What do the Tumblr and Gawker Media re-designs have in common?

I mean, aside from the fact that both are kind of shitty and made many people unhappy? That both sites are “free” (as in we don’t pay anything) and with that comes this perceived lack of accountability, like nothing is owed to users because well, we don’t pay for the service anyway, right?

Nick Denton extensively spoke about his disdain for the users of his sites, even. Tumblr folks have always been nice, though, so I sincerely cannot understand how they got to this point.

Alas, we do not pay for the service so we have absolutely no recourse apart from complaining in our own blogs. But it would be refreshing if ventures of this kind were, at least, respectful of their user bases.


For the past decade and a half I have been making all my content available for free (and never behind a paywall) as an ongoing practice of ephemeral publishing. This site is no exception. If you wish to help offset my labor costs, you can donate on Paypal or you can subscribe to Patreon where I will not be putting my posts behind a lock but you'd be helping me continue making this work available for everyone. Thank you.  Follow me on Twitter for new post updates.

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