an open letter to people
Hi people.
Tumblr was down for a day. The staff didn’t kill your kitten, kidnap your child or feed chocolate to your dog. Sure, they may have inconvenienced you. They may have left you feeling slightly off kilter, unvalidated and perhaps you even got a case of the vapors.
Tumblr is a free blogging platform that experienced some problems and went blank for about 24 hours. It’s ok to be aggravated about that. It’s ok to feel like you missed out on something in those 24 hours. But really, look at it in the wide scope of things. Did it really change your world that much? Did it cost you money? Cost you a book deal? Shut down your business? Keep you from living your life?
I’m guessing not. So cut it out with the outrageous outrage and the chastising and finger pointing and belligerence. You want some reliable hosting? Buy a domain name and pay a hosting company. You want something free? Deal with it when shit happens and don’t act like they were eating babies while you were sitting here hitting F5 the entire time.
Love,
Me
I disagree.
People have a right complain about a free service like Tumblr. Civilly and maturely, of course, but they still have a right.
Tumblr hasn’t demanded money. Tumblr hasn’t peppered us with ads. In an age of angel investors and relatively low start-up fees, most Web 2.0 companies don’t, at least initially. A ‘freemium’ or free service now doesn’t want your money in the beginning - they just want you.
Because a prolific creator such as yourself has invested time and sweat into creating content that you want hosted online. You’ve picked them as a host. You’re hosting content on their network and they, in turn, are getting content on their network. You’re pointing your friends to it. You’re encouraging other people to join you on this service. You’re growing their user count, hit rate and all the other metrics of success which, increasingly, are what web-companies are using in place of profit margin.
The money can, thanks to these metrics, come later. Right now, they want to be popular.
It’s not the usual money-for-services transaction, but it’s a transaction - my time and content for a place to put it.
If Tumblr had to sell out tomorrow, it’d go for a premium rate - not because it has money in the bank or assets or infrastructure (though I’m sure it has all that) - but because it’s a rich network of people and content. You have worth. Your content has worth. (Somewhat worryingly) your social network has worth.
And because of this - because you and your content are what makes the service what it is - you have a right to, in my opinion, complain about the problems you see with the service. Civilly and maturely, of course, but you do still have a right to complain.
Yes, as someone else said, they could just sell out or close the service, but if the do sell out, it’ll be because we, the users, have made it something worth selling. And if they do close the service, well, we could just go somewhere else. Go make someone else’s service worthwhile.
At the end of the day, if I complain about Tumblr (and I do), I do it out of love. I’m not ungrateful, nor do I believe Tumblr are doing a bad job. The exact opposite, in fact. But I maintain that I’ve given enough time and content to the service to at least point out problems with it, and to say otherwise to belittle the great stuff you’ve put on it and the worth, however small, you’ve added to it.
(Aside: This is a re-hash / copy-paste of my side of the same debate I had yesterday with another Favrd person.)
(Source: openareas)
