#anyways best of luck Tumblr staff I hope you kill it in 2024

[chipped-chimera]

I always felt the live push was kind of weird, and that explains it (goddamn corpos).

Maybe an unpopular opinion (please do not boo me off stage) but I think Live could have a place if done correctly and - and this is the important one - regulated. I think the primary problem with live - aside from feeling like it is constantly being shoved down our throats - was it felt more like it was trying to capitalize on the TikTok adjacent, influencer farming, algorithmic content bs that frankly so many of us are fatigued from being exposed to. The amount of control a Tumblr user has over the content they choose to engage with by comparison is phenomenal. And Live was the direct INVERSE of this principle.

Live could work well as a feature, but as long as it integrates with the rest of the existing experience. The current problem is it feels like Tumblr and then this weird thing tacked onto the side of it. Again people are here on Tumblr to get AWAY from being pushed content from people they're not following and have no interest in.

To really get this to work I feel you need to restore the user control here. For example - an artist you really like is going to stream? Cool! Maybe you can get a reminder when they go live (again, only if you choose to get the notification from them - either because they have a promotional post and you can click it to 'set reminder for this stream' or something) and you could pop the stream out like the videos do and keep it on the side of your dash with a chat box underneath while you scroll through your dashboard (at least for the desktop experience). Or you can open a tab of 'who is live now' from people you actually follow. Now if people actually want to go through a discovery section that's more algorithmically managed, that should be contained in it's own thing.

Honestly I feel this is the underlying theme of why a lot of us long-haulers cling to Tumblr - we want the user experience to be prioritized. We don't want to be 'told' what we like constantly and feel like we're merely being grifted for money all the time. Algorithms can be good, I don't mind poking around in the 'For You' tab on occasion to find new people to follow, but that's merely to add to my existing curated dashboard feed. Not to replace it.

In summary, the closing points of my Live related TED talk:

Live could work, but it has to fit with what core Tumblr actually IS if you want it to work.

Content curation is extremely important to Tumblr users and is the whole appeal in an internet that is just constantly using machine learning to squeeze as much money out of us as possible. It's against the grain. It's our hellsite.

Don't shove Live in peoples faces unless they choose for it to be there. And if they choose to look in the algorithmic section, for the love of god please have categories, filters, tagging etc. and whatever it takes to keep the pornbots off it please. (aka another reason why forcing live = bad because now you've got the full monty on your dash and you can't control it)

Emphasize user privacy and choice. I've been seeing shit about the intense level of data Tumblr Live apparently collects, which I am presuming is within the terms of that contract. Tumblr users, again like control. Of both what they choose to engage with and what is done with our data. We pass around enough firefox/adblock/anti-data-scrape posts as it is, it should be obvious.

USER. CHOICE. That's it. No really think about it, the whole internet is turning into a wriggling pit of algorithmic bs that's engulfing everything. It's going to get stale, really quick (I mean with the way I keep seeing articles about social media 'dying' - it already is. And they're all sites that have either been heavily focused on or pivoted towards algorithm). Freedom of choice is the whole appeal here.

Treat your userbase well, they'll treat you back. It's a longhaul strat but it's more guaranteed than alienating your entire userbase to make a quick buck (see the website formally known as Twitter for this one). This is an extremely out of left field example but - Final Fantasy XIV, I feel has treated its community excellently over the years. That game initially was a train-wreck. It's now considered one of the best (and possibly biggest) MMOs, all because they stuck to their core userbase who stuck by them, and listened. I am willing to let my FFXIV sub roll over, for months, without playing sometimes because it's one of the few subs I will pay for where I feel what I get out of it EXCEEDS the value of what I'm paying. And I'm actually happy to do that, I consider it a donation.

Look up 'Enshittification'. Yeah. Don't do any of that basically.

Uh thanks for coming to my TED talk idk where else to stick this so sorry it's being tacked on here 💀 Signed, person who has been on tumblr way too long (since 2010) and seen like 2-3 social medias die in my lifetime.

Since the other ask didn't seem to cover it, Why is Live being kept as a feature? It's almost universally hated, there's a post that circulates every week reminding us to turn it off so we don't forget to do so, the only feature live has is porn users which appeals to small portions of the user base but otherwise isn't worth the hassle. Why is this feature still Around? I'm genuinely wondering, this isn't meant as an attack, I just do not understand how a feature so detested could possibly be beneficial to the site.

We have a contractual obligation to try to make Live as successful as possible through the end of the year, and we'll do our best there. By January, aligned with the new more focused approached of Tumblr teams, we'll re-assess whether it should be part of the Tumblr app anymore. That's all I can really say about it, and I hope that answers your question and gives you something to look forward to in 2024.