Reading this is pretty curious because I sorta drifted onto Tumblr not for fandom but because it seemed like it was like the non-discussion parts of Reddit without the shit, or rather, you could filter out the shit somewhat effectively. When I was starting to use Tumblr, I liked Reddit most for its nice places for "porniverse" (great pictures of whatever from architecture to animals), learning focused subs from /r/askphilosophy to /r/languagelearning and some humor. The first and the last things were pretty well served by Tumblr and still is, but I think the leak of energy out of Tumblr has been noticeable.

And the alternatives to Tumblr have gotten better from my perspective. As much as I don't really like a lot of Instagram bullshit, it's probably the better platform for finding aesthetic pictures when you just have an acute need to see a field of cosmos flowers and Twitter seems somewhat less dysfunctional in the end and it's actually possible to interact there.

Tumblr is pretty much the first platform I've used for fandom and that usage has really decayed something fierce much like the article says. There really is something on the structural side of the service that causes much of the issues. The privacy options don't make much sense especially if you're creating a blog that's meant to be visible to non-members. Which is sad, because I'd love to have a little blog that's easy to set up and trivial to run for uncomplicated content, without the expectation of much social media engagement or setting or some Wordpress shit.