
Pornhub wants to buy Tumblr - AdmiralAsshat
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/05/pornhub-wants-to-buy-tumblr-and-restore-site-to-former-porn-filled-glory/
======
no1youknowz
If I were Pornhub, I'd really low-ball them. After all Verizon wrote down the
purchase by 30%? [0] and I'm sure they just want rid by now. So between 10% -
50% is a good offer.

On Pornhubs side, it's essentially a steal. They could very well foster a good
atmosphere when it comes to porn and then offer through their mindgeek
advertising platform access to Tumblr for their marketing affiliates.

These marketing affiliates spend ALOT of money on ads and it's very profitable
if you know what you are doing.

If they started to get their own studios or their affiliates in creating films
(actresses) in the recording space to use Tumblr to blog and not use twitter.
Again, this would drive engagement by quite a margin.

There is so many things Pornhub could do here to make hundreds of millions off
the back of Tumblr and they have the management to do it.

[0]: [https://www.businessinsider.com/verizon-looking-sell-
tumblr-...](https://www.businessinsider.com/verizon-looking-sell-
tumblr-2019-5)

~~~
michaelchisari
Also, the whole issue that sparked Tumblr's decision was illegal content, and
Pornhub most likely has the resources and technical capability to detect and
remove it quickly, whereas Tumblr was a ghost town of moderation that
attracted the worst types of content.

Of course, Tumblr needed a sheriff but they chose a nuclear weapon and the
rest is history.

~~~
Hamuko
Isn't Pornhub filled to the brim with illegal content as it is?

~~~
arcticbull
My understanding is that they and their subsidiaries actually own a lot of the
content that you're probably thinking is "illegal" or "copyright infringing"
[1]

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MindGeek](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MindGeek)

~~~
Hamuko
I've seen a lot of like "boutique" porn videos on PornHub that seem to have
come from small-ish porn sites. Don't really know if PornHub owns the rights
to those. Also, I've also seen some foreign porn flicks there and I also had
my doubts about those.

------
Angostura
If there’s one thing PornHub is good at, it’s generating positive PR for
itself. I’m always very impressed how much of Reddit - often very skeptic all
about corporate manipulation- will roll over to have its tummy tickled by
Pornhub.

~~~
MrMember
Reddit has quite a few blind spots when it comes to obvious advertising.
Disney properties get a free pass, for example.

~~~
kartan
[https://www.reddit.com/r/hailcorporate](https://www.reddit.com/r/hailcorporate)
started to gain some momentum and was killed fast.

My guess is that the professional community, people that earn money
manipulating/contributing paid-content to Reddit, is quite big. Or, at least,
their impact is really big. Most people are just readers and Reddit
professionals have time, motivation and knowledge to game the system.

I have fun reading Reddit. And I read it very often. But, I do not trust all
the enthusiasm about any movie/service/app or similar that the community
generates. It is usually over the top and not very useful to actually get a
good idea of the quality of such a product.

I think that as a society we need to develop new mechanisms to deal with the
situation. Probably regulation is one of them. But, for people to able to
understand that not everything in the internet is true is also important. It
will take time, people still think that reality shows are real, but I think
that is feasible.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
>
> _[https://www.reddit.com/r/hailcorporate](https://www.reddit.com/r/hailcorporate)
> started to gain some momentum and was killed fast._

Killed how? They've got 168,000 subscribers and seem to be fairly active.

~~~
redwall_hp
Socially killed. It was turned into a joke quickly, and most people seem to
roll their eyes and mumble something about tinfoil hats whenever astroturfing
is brought up.

------
DoreenMichele
I hope they succeed.

Tumblr is not really my thing and neither is porn, but I have been dismayed by
the seeming trend to criminalize and stamp out all expressions of consenting
adult sexual behavior on the internet. It would be nice to see some successful
push back.

~~~
nkkollaw
How is porn criminalized? If anything, it's the opposite.

Pornstars are heroes for kids nowadays, we should be trying to avoid kids
getting their sex education from PornHub, not favor even more exposure.

~~~
DoreenMichele
I didn't say _porn_ was being criminalized.

Just curious, can you give me a list of _good_ resources for sex education?

