Would it be possible for Tumblr to share more financial information? I'm specifically curious about how much revenue is coming from users (Ad-Free Browsing, Blaze, Important Blue Internet Checkmarks, Dashboard Crabs, merchandise, et cetera) as compared to revenue from advertisements, and also how that stacks up against the costs of running Tumblr (servers, hosting, payroll, et cetera). I personally would feel better about financially supporting Tumblr if I had more information about where and how far the money goes, and I suspect I'm not the only person for whom that is true. I want Tumblr to keep existing as the weird and wonderful website it is, so encouraging more user support seems like a good thing.
I can't share specifics, but I can tell you that it costs many millions more to run Tumblr than we currently bring in via avenues that aren't advertising (advertising + non-ad revenue also doesn't close the gap, but advertising makes a significant amount more in revenue than all our non-ad revenue). You're going to see us experiment a lot this year with different non-ad revenue ideas, because we would like to get to a state where we are sustainable (obviously, that is our most imperative goal) but also where we can turn off programmatic advertising entirely (programmatic ads are the ones like from Amazon or "this one weird trick"; we want to expand our partnership relationships, which are things like our Stranger Things campaign last June, Manscaped, etc). Not everything we try will resonate, but we are going to try plenty of things, because we simply have to. We have a tricky balance right now that I find very interesting - make things our long-time users will find engaging, while also making sense to the next 5 million users who aren't yet on Tumblr. There are tons of different communities on Tumblr, and we want to be able to provide this space for all of them, and so future fans and folks exploring their identity and the world have a safe space to do so.
To answer your question as directly as I can, the money that users pay to us, and what we make from advertising, goes directly to the costs of Tumblr (including salaries and server costs, but not limited to that), but it costs Automattic a lot more than we bring in to cover the gap (again to the tune of 10s of millions). Automattic can't do that forever. We have decreased our costs by quite a bit, which helps, but the most significant gains will come directly from users. We have made big improvements in the last year, and if we can keep building on that, we have bright prospects. Blaze and Important Blue Internet Checkmark are doing the best, and we have high hopes for Live and merch, both of which we will keep tweaking.
I hope that helps!
Deinfluencing in general can be a huge force for good. It helps to ensure that bad faith products don't go unchallenged. This is an example of attempted deinfluencing, but this isn't based in fact, which is necessary for deinfluencing to be that force for good.
In this case, there are no EU laws against live streaming. But I assume the point here is around data collection. Here's the data we collect: Username, Age, IP location. If you consent, we share this with our partner, and you are able to use Live. If you don't consent, we don't share it, obviously, and you don't use Live.
We will be rolling Live out internationally, and we are currently in the process of getting a DPA (data processing agreement) with our partner to ensure we are 100% in compliance with laws in any regions we open Live up to. We take user data very seriously, and that is partly why we're not more financially successful. It's a conscious choice we've made, and it's financially penalized us, and we have no regrets.
We take user data very seriously, and that is partly why we're not more financially successful. It's a conscious choice we've made, and it's financially penalized us, and we have no regrets.
wish i could paint this on the walls of the dashboard for more people to understand. (emphasis mine.)
Why Live?
- Nobody on Tumblr was asking for it
- The provider is mostly a dating apps company
- The streamers promoted in the Live section often have borderline salacious thumbnails that we can’t opt out of seeing
- Most importantly, the streamers aren’t from Tumblr and aren’t part of the culture.
- Trying to TikTok / Shorts / Twitch-ify Tumblr to chase revenue just because everyone else is doing it feels like a fundamental misunderstanding of this site and its userbase, and critically, the ramifications of its culture of anonymity.
- There are so many creative people on this site that have sponsorships or small businesses (art commissions, crafts, writing, etc) that use external platforms like Etsy, Shopify, Patreon, Ko-Fi etc - how much of that is lost revenue that could be captured by a WP VIP-style ecommerce integration? (And that can lead to an organically profitable ecosystem of Tumblr-first creators, brands, advertisers?)
- Like, there are so many opportunities for we, the users, to support the site and ourselves, but it feels like Automattic presumes Tumblr is something that it isn’t, or is trying to transform it into something it can never be.
@iheartvelma, these are all good questions, and I think answering them will help clear up some misconceptions, broaden some ideas, and some are just good data points. So let's dive in! I'm going to give a broad answer, and then go in order and reply bullet-style, so I am sure I cover it all.
Why Live - There's two reasons from my own POV. One is that live streaming is a new feature space and it can provide revenue. We really need to explore it, from a financial perspective. The second reason is that I personally think that there's a conception around live streaming being a face-forward, influencer experience, which it doesn't have to be. I think about how Tumblr users are the only users in the entire wide world who can take the idea of live streaming, and make it into something really, truly interesting and wild. Did you know a condition of implementing Live with our partner is that users never have to show their faces? Typically, you need to show your face to verify your age, but we said a flat no to that. That's how we can have Aquarium of the Pacific stream their Jelly Cam every monday. Jelly fish don't have faces (... I don't think). We've seen how other platforms use Live, and it's fine (but honestly, it's not for me, and I think you'll agree, it's not for Tumblr). So the challenge to Tumblr users is: how do we own live streaming and make it something that is unlike anywhere else, something exciting, funny, dumb, supportive of self-expression, etc etc etc? If anyone can turn the concept of live streaming on its head, it's Tumblr users. Y'all are amazing.
- Nobody was asking for it - that's a fair statement, but I'd challenge that (affectionately) by saying that we have a responsibility to take swings at big bets and a "big bet" by definition is probably not something that people have asked for.
