Really, Matt? Nothing else, like how you went scorched-earth on WPEngine and caught a lot of people in the crossfire and destroyed a lot of goodwill in the process? Nothing comes to mind?
Automattic CEO calls Tumblr his 'biggest failure' so far
Submitted 3 weeks ago by morrowind@lemmy.ml to technology@lemmy.world
https://techcrunch.com/2025/10/20/automattic-ceo-calls-tumblr-his-biggest-failure-so-far/
Comments
sidelove@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
AbidanYre@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Thank you. I knew I had heard his name before and had some “eff that guy” alarms going off but couldn’t remember why/where .
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 3 weeks ago
the biggest failure was removal of porn from tumbler, they all fled to twitter, and pornhub.
SomethingBurger@jlai.lu 2 weeks ago
Automattic bought Tumblr after the porn ban.
hamsterkill@lemmy.sdf.org 2 weeks ago
The ban happened because Verizon was trying to sell it.
Lumidaub@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
Who’d’ve thunk that not only doing everything your userbase does not want but also actively bullying a large portion of that userbase into leaving wouldn’t create revenue? No, being quirky on main and self-deprecating every once in a while won’t change that.
Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
Nahhh your comment didn’t come across like you think, it totally makes sense. They really fucked the web site completely.
Melobol@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
Since I am out of loop - my bias is still: why wouldn’t (furry) porn be profitable? :D
Lumidaub@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
Porn on tumblr was an early victim of credit card companies not wanting to be associated with that filthy filth, like what happened recently with videogames. Iirc, they pressured app stores to take the tumblr app down.
KoboldCoterie@pawb.social 3 weeks ago
I can’t verify the truth of it, but I heard that the catalyst to the porn ban was a meeting where they were pitching Tumblr advertisements to some company, and wanted to demonstrate how tags and engagement works, so they pulled up the #McDonalds tag live to demonstrate and they got a screen full of Ronald McDonald porn.
drgeppo@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
as a long time tumblr user it’s so very ironic to me that short after the 2018 porn ban you see the rise of fan sites, and still after that tumblr tried to monetise by adding tips, and various ways to pay your favourite bloggers and just… you already had users willing to post hot original porn, and later you had ways to monetise it, but no, they did it in the wrong order wtf
Melobol@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
Ahh that makes kinda sense!
Tho I’m not interested much in porn - I am very pissed about credit card companies deciding for the users of what they can purchase or not. I believe crypto will help a lot with these overreaches in the future.
bvoigtlaender@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
Depending on how you measure “success, it may have not made any money but people seem to have fun in there.
General_Effort@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
“so far”
thepompe@ttrpg.network 3 weeks ago
I’m guessing he’s stupid or greedy.
Throw in an ad and the service pays for itself.
That is, unless he’s renting hardware like a dipshit.
morrowind@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
A bunch of companies have been trying for years to monetize tumblr. They’ve all failed. Tumblr users are very proud of this.
T156@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
They do call it a Hellsite for many reasons. Not being profitable is one of them.
At the same time, it has calmed down a bit as the user base has aged up, and the more volatile elements have left for bluer skies.
Oddly enough, other than the mess of the NSFW filter, it’s been fairly controversy free. You can still use their API without paying globs of money, for example. Twitter and Facebook have all thrown that out, and Reddit has made other bad decisions, in addition to imploding their third party app ecosystem.
drspawndisaster@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Hammer car explosion motherfucker
abbiistabbii@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
as a tumblr user, lol.
sifar@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
Simplenote, DayOne, Pocket Casts are already ready to challenge this failure - maybe not in terms of money, Matt. So never say never.
cupcakezealot@piefed.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
yeah well when you buy tumblr and ignore the userbase to push dumb changes what do you think would happen
BD89@lemmy.sdf.org 3 weeks ago
Well like most CEO’s he gets paid no matter what so he doesn’t have to think. That’s the problem.
Imagine getting millions of dollars to ruin a company. The concept is insane to me.
paraphrand@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
It’s all gambling when playing with those numbers.
cupcakezealot@piefed.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
i’d say give tumblr back to david karp but i’m literally afraid he’s like into crypto now like wil wright (don’t tell me cause i don’t wanna find out because i dont wanna get sad 🙃)
architect@thelemmy.club 3 weeks ago
Either they eat the shit and like it or they get nothing! - CEOs