Tumblr is now allowing users to sign up for a subscription if they don"t like to see ads for a price of $4.99 a month or a discounted price of $39.99 if opted for a year. This makes the website similar to how it was at its peak probably a decade ago.
After Yahoo bought Tumblr in 2013 and got acquired by Verizon, but was ultimately sold off to Automattic Inc, while banning porn to lose a massive chunk of its audience - the company eventually lost its essence. David Karp, who is the founder of Tumblr, always opposed advertising. But the company needed a constant stream of revenue to survive and the ad-free subscription option is perhaps one of the first steps to do that.
Tumblr also recently announced a new monetization tool called "Tip Jar" that would allow creators to earn by posting on the platform. Creators will be able to keep all the money they get from their fans via the Tip Jar. Along with Tip Jar, the company had also introduced a Post+ feature starting at $3.99 a month with additional premium tiers at $5.99 and $9.99 a month which would allow creators to charge viewers for exclusive content.
If interested, users can go to their Account Settings option on their desktop and click on "Go Ad-Free" from where they can choose if they want to pay monthly or yearly. Tumblr says that the ad-free subscription is opt-in, and they won"t make you buy it if you don"t want to.