then followed it up a year later with the WordPress debacle.
- ToucanLoucan 2y ago
  Oh shit, somehow I hadn’t put that together! Ha! Well played!

AlienRobot 2y ago

Ironically, I found the opposite. Tumblr users will pay Tumblr to "blaze" posts of other users, sending the post to everyone on the platform. I don't think there are many platforms in which users are willing to give the platform money. If you asked me whether I'd give money to support Reddit, I'd say just let it crash and burn.

pjc50 2y ago
Very few social platforms have figured out that the right way to get money is from the readers supporting the posters, not from the posters themselves. Reddit gold is a pale version of this. Neither Twitter nor Bluesky show any signs of getting it.
- AlienRobot 2y ago
  Hard to say that isn't the "right way" when they are making money with it. If we're talking hypothetical right ways, I think what "social" media gets wrong is to envision an anarchy for its users. People are never equal in a society. A teenager isn't the same thing as an elder, nor is a doctor the same thing as a nurse. I think I've read before that anarchy doesn't work because eventually people find someone who is reliable and naturally that person becomes their authority on the subject, creating an hierarchy. Social media tries to put all users in the same bucket even when it's well-known that most users belong in the "never posts anything" bucket while very few users belong in the "power user" bucket. There are passive users and active users. While hierarchies can become ugly fast, I don't think resigning on implementing them in any form is the right answer, specially now that everyone is on the Internet.

AndrewDucker 2y ago

Paying Tumblr user here - I'm delighted to give them money to not have adverts!

evanelias 2y ago

> I'm befuddled that Automattic is still investing in adding features (e.g. federation) to Tumblr. The article is saying the opposite though: they are not adding federation directly to Tumblr's own codebase. Instead, federation will come about from some planned future migration of Tumblr onto WordPress.com infrastructure, which already has that feature.