Tumblr's original hockey-stick exponential growth was in 2010-2012, and their traffic peaked in late 2012 - early 2013, quite a few years before the NSFW ban. Even if they won back 100% of the users that exited from the NSFW ban, it would still be less than one-third their peak traffic size.
For a little while, Tumblr was a mainstream social network. This was at a time when Twitter didn't even have built-in photo functionality yet, and both Instagram and Pinterest were still tiny / widely unknown.
Those mainstream users probably aren't coming back. Say what you will about having a ton of "normies" and brands on your platform, but it's not clear if a social network can be profitable (and therefore sustainable) these days without them.
> Say what you will about having a ton of "normies" and brands on your platform, but it's not clear if a social network can be profitable (and therefore sustainable) these days without them.
Not in the current market environment, no. But it's not "normies" that are the problem - it's the "free service, make money on ads" business model that's the root of the issue. It will, by its very nature, always lead to the so-called "enshittification". And, it's also near-impossible to compete with at scale. So paid social networks just can't work, because a "free with ads" service will trivially outcompete it before it starts to visibly rot.
I say current market environment, because there's always that slight hope that some sort of regulatory intervention will kill the "free with ads" model, or at least severely restrict it to level the playing field.
For a little while, Tumblr was a mainstream social network. This was at a time when Twitter didn't even have built-in photo functionality yet, and both Instagram and Pinterest were still tiny / widely unknown.
Those mainstream users probably aren't coming back. Say what you will about having a ton of "normies" and brands on your platform, but it's not clear if a social network can be profitable (and therefore sustainable) these days without them.