Just to make my position on the subject of Crab Day clear, since word is going around that the idea came from a highly objectionable person, I’m going to quote rather than reblog @skaldish:
This I agree with. I’ve seen other posts go around about it, so it wasn’t just that one person.
But to make it clear, I’ll take the time to explain to people why participating in Crab Day (and financially supporting Tumblr in general) is important:
It’s unfortunate, but in this day and age, large websites like this one can’t function without an exorbitant amount of income. For other social medias, the bulk of this income comes from Business-to-Business (B2B) transactions, often in the form of selling user data.
The thing y'all need to understand is that wealth is VASTLY different in the B2B economy than it is with B2C (business-to-consumer) economy. In fact, this is a huge reason why we’re in an economic crisis…because the US is a nation with two economies, and the power of the dollar is astronomically different between the two of them.
Tech’s standard of wealth is based in the B2B economy. Because Tumblr is in the Tech sector, it needs to play according to Tech wealth. Unfortunately, the way you earn Tech wealth is by selling Tech-related B2B products, and for social media websites, that product is user data.
It’s a competitive market that sets a new standard of rotten with every transaction. In order to acquire data that’s more valuable than your competitor’s data, you have to be less ethical about how you source it…and also be willing to cross moral boundaries in regards to who you sell it to.
If Tumblr finds no other way of sourcing income, they have no choice but to participate in this data market or shut down.
However, Tumblr is the home of the secret third thing. In this case, this secret third thing is to work with the community rather than exploit it.
(That’s what it looks like to me, anyway. I nether trust nor doubt Tumblr’s words; that’s not what’s winning me over. Instead, I’m curious to know where they plan to go with this, because this is unusual as far as business practices go and I think it would be cool if they’re trying to set a more holistic precedent for the social media of the future. I won’t be able to see that conclusion if they go bankrupt though.)
So yes, participate in Crab Day. Just because one unpleasant person also condones it doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea.
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