~~~
burgerzzz
How much education do you really need for safe sex?

~~~
DoreenMichele
I was molested for a few years as a child. I ended up suicidal and frigid.

I spent a year in therapy in my teens and 2.5 years in my twenties. I read
stacks of research-based books to educate myself.

It took me decades to learn to have sex safely without being some man's
victim.

------
Lowkeyloki
I was discussing companies who use Tumblr for official communication, like
System76 and NPM, on another story earlier this week, and how it's cringy and
not a good look IMHO. (My comment was flagged for some reason despite having 5
points and 8 replies. How does this site work?)

I hope PornHub does buy Tumblr! Can you imagine how quickly all the corporate
blogs would scramble off of the platform to avoid association with a porn
site!?

~~~
imgabe
Why is it cringy? It's an easy way to host a blog. I'd rather any company
focus on their main business rather than futz around with blog hosting.

~~~
leesalminen
Medium would be a better place to host a corporate blog. When I think Tumblr,
I think porn not corporate blogging. Although to be honest, that image is
fairly recent for me. I only heard about the depths of Tumblr porn after it
died.

~~~
j_4
I would argue the exact opposite. Tumblr is pretty agnostic when it comes to
the way your content is presented, you can even hide all social features
without a problem. I roll my eyes when I see a serious company using Medium as
its blog platform, with its absolutely obnoxious "haha lets make it official
;)" popups.

------
wesammikhail
Off topic: I am genuinely curious, why doesn´t Pornhub create a Youtube
competitor? it is probably the best positioned company on earth to do so. Any
info as to why they haven´t done it or why it would be bad idea for them to do
so?

~~~
dx87
Someone brought up the same question on /r/showerthoughts on reddit, and one
of the Pornhub employees said that there had been internal talks about it,
especially after Youtube started demonetizing tons of channels, but they
weren't actively developing anything. The main issue I can see would be
advertisers not wanting to be associated with the brand, even tangentially.
YouPorn had sponsored an esports team that ran into issues being allowed to
tournaments because the tournament sponsors didn't want their brand name to be
presented alongside a porn site.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
I mean, the biggest issue is saying the team is affiliated with a porn site.
But if "MindGeek" sponsored an eSports team, my guess is most people would be
fine with it, in part because they didn't know that it was a company that owns
porn sites.

While obviously they'd restore adult content to Tumblr, my guess is they'd
keep Tumblr as a somewhat mainstream brand, and not let it be too directly
associated with their existing properties to maintain mainstream appeal. A
YouTube competitor would fall along the same lines.

~~~
djsumdog
It would get out though. There'd be a lot of hoops that PornHub would have to
go through to make a wholly owned subsidiary they could use to spin-up a
YouTube/Vimeo like platform on and it not come back to pornhub in the
PR/advert sense.

Although we all know a few people here and there who don't know YouTube is
owned by Google, the majority of people do understand the YouTube +
Google/Alphabet relationship.

~~~
SimonPStevens
> the majority of people do understand the YouTube + Google/Alphabet
> relationship

I think this is very tech centric view. I asked my wife (tech savy enough but
doesn't work in the industry) and she didn't have any idea who owned Youtube,
and had never heard of Alphabet.

I know it's only one data point, but I think it's easy to be blinkered when
actually the truth is probably that most people outside of tech have no idea
about tech company relationships.

------
wan23
Verizon and Tumblr are so poorly matched. Pornhub would be a much better home
for it.

------
ungzd
Definition of "porn" is too much different for Pornhub and Tumblr. For former,
it's kafkaesque-lovecraftian movies with Hollywood-level effects depicting
impossible forms of multi-person sexual intercourse, for latter it's usually
just photos of women with uncovered breasts.

I can't remember seeing "real porn" on Tumblr.

~~~
uxp100
There was plenty of hardcore porn tumblr. But I agree, many of people posted
softcore on their main blog, but it was rare to see hardcore reposts on
someone's discourse blog.

