The latest shutdown scare was an eventuality that had to happen.
While I hope this might act as a wake up call for automattic (tumblrs current parent company), something is telling me they’re just going to sell it to someone else, making Tumblrs unprofitability someone elses problem.
Yahoo did the same didn’t they?
Additionally some of the suggestions by people on how to improve Tumblr are impossible if not downright illegal. While there are many things Tumblr could do to improve, bringing back NSFW isn’t one of those (see “against app platforms policy”) . Also running on donations would require tumblr to start functioning like a nonprofit, which it isn’t. AO3 and Mozilla are structured as nonprofits. Tumblr isn’t, and changing that is something Automattic will never do due to them having the intention to, you know, earn profits.
We should hope for a positive eventual outcome, but it isn’t likely if something doesn’t change.