#i do need to have discord nitro to access them in every server and its only on discord

[vanillabat99]

The other day I was hanging out with my partner and I got overwhelmed and wasn't able to communicate verbally, which happens sometimes, and I ended up stringing together various discord emojis to communicate. This then prompted my partner to provide me with my own communicative emojis to use, which is so sweet!! Even though I am able to communicate through words the majority of the time, it has been fantastic to have the addition of special emojis :3

I have been worried about trying alternative communication, and while the reasoning behind taking this step was a frustrating necessity, I am very glad to have gotten access to a wider range of ways to communicate :3

[nonegenderleftpain]

Dear Young Users Of Tumblr

I know that a lot of you folks have been pushing back hard on Tumblr rolling out an ad-free subscription service, and I want to explain it a bit. 

If you haven't heard, Tumblr is suggesting an opt-in service to clear ads and help pay for site maintenance.  This is objectively a good thing, and I'll tell you why.

Sites like Tumblr take money to run.  A lot of money.  And Tumblr has long since run out.  Since 2007, when Tumblr was started by David Karp, Tumblr has moved hands four times, every single time at a loss.  The worth of Tumblr as a platform has continued to plummet because the things that make the site what it is are not useful to advertisers.  They can't effectively collect data, the userbase is hostile towards attempts to monetize the space, and those two things together make it difficult to reasonably advertise here.

That's a good thing!  That's a very good thing!  There are so few places on the internet where you can remain truly anonymous, with sites not collecting your browsing data or identity to target you with advertisements, and Tumblr is one of those places.  It's a place we need to protect.

But because Tumblr cannot pay its bills with advertising money, we reach the important question - how are they going to do it, then? This question has been answered several times, and met with failure each time. Removing all "inappropriate" content was meant to make Tumblr more accessible and appealing to advertisers, but having the ability to form adult communities was such a huge part of why users were on Tumblr that millions of users left the site.

They couldn't have rolled this back even if they wanted to (for all I know, they did want to), because Apple had them in a vicegrip, as we've seen resurface recently with the tag bans. They had to keep the platform "clean" or bow to their complete control over half of the market and lose access to the app store. (This is a separate, enormous issue that I cannot talk about here, but other users have at length.)

Next was the PostPlus attempt. This was meant to incentivize users to monetize their blogs, and was so antithetical to the way the community functions (and begging for lawsuits) that it was a monumental failure. That they have already scrapped the idea and moved on says something about the desperate need for funds. Each time that Tumblr has attempted a monetization to bring in revenue, it has come faster and faster. Tumblr hasn't been profitable in it's entire fifteen years of existence. Staff has moved from a limp to a crawl, and they need a solution.

The idea of a subscription service to keep tumblr running is that solution. Being opt-in, it doesn't bar younger users or poor users from using the site, and its existence will not change the average user's experience at all, while allowing users that can afford it to help pay for a service that means so much to us. Much like Discord's Nitro service, it is a way to enhance the user experience in a very minor way to incentivize assisting with server and site maintenance costs. And it's genius.

It works! We've seen it work, and if it works well enough, we may be able to clear the site of advertisements altogether. (I'm not holding my breath on this one, but I am hopeful.) This is not a change that will cause you to be excluded from the way the site works in any capacity. This is a way to allow the adult Tumblr users who have been here over a decade to help with the cost of the site so it doesn't disappear entirely. And it is a good thing.

TL;DR - Allowing an opt-in subscription to help pay Tumblr site maintenance costs is equivalent to the Discord Nitro subscription - it will not affect your access to the site and will help keep it from closing down or having to rely on more and more advertising to survive. Please do not post negatively about this. If you are young or poor or simply unwilling to pay a subscription, you will never have to, and your experience will not be affected. This is not Tumblr requiring you to pay to be here. This is a good thing.