Tumblr, too, once upon a time. Started out as a side project built by a guy and a programmer from his company he paid to help him. He hated social media sites like Facebook and wanted to build a social media site that he would enjoy using. Someplace where he could post his photos and follow people he liked so he could see their content, and that was it.

[–] TimeNaan@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

And now its a massive data-grabbing corpo. What an inspiring story.

[–] Khotetsu@lib.lgbt 2 points 1 year ago

I dunno if I'd call it a massive corporation now. Data grabbing? Most likely, it's got ads at the very least, so it's got ad metrics. But it's owned by the same people who own WordPress now.

Honestly, the best part of modern Tumblr is that the creator sold it to Yahoo for just over $1 billion, and then Verizon sold it for less than $3 million 6 years later. They tried to monetize it, royally screwed themselves in the process, and ended up selling it for less than .3% of what Yahoo bought it for in the first place.

The original owner took his money from the sale, disappeared from public life, and only pops up occasionally when he makes a donation to some charity or another. All while Verizon gave themselves hemorrhoids trying to make it into another data-grabbing social media blackhole like ~~Twitter~~ X or Facebook.