That would make sense if apps like Twitter or Reddit were banned from the app store or had also decided to ban NSFW content, but they seem to be getting along fine with their verification-free "click here if you're an adult" systems. Why was Tumblr different?

To be sure, this move by Discord seems like a reflection of the same kind of decision that Tumblr made. But blaming it on the app store in Tumblr's case doesn't seem to make sense. Discord seems to be doing it either to comply with increasingly fragmented laws, out of actual moral desire to fix a problem, or to avoid lawsuits-- not because of app store policies.

> That would make sense if apps like Twitter or Reddit were banned from the app store or had also decided to ban NSFW content, but they seem to be getting along fine with their verification-free "click here if you're an adult" systems. Why was Tumblr different?

The official Reddit app was still relatively new, but various third party reddit apps had occasionally got in trouble for nsfw content on reddit. Twitter had a lot more direct relationship with Apple than the third party reddit apps or Yahoo/Tumblr at that point.

- Removed from App Store: November 16th (https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/20/18104366/tumblr-ios-app-...)

- Mass purge of NSFW blogs: November 19th (https://www.pcmag.com/news/tumblrs-child-porn-crackdown-ensn...)

- Official ban on NSFW content announced: December 3rd (https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/3/18123752/tumblr-adult-con...)

- Restored to app store: December 13th (https://web.archive.org/web/20220112052215/https://9to5mac.c...)

Now, _could_ Tumblr have tightened up CSAM prevention without banning all regular adult NSFW content too? Probably. But given Apple had gone nuclear on them, the decision was made to err on the safe side as it was a lot easier to enforce a blanket no NSFW policy than a policy that allows nude 19 year olds but blocks nude 17 year olds, especially given the variation in body types people have.

And sure, there were people within Yahoo who had wanted a no-NSFW policy for a long while to make Tumblr more advertiser friendly and they probably pushed for the more total NSFW ban too. But honestly Tumblr was mostly in its arms length neglect phase at that point and "do whatever Apple wants to make this go away" was the driving motivation.

In reality, losing the nsfw content was certain death, but losing the app would have just been a downsizing. Maybe not even a major one - platforms are sticky as hell. I think most people would happily use the browser.

Now if you go out of your way to make your browser experience dogshit, like Patreon... Then yeah, losing the app store is very bad.