- Our partner being in the dating space - totally true. They'd like to explore the platonic space, and we'd love to support them on this journey (besides our own goals). They've implemented a ton of technical changes based on our feedback to start making that shift. I'd also say, this doesn't matter that much, considering the amount of control we do have. Really, in my mind, this comes back to encouraging Tumblr users to make live streaming their own (and we can probably build out features to suit how users actually want to use it!)
- Streamers with salacious photos / marquee - yep, good feedback. I've seen that too - we're working on it. Those photos are people's Tumblr profile pics, for what it's worth. But we're working on making several changes to the marquee to make it less... invasive?
- Streamers not from Tumblr - partially true - some aren't! But also I follow plenty of people who go live and are native Tumblr users. Improvement here will come partially from organic uptake, but we're also playing around with the marquee to maybe only show you people you're following, for example (or more heavily weight people you follow or tags you follow, etc).
- "Trying to TikTok / Shorts / Twitch-ify Tumblr" - We just fundamentally disagree here, which I touched on a bit in my broad response. Adding live stream as a feature is really only what users make of it. Chasing revenue, sure, we gotta try stuff. If users can't make it something worthwhile (with our support on adding features to live), then we'll have to make some tough decisions with our partner. We need to do a better job of encouraging users and dispelling misinformation, though!
- Creative people with small businesses - absolutely agree! This isn't a zero sum game; we have a team dedicated to working on live, but we also have teams working on other aspects of Tumblr. We just added a team to work on the web experience, and we're talking about building more features of TumblrPay (which is built on WooCommerce) for users - which could include one-click shops for users (that is quite a bit of work, so it'll take time - but it's an idea we are talking about).
- "Like, there are so many opportunities for we, the users, to support the site and ourselves, but it feels like Automattic presumes Tumblr is something that it isn’t, or is trying to transform it into something it can never be." - I'm listening. I agree with that putting monetization into the hands of users can be significant. We tested the waters here with Post+ and Tipping, and are continuing with exploring the silly space more with TumblrMart items. I appreciate this feedback, because you may know that I have worked for Automattic for 10 years - 9 of them before working on Tumblr. You may also be thinking of Matt Mullengweg, who is the CEO of Tumblr (and Automattic). But did you know that Matt was an early adopter of Tumblr? We ended up purchasing Tumblr because we believe (from Matt on throughout the rest of Automattic) that Tumblr has intrinsic value - as the birthplace of culture (art! artists! fandom! memes!) and as a place for people to discover themselves, trying different identity in a safe space, and then expressing themselves truthfully. I believe in this intrinsic value. I love Tumblr. Really love it. So do my peers. I've spent a lot of time listening to everyone who works on Tumblr, and a lot of the people who use Tumblr (through exchanges like this!), and my intentions for Tumblr are to keep that intrinsic value and make it sustainable for many, many, many more people to find joy, find themselves, and find community. I don't want the honestly, the rough edges, the silliness, the inside jokes, etc to go away. And I mean that both from a product perspective, and from an existential perspective. That's what I come to work for, every day.
Whew, that got a bit long, thank you for hanging with me through that! I appreciate that you took the time to detail your concerns - you didn't have to do that, but you did and it shows you care about Tumblr. Thank you. I hope I've alleviated some of those concerns, or given you some more to think about at least.
@zingring That’s all very heartening to hear. (I know some Automatticians, and they are lovely people.)
I guess the thing with Live is that it just appeared more or less without warning and didn’t seem like it was organically Tumblr-ish. (We all know how users react to change - I do UX and product stuff myself.)
To your point, I get it, and yeah, I can see how live streaming can be a plus if there is organic uptake. It’s fantastic that anonymity is part of the deal, so thanks for clarifying.
I haven’t looked at the Live tools yet, but I’m a big supporter of having a native Tumblr Creator Studio experience - a suite of tools for 2D graphics, looping video, linear video / audio editing, livestreaming / podcasting, etc. (A Tumblr-Bandcamp partnership would be cool.)
As many have noted, graphics are heavy (and GIFs are very heavy vs video equivalents). I wonder how much storage could be freed up by archiving files that haven’t been accessed in ages, and doing some sort of deduplication sweep to repoint GIF URLs to a single canonical (optimized) version, maybe use hashing to detect duplicate uploads…
And of course, like every web host, ask heavy file uploaders / higher traffic blogs to pay for more space and bandwidth? I think tiered subscriptions aren’t unfair, especially if there’s a free-rider issue - ie a minority of heavy-file, frequent / popular “pro” posters takes advantage of the fact that it’s not metered right now.
If we had dashboard tools to show us the “weight” of our sites and see if we’re hitting a bandwidth cap, it might help users stay on budget…
Alternately this leads us to ads, which I’m not against (though I pay for Ad-Free), but maybe it’s time to think about opt-in native ads in one’s own blog.
Instead of an algorithmic auction marketplace like Google, maybe we can have a “matchmaking” model where we can offset the cost of our hosting (and maybe get some rev share?) by allowing us to pick from a list of advertisers or products we personally like / approve of. (This can be a step towards sponsorship models, too.)
Alternately, it could be the public media model - where particular content creators get funding from a revamped Tip Jar… at which point Tumblr becomes a broadcaster / aggregator?
Anyway, thanks for the thoughtful reply - I really appreciate it.
@iheartvelma - thank you for the feedback on the debut of live... I agree. I have some regrets. Our conversation (and some internal conversations) have got me thinking about neat things we (Tumblr) could be doing to better show how live can be anything. We haven't done that yet, and we should have done it sooner.
To your other suggestions - yeah, lots of good ideas here! Some we've talked about in some capacity, and some we haven't. I'll share internally.
Thanks again for such a thoughtful reply and taking the time to engage.