Nothing to see here

Tumblr has joined the war against advertising on the side against advertising.

Which is.

Tumblr is a Saas — software as a service, this term is important to link what is going on. Twelve seconds of research will show you how cheap it is to add a user to a Saas. It isn’t $0.00 but it’s a fraction of a cent. The big cost is the initial load.

It’s $7 a month to pay for Tumblr Premium.

That’s fucking insane.

It should be $1-2.

You will obviously need a significantly higher volume to make the same amount of cash. I have an idea. Stop introducing shit people don’t want.

I am here on this site because of the perverts and artists and people with interestingly unhinged takes on media and/or life events.

There is no feature I crave on Tumblr beyond maintenance and a “reply via email” because I hate having inboxes outside of my email.

This is a business. I get it. I do not want this site to go under. I want the crew that runs it to be compensated well.

And.

There is no content Tumblr as a business is producing that I give a shit about. I am here still because it is the most convenient meeting ground to be weird and to enjoy weird and discover weird.

Premium experiences are so goddamn overrated and over bloated.

You have lost the plot and gotten way too big for your britches.

Charge fairly, provide the core service intended, and get out of the way for the mechanism that makes your product worth it — in this case, the evolving nonsense essays, comments, hilariously specific and targeted hate mail that feels at least half loving, and comics.

This place is wires and a collection of bad decisions in a group project for a teacher that is themselves about to get fired. It’s special because of the people. Not the fucking software.

Look into my beautiful eyes, tumblr staff.

Ban the nazis.

Stop banning trans people for being trans.

Keep the lights on and the floors swept.

Understand that every feature to compete with another network misses the point that this is place is a dive bar.

You bought a dive bar. You can’t make it into a gastropub. Your attempts to bring in headlining entertainment is going to fall on deaf ears, we are here to see the local folks live their theater kid nightmare orgasm comedy fest.

This brought to you by counting how many ads I had to scroll past on my phone while stuck in traffic where the ad purposefully slowed down the scrolling mechanism.

You are not going to annoy me into supporting this business.

CURRENT PRICE FOR TUMBLR PREMIUM: $7.00

ESTIMATED NET RETURN (($7 x 0.971) - $0.30): about $6.50

This accounts for basic credit card processing fees of 2.9% + $0.30. Something at Tumblr's size should be able to negotiate better, but we are being malicious in our calculations, and saying "you get the basic rate" to prove a point.

SUGGESTED PRICE FOR TUMBLR PREMIUM: $2.00

ESTIMATED NET RETURN (($2 x 0.971) - $0.30): about $1.64

So

I ungenerously estimate the current Tumblr premium gets them $6.50/revenue versus my suggested $1.64/revenue.

Seems bad?!

Let's do a bit more math.

How many users at $2/base ($1.64 profit) would it take to cover the income of 1 user at $7/base ($6.50 income)?

6.50 / 1.64... 3.96341463415

I will uh go ahead and

round up

to 4 users

So. 1 user = $6.50 (6.50 x 1) profit. 4 users = $6.56 ($1.64 x 4) profit.

we'll just let the ol' tumblr keep them there six cents and call it even an even swap

Now.

To be fair.

To make this work.

You have to attract 3 more users (1 versus 4) to pay.

This feels like a lot!

Until it doesn't!

Because personally.

I would pay $2.00/month to keep this site running. Feels like a rounding error in my books.

I flinch at $7.00/month. Feels weird to pay this much for a site that so regularly has "hm, this disasterous new feature is pissing me off."

:)

But

as always

what do i know.

To satisfy my various spoken and unspoken life/art studio ambitions I offer this as a free consultancy lesson to anyone making a patreon or paid newsletter or whatever thing -- where you have a digital product that does not require shipping, handling, etc.

You can make it expensive and aim to have a small audience.

You can make it cheap and aim to have a large audience.

I personally am really fond of cheap digital services because it feels like support when I realize I have not had time to keep up. When I do have time to keep up -- "Oh this is a great value"

And when I do not, I see the bill -- "Ah, I am glad THING exists. Happy to throw them a few coins."

In respect to my soul, please use this lesson exclusively for such things as

art

music

thinly-veiled self-insert fan fiction

non-tax evasion accounting practices

joyous pornography or other erotic silliness

history (all years available)

claymation

cartooning

books (novels or things longer or shorter)

poetry (erotic or non)

coffee

fiction

non-fiction

non-non fiction

non-fiction fiction

and, of course, real reviews of faux products that should exist, but do not, due to limitations of time, space, money, reality, magic, technology, theology, methodology, organic chemistry, biology (marine, terra), cosmology, topology and/or cartography

anything fun

thank you and good night

for at least

Stop banning trans people for being trans.

Thing they could do that might even get me at the current pricing:

Quit trying to be the arbiters of what is and isn't an acceptable image or whose nipples can be shown and whose cannot.

Thing about which I cannot work up any expectations:

ban the nazis

I have no problem with trans people using whatever bathroom is comfortable for them. If a bathroom is built so that I'm likely to see anyone else's private parts, let's fix the washroom, not make the trans people among us miserable about it.

Narnia: if you don't mind being sort of christian, life is pretty fucking cool and your local government is likely to be little british children who never learned what taxes are for.

Wonderland: this whole thing is just what being ten years old and mad as hell is like, but forever. enjoy everyone being a big fat jerk and then flipping out when you have a problem with that. in a hundred years people will say you're a metaphor for party drugs, like that helps.

The Wizarding World: exact same amount of nazis as this one but now they can explode your brain with their brains. apparently you shit yourself and magically clean it up afterwards, which is not even enough of a metaphor to be funny.

Middle-Earth: the likelihood of having to pay taxes on your pastoral fantasy is low, but that's only because a centralized government with the ability to effectively levy those taxes would be a HUGE step up. maybe move to hobbitton and join a weed co-op before something eats you?

Discworld: everything is going to be okay unless you happen to get stuck in a deconstruction of some kind of real world injustice. which will be equally unjust in this world, and even more annoying to try and survive. your name is probably going to be Poncival Greggs.

Pokemon: hell yeah socialized medicine for you AND your magic pets and you only have to raise your own kid for like ten years. walkable cities? try walkable continents. the only downside is that god is a real actual literal space dragon and a fifth grader has taken him to the olympics.

Land of Ooo: welcome to hell! you're a cupcake.

Naruto: hey so you know how much PE sucked in school? please consider how much more it would suck if every single sport was Kill Other Children For Money.

Avatar: PE again but this time they set you on fire and you don't even get paid.