It's not clear if Verizon's absorption of Yahoo (and thus Tumblr) influenced the decision.

This isn't necessarily going to create problems for Tumblr, but it comes as Tumblr itself has struggled to compete in a social networking landscape dominated by the likes of Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter. While Tumblr is legendary for its animated GIFs and themed blogs, it has been playing a lot of catch-up lately. It only added filters and stickers this year, for example, while live video showed up in 2016. D'Onofrio may have to shake things up if Tumblr is going to recapture some of the cultural zeitgeist.