A reminder in the age of the Fediverse: if you're not the customer, you're still the product.
OP was taking about Tumblr, but I think it applies even more to the Fediverse: users need to develop an ethos of paying to support the sites they use. Otherwise advertisers pay the bills and call the shots.
Yay for supporting sites you want to stick around!
Gentle reminder to watch out for places that take your money for a product and still treat you as a data factory. Such as the three largest US based tech companies.