hi folks! jae here, we know it's been a bit since the last financial update but there's been a lot going on behind the scenes that has made getting one out before now difficult. I don't want to get too deep into it, so I won't.
as a bonus, this month's update is a double feature. we'll be going into detail on some of our launch plans for tipping. there's going to be some limitations at launch while we work out some of the trickier bits and we want to make sure everyone's on the same page about what to expect.
but first: numbers! please refer to past financial updates for context on all terms.
automattic gave up on tumblr turning a profit and moved most of the employees to projects that actually make money except for a minimal trust and safety crew. This prompted another wave of user migrations.
I don't blame them for throwing in the towel, tumblr is a massive moneypit. It cost something like 30 mil a year to run and made i forget what he said like 30k back or possibly 300k? I think it was 30k tho. Staffing costs will be massively reduced with the reorg which will take a chunk out of that 30mil but I'm sure it's still a big expense. I give them props for trying so long but the codebase is a mess and communicating anything to users was handled very poorly on top of the moderation issues, reporting system abuse, and the dire cultural problems in some parts of the userbase.
I still like the format of tumblr which is one of the things that attracted me to Cohost, and I hope Cohost makes it to sustainability! They're way closer to that than Tumblr ever was at last financial report.
