problem with tumblr updates is that no matter what the update is people will initially complain loudly even if the change is neutral or even positive. for example when nested reblogs were ditched for the linear style I remember there was a lot of backlash over it being too much like mobile design, how it messed up the format of some existing posts, having to load so many icons would slow down the page etc., even though now you look back and it’s like posts would get unreadable in the old style and it’d be impossible to tell who was saying what
I also recall a bunch of people saying “who asked for this” when polls and messages were introduced but now polls are everywhere and messages are wholly benign. this is all purely anecdotal of course and naturally tumblr has introduced lots of godawful changes that people rightfully complain about but you can see from a pr side how it looks a lot like users just complain about everything at first but get used to it
point of this being the new desktop interface is unnecessary and an obvious copy of twitter but imo is a side-grade and not actually, functionally, appreciably worse than before. yeah it doesn’t improve anything either and no one wanted it but it’s not like twitter is failing because of its desktop interface, it probably has a couple bugs right now bc they’re still rolling it out, but overall the layout serves its purpose and works
but people have always wanted to frame every change as the death knell for tumblr and are very diligent in providing reasons why it will be and ultimately it never has been up to this point. I think the truth is most users DO eventually just get used to website changes and move on, like I don’t think most people actually use things like xkit (I gave up long ago) and tumblr knows that
so there’s a culture of expecting every change to be the one to kill tumblr and I suspect that deadens the impact when users complain about stuff like the new upcoming changes for collapsed posts and stuff. like, personally, that sounds like it might actually be a significant structural change that stops me from using tumblr, or at least really limits how much I use it and affects the way I use it. but again, from a pr perspective users have a history of complaining and then continuing to use the site, meanwhile tumblr is in the red and clearly needs to do something about their business model and trying to capitalize on the apparent looming collapse of twitter makes some amount of sense when you imagine it being pitched in a board room
obviously tumblr isn’t unique in any of this, people always complain about website updates regardless of what they are. it’s just on the whole users are very poor at initially judging the difference between and responding proportionately to useless interface rearrangements, minor quality of life improvements, and actual, functional, structural changes to how the website is used
problem with tumblr updates is that no matter what the update is people will initially complain loudly even if the change is neutral or even positive. for example when nested reblogs were ditched for the linear style I remember there was a lot of backlash over it being too much like mobile design, how it messed up the format of some existing posts, having to load so many icons would slow down the page etc., even though now you look back and it’s like posts would get unreadable in the old style and it’d be impossible to tell who was saying what
I also recall a bunch of people saying “who asked for this” when polls and messages were introduced but now polls are everywhere and messages are wholly benign. this is all purely anecdotal of course and naturally tumblr has introduced lots of godawful changes that people rightfully complain about but you can see from a pr side how it looks a lot like users just complain about everything at first but get used to it
here at the sandwich shop, we’ve started to notice some people who are new to sandwiches aren’t used to meat and cheese between two slices of bread. they find this practice strange and confusing. that’s why we’ve decided to cut the bread out all together. from now on, we’ll just serve slices of meat and cheese on a plate.
we know that many of our loyal sandwich shop customers have been coming here for years to buy our delicious sandwiches. but some people don’t “get” sandwiches, and we need to try and appeal to them with an easier-to-understand meal format. we will no longer be serving sandwiches. all of our food will just be cold cuts on a paper plate. we love our customers and appreciate your understanding <3
Yes we know Craig’s Cold Cuts down the street does cold cuts better than we do and has millions of customers. That’s why we need to switch to cold cuts, to get their customers. We hope that our long-time sandwich loving customer base will be patient in this transition to cold cuts and welcome the certain influx of Craig’s Cold Cut customers who will surely come here to enjoy our worse cold cuts with you, our sandwich-deprived customer base, whom we value so much.
