For well-intentioned discussion, maybe people should move from Twitter to Tumblr, still the world's 52nd-most popular site but with the feel of a ghost town
A reconsideration of the last great blogging platform. — Maybe you're familiar with the many reasons why people hate Twitter. Tweets: @sophcw and @davewiner Tweets: Sophie Weiner / @sophcw : this is good and i am nostalgic for the good old days of tumblr as well. but i also feel like the way that tumblr became toxic was in this deeply personal way that isn't comparable to twitter. http://twitter.com/... Scripting Com / @davewiner : I like the idea of using Tumblr because it has good RSS support, which means you can participate, theoretically, by using another blogging tool that also supports RSS. http://theoutline.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
The Outline's 2018 case for Tumblr as a refuge reads differently after what came next: Automattic bought the site from Verizon-era ownership in Matt Mullenweg's acquisition, and by 2023 he was fielding questions about Tumblr's future after shifting most of its staff to other Automattic work. Meanwhile the argument for leaving Twitter stopped being hypothetical — coverage of Twitter's decline under Elon Musk explicitly frames it as LiveJournal-and-Tumblr-style decay under owners who didn't understand their communities.
What makes this piece more than nostalgia is Dave Winer's point in the description: Tumblr's good RSS support means you can participate through another blogging tool entirely, which is a structural answer to platform-ownership risk rather than just a vibe preference. Sophie Weiner's counterpoint — that Tumblr turned toxic in its own deeply personal way — is the caution the later coverage keeps confirming.
First-order effects
- Users heeding the advice get a quieter discussion space that is still the world's 52nd-most popular site, and Winer's RSS route lets them read and post from their own blogging tools instead of living inside Tumblr's app.
- Tumblr gains a recruitment pitch it didn't have to build: every Twitter moderation controversy hands Automattic a ready-made audience of people seeking civility.
Second-order effects
- Automattic's own retrenchment constrains the opportunity — with Mullenweg having moved the majority of Tumblr's staff to other areas, the platform may be unable to absorb a wave of newcomers even if one arrives.
- Rival escape hatches compete for the same migrants on different terms: T2 pitched a '2007 Twitter' vibe built by ex-Google people, and Threads rode network effects plus Musk's self-inflicted wounds, so Tumblr's ghost-town calm is one option among several rather than the default landing spot.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds — LiveJournal, Tumblr, now Twitter all degrading under new ownership — discussion communities will keep treating any centralized platform as temporary housing, favoring structures like RSS where participation survives a change of landlord.
- The recurring cycle suggests platform loyalty migrates from brands to community norms themselves, which is why each exodus spawns a fresh crop of small alternatives rather than one durable successor.
The trend: Social platforms are cycling through ownership-driven decay faster than communities can settle, pushing serious discussion toward blog-like, RSS-compatible structures and a rotating cast of nostalgia-pitched alternatives.