This is absolutely spot on. Although Tumblr was always slightly off-kilter, it was significantly more mainstream during its hockey-stick growth period of 2010-2012. Many people just used it for posting photos, or used reblogs for visual scrapbooking. Numerous book deals were spawned through successful Tumblr blogs. Tons of large corporations had a social branding presence on Tumblr. And some people just used it as a CMS / free site builder, including (of all people) Mark Zuckerberg's father for his dental office.
Eventually the more mainstream userbase left for other platforms (primarily Instagram and Pinterest) which were better-suited for the specific use-case that these users wanted... especially on mobile, which Tumblr was slow to adapt to.
The remaining userbase was/is a lot more fanbase-focused and niche, and that can certainly be off-putting to more mainstream-leaning users.
This had a profound effect inside the company. Over the course of a few years, it went from a company where almost every employee was an obsessive daily user/poster, to one where many of the more backend-leaning engineers didn't use the product at all.
(Disclosure: I was an early Tumblr employee, but above opinions are my own.)
Eventually the more mainstream userbase left for other platforms (primarily Instagram and Pinterest) which were better-suited for the specific use-case that these users wanted... especially on mobile, which Tumblr was slow to adapt to.
The remaining userbase was/is a lot more fanbase-focused and niche, and that can certainly be off-putting to more mainstream-leaning users.
This had a profound effect inside the company. Over the course of a few years, it went from a company where almost every employee was an obsessive daily user/poster, to one where many of the more backend-leaning engineers didn't use the product at all.
(Disclosure: I was an early Tumblr employee, but above opinions are my own.)