------
olivermarks
pornhub is one of Mindgeek's properties.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MindGeek](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MindGeek)
I've never understood their business model - they seem to host endless
illegally uploaded porn yet more and more porn seems to be being created. Not
clear where the money is made ultimately. Mindgeek dominate the online porn
world which gets huge traffic. [https://www.pornhub.com/insights/2018-year-in-
review](https://www.pornhub.com/insights/2018-year-in-review) Tumblr was
historically another repository of illegal uploads of other people's adult
materials.

~~~
rajacombinator
Yes the economics of this industry are really puzzling to an outsider. As
someone who has tried running ads on these properties it’s hard for me to
imagine how anyone is making money in this business. And yet...

~~~
duderific
My guess is the sheer volume of traffic they get makes it appealing for
certain advertisers. Throw in the upselling to premium features and that they
don't have to pay much if anything for the actual content, and there's
probably some pretty good money to be made.

------
gist
This is in a way a variation of what Playboy did for porn back in the day. You
claimed to read it for the articles (and the writing was good) but got to
glimpse at porn as well. With tumbler quite possibly pornhub is wanting to do
the same thing. In other words give people a legit reason to use tumbler
(content that is non porn) so they can sneak a peek at porn. Now they can't do
that now with pornhub (at least under that brand and domain) and even if they
started a new brand from scratch how would they build up non porn ('the
articles') content. If the price is right (big if) no doubt this is a
legitimate strategy.

------
cl0ckt0wer
It'd be interesting to see if Verizon will take their money. I could see a lot
of their executives being squeamish about it.

~~~
the_newest_acct
Why's that? Verizon already sells porn.

~~~
NullPrefix
Care to elaborate on this point?

~~~
the_newest_acct
Verizon (cable specifically) already sells "adult content" in the form of
premium channels, like most cable providers in the U.S. In fact they have
defended carrying of such channels by saying consumers want the choice. While
they don't produce it, they are certainly making money off of it and defending
the choice to do so.

See [https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/verizon-defends-
decisi...](https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/verizon-defends-decision-to-
offer-incest-and-child-themed-porn-on-video-on-demand)

~~~
duderific
Well, there's "adult content" and then there's porn. The stuff on cable
channels is pretty much "soft core" which stops just short of a certain line.
I guess that's how they can defend it.

~~~
laken
Pay-per-view hardcore content is a thing. They make bank on it.

------
jarjoura
I think Tumblr is a lost cause. The younger generation has shifted to
Instagram/OnlyFans and Reddit for their porn fixes.

------
irrational
Why don't they just have their engineers create their own Tumblr clone?
Tumblhub or Tumhub or Pornblr. It would probably be cheaper than buying
Tumblr.

~~~
partiallypro
I might get downvoted for this, but...I can't believe you didn't think of the
name "Cumblr"

~~~
Simulacra
-spits out energy drink all over my keyboard-

....Thanks for that.. LOL

~~~
stcredzero
Pornhub, Tumblr, and the rest of the Internet: Causing various fluid spills
onto keyboards, since the late 20th century.

------
mellow-lake-day
Original article that broke the news:
[https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanhatesthis/pornhub-i...](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanhatesthis/pornhub-
interested-in-buying-tumblr)

------
partiallypro
I think the only problem with this, is that there is still a solid 35% of the
user base that doesn't want porn. So, there is a very fine line.

~~~
CM30
Honestly, those users were using the site even when porn and other such
content was allowed, and clearly weren't bothered by existence on the platform
overall. So if they allow it again, then so long as they don't promote these
blogs to users who don't care for them, no one's gonna be bothered.

It's like Reddit; yes it allows adult content, but since you're not forced to
view subreddits that allow it, no one cares.

~~~
stcredzero
_Honestly, those users were using the site even when porn and other such
content was allowed, and clearly weren 't bothered by existence on the
platform overall._

"Someone, somewhere is thinking thoughts I don't approve of!"

------
microtherion
I'm reminded of the Perry Cox quote:

> I’m fairly sure if they took porn off the internet, there’d only be one
> website left, and it’d be called "Bring back the porn!"

