Although it doesn’t usually make headlines, Tumblr is one of those particularly veteran services, which has managed to survive over the years, having been part of Yahoo! during the technological apocalypse, a few years after I bought it, to the enormous number of changes that both the Internet and social networks have experienced in the last decade and to how quickly the tastes of the majority change, when it comes to online services that they usually use.
Thus, somewhat under the radar, Tumblr remains one of the most visited sites on the Internet (103 in the global Internet ranking), with visits that, moreover, are especially long by what’s common on the web today, averaging more than nine minutes. Something that is better understood if we take into account that the blog format is the one that has proliferated the most on the platform, compared to the publication of images or statuses and others.
To sustain itself, Tumblr resorts to inserting advertising on its pages, but as Engadget published today, users who wish to do so will be able to stop seeing it and, at the same time, support the platform, with a subscription that will have a monthly fee of five dollars or an annual fee of $40, which represents a saving of 33% compared to paying twelve monthly installments for a year. At least for now, the subscription can only be contracted from the web on PC, but the ad-free experience will also be available in the apps for iOS and Android.
This is not Tumblr’s first movement in terms of monetization, although its previous movement in this regard had, as its main beneficiaries, the users who publish content on the service, making that they could establish a monthly access fee of between four and ten dollars, a model that seems to have worked, since there are not a few content creators who currently maintain these subscriptions.
With more than half of its audience concentrated in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada, countries in which there is a more established culture in terms of paying for content, the option of paying a monthly fee for removing ads and, at the same time, supporting the service, could work well for Tumblr as a system to increase its sources of income. However, it will still be necessary to wait a while to see if the formula has been effective. However, it does not hurt from time to time a reminder to take another look at the blogs you follow in said service