you’ve probably have gotten this question a million times, but — what about fundraising in the style of ao3 or even wikipedia? for all the thousands of fourteen year olds running around who don’t understand how much it costs to run a website, there’s another thousand of adults whom would love to keep using this site forever. it may not be a more-profits-every-quarter kind of situation, but then again, one is allowed to dream beyond the current silicon valley web 2.0 profit driven hellscape
That was the idea behind the Tumblr Supporter badge, a way for people who appreciate the site can chip in towards keeping it going. It hasn’t been as successful as we hoped, only about 2,300 subscribers so far (out of 11.5M monthly active users) but over time maybe it could compound to be what drives the site.
You’re clearly not trying hard enough to fundraise or solicit donations. I hadn’t even heard of the supporter badge until now, and I’m someone who (a) subscribes to the ad-free version of Tumblr, more to support Tumblr than because I care about not seeing ads, and (b) has bought blue checkmarks, again, more because I wanted to support Tumblr and also because I liked the whole making fun of Twitter under Elon Musk thing.
I know you’re not assertive enough with the soliciting, because I run a website that solicits funds, bplant.org, and I have repeatedly had people tell me that I’m not assertive enough and I am nowhere near the point of alienating people. Yet I ask for money on the site a good bit more assertively than Tumblr ever has.
You could do more. AO3 might be a good lead to follow. Maybe don’t get quite as over-the-top aggressive as Wikipedia but still, there is a lot more you could do with the asking, before you’d come close to alienating users.
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