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.
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Sure. But most, if not all would need to fetch something like the 100 most popular communities, because they’re given to be subscribed to. Given a size of 1/10th of Reddit, that would be no small feat.
Add to that a couple of thousands of other communities (I mean I’m a single user subscribed to 150 communities). And my point is somewhat clear.