The most devastating part about this stupid update isn't even about how people can "steal notes" or even what I suspect is Tumblr moving towards a different monetization strategy and how that's going to fundamentally get fucky with how our data is aggregated and sold. It's seeing all my creative and artist friends deflate when they can't interact properly WITH THEIR OWN WORK AND COMMUNITY AND REACH. It's about how work and posts can be silo'd and the intense harassment that can take place. It's about how this makes things less safe and less accessible and (in my professional opinion as someone who does this shit for a day job) seems to be something that will actually cut into Tumblrs bottom line.
This is an abhorrent change and I want to know what the fuck Tumblr is going to do when:
A- Creatives stop posting or leave en mass when they see they cannot control their own content or see how it's spreading, this leaving larger "aggregate" blogs with more followers with nothing to reblog but AI slop
And
B- When those people leave, others who lurk or simply reblog will not have anything they like to see on the website and also exit the platform, leaving no one but bots, so Tumblr will be left with no one to monetize ads to. Which in a game of advertising and as viewability and impressions and supply side platforms and inventory quality, I don't know how they're going to justify zero engagement to anyone buying in to their ad platform from the demand side.
As a professional in this space I can only speculate this is done specifically for some sort of weird, purposeful enshittification to tank it's value for some nefarious purpose, but that's for Automattic to answer for.
