TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook have all created pathways for popular users to make money off their work on the platform. Now, everyone’s favorite social media platform in 2021, Tumblr, is doing it too.
On Wednesday, Tumblr announced that it is launching Tumblr Post+, a subscription service that allows creators to charge users for some exclusive content, starting at $3.99 per month but with additional tiers at $5.99 and $9.99 per month. It debuted in beta on Wednesday and creators can charge for a variety of posts, from text and audio to photos and videos.
That sounds all fine and well, and makes sense as the next step for most social media platforms. But it comes at a time in which so few people are using the free version of Tumblr — so why would they pay?
Post+ is all an attempt to pull in younger users, who are overwhelmingly dedicated to platforms like TikTok and Instagram. Currently, according to Tumblr about half of its users are Gen Z and they spend about 26 percent more time on the platform than other users, according to Tumblr. But it’s unclear how many users actually log onto the site every day.
Lance Willett, Tumblr’s chief product and technology officer, told the Wall Street Journal that Post+ is intended to be the next generation of content for young users the platform, which used to be “perfectly attuned to millennial curation over creation, a kind of mood board.”
“When we looked at the younger generation, trying to figure out what would be the hook for them, we decided to make Post+, because it’s something that will push the boundaries and it’s following their behavior they’re already doing,” Willet told the Journal.
The idea here could be that the more ways young content creators can make money on the site, the more likely they are to stay. And that may be true — but only if the draw of potential funds outweigh the lack of popularity of the site as a whole.
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