------
Dynomite54
Finally I can get all my gay kinky porn back now.

------
technofiend
Honestly if PH doesn't do it I feel like Cards Against Humanity will now that
the idea's been floated.

------
huffmsa
Well at least someone still knows what the internet is for.

They'll make a bundle.

------
srndh
So, Tumblr will soon become the twitter for pornstars.

------
OrgNet
wow, this post was submitted 5 hours ago and has 311 points and it already
fell off the front page? someone here doesn't like porn at all

------
sjcsjc
I like Resolute's comment below the article:

 _I 'm not sure Verizon's "buy high, ruin it, sell low" strategy is going to
pay off._

------
ddingus
Great. They should do that.

The reality is, way too many of us are more prudish than we should be, and we
are all humans after all.

------
Simulacra
Genius.

~~~
cies
They simply saw their stats drop; did some math, and drew conclusions. :)

------
peterwwillis
It's bizarre that it's legal for me to look at pictures of a naked person, but
effectively illegal to use technology to do so, just because advertising is
subject to the whims of a moralistic and prejudicial minority.

~~~
nojvek
I think it’s the minors that are illegal and that’s what Verizon is afraid of.

Adult sites are perfectly legal.

Also US is a very religious country (some parts) compared to other western
nations. So that’s where some of this comes from.

~~~
peterwwillis
It's really just the moralistic people pressuring advertisers. Minors can find
a way to get their hands on a Playboy, but we don't stop selling Playboy in
shops just because that can happen.

People interact online through a select few pieces of tech: smart phone apps,
Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter. Just saying "adult sites exist" is like
telling people to drive over to the wrong side of town and shuffle into a
seedy porn theater. The malware-laced pop-up ads, and the lack of creative,
multifaceted sexual expression, is what happens when you effectively banish a
form a culture from the commons.

~~~
sincerely
The issue wasn't that minors were looking at the porn but that there was a lot
of porn _of_ minors on Tumblr.

------
stcredzero
I remember one of my teachers in grade school speaking out against the Moral
Majority and other pro-censorship types in the 80's. The quote she was up in
arms about was something along the lines of how, "We must constrain the
imaginations of our children."

Today's problems have nothing to do with people reading, imagining, creating,
and thinking. Problems in 2019 have to do with people engaging specifically in
groupthink and "othering."

Censorship, exclusion, and suppression do not reduce groupthink. Rather, those
actions increase groupthink. Those actions create hothouses of concentrated
groupthink insulated from criticism, skepticism, and the moderation of
reality. (Also, if some honest introspection is done, one often finds that
those actions are themselves _motivated_ by groupthink.)

A live and let-live society where people are free to self-express lets people
learn in the context of a reality more complicated and richer than just
themselves. A live and let-live society lets people transcend their own small
circle. It is the best antidote to the small minded groupthink that creates
oversimplified, dehumanizing caricatures of people and reality.

It's suppression and censorship that causes people to retreat into such small
circles, allowing groupthink to fester.

~~~
freewilly1040
The story of tumblr is really not about free speech suppression. They had a
mix of explicit and non-explicit content, and had to choose one to decide what
kind of advertisers to pursue. They chose non-explicit and it didn't work.

~~~
stcredzero
_The story of tumblr is really not about free speech suppression. They had a
mix of explicit and non-explicit content, and had to choose one to decide what
kind of advertisers to pursue._

Given the events of the past several years, I highly doubt the people with the
ad dollars are innocent of free speech suppression. EDIT: Specifically, the
people asking for YouTube suppression through "advertising" concerns were tied
in with the people coordinating hit pieces against YouTube content.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0IYzF-
zLMw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0IYzF-zLMw)

~~~
freewilly1040
Disney saying "don't put my brand next to porn" isn't speech suppression.
Happy to consider your opinion, though I'm not so curious as to watch a 24
video to learn about it.

~~~
stcredzero
_Disney saying "don't put my brand next to porn" isn't speech suppression._

That has nothing to do with their suppression of even mainstream news and
commentary, like Phillip DeFranco.

