How many more days can Tianya, which won the resurrection match, remain popular?

In 2023, Tianya was suspended from access due to arrears. Since then, the management team has carried out a three - year self - rescue effort. They tried live - streaming and crowdfunding, making occasional moves, but the site just couldn't be revived.

Just when everyone was getting a bit tired of waiting, Tianya announced that it would officially resume access on June 1st.

Since last night, there have been pre - announcements on Weibo, and the topic has gained quite a bit of popularity.

On June 1st, as soon as people opened their eyes in the morning, there were all kinds of news and hot searches about Tianya. On Weibo, topics like "Tianya's God Posts", "Tianya's Return", "Tianya Community", and "Tianya's Great Masters" took turns on the hot search list, creating quite a stir across the whole network.

With such a big commotion, it should be stable this time, right?

Well, what's the result? Why can't I even open the webpage...

Of course, some netizens managed to get in. However, they found that the restored data in the community was just a drop in the bucket, and the community kept crashing.

Although the announcement had warned that due to the large amount of data in the entire community, the data would be restored step by step.

But the experience on the opening day still left netizens with extremely complicated feelings.

Although Tianya said that these problems would be gradually solved later. But even if those legendary posts from the past are restored and the active netizens return, things will never be the same again.

What determines the result is not just how hard you try, but also where you put your efforts. Is it riding on the wave of the times and moving forward, or struggling against the current until you exhaust your last bit of strength?

There is no shortage of big players in the restart series, such as Renren.com, QQ Farm, Fetion, and Fanfou. Their current situations may already tell the whole story.

Firstly, the product form that Tianya relies on, BBS, is no longer mainstream. The trend has passed.

In the mid - 1990s, the predecessor of BBS, the electronic bulletin board, was born. Subsequently, a large number of BBS communities emerged in China, such as Shuimu Qinghua, Sstone, Mop, Rongshuxia, and Tianya.

Limited by the bandwidth environment at that time, the content was mainly pure text. Putting a few pictures randomly would slow down the network significantly.

Moreover, it didn't require good writing skills. Compared with traditional newspapers and magazines, you could write about your daily life like keeping a diary or have a casual conversation, saying whatever came to mind.

This form was very instant at that time. Once someone replied to you, you would immediately receive a notification with a "+1" prompt.

If a post received continuous replies, it would stay at the top of the forum page. Through the back - and - forth exchanges, it would gain wider spread.

When a certain event became popular, there would be separate discussion posts in the forum, where people could have real - time hot discussions, either in agreement or in heated debates.

In the past, if someone had some special experiences, industry insights, or was just good at storytelling, they could only brag to their friends at the dinner table.

But on BBS, if you wrote these things down, dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of strangers might gather around immediately.

This was the first time the Internet gave the microphone to ordinary people.

Even big stars who later walked on the red carpet and appeared in TV dramas once came to Tianya to seek attention like ordinary netizens.

Back then, Gulina Za was still a model and came to Tianya to get more attention.

At that time, Tianya was like a huge and chaotic online city.

It contained the expression, curiosity, and discussion desires of ordinary people, as well as the experiences and sharing from all walks of life.

"Shan Ge", who majored in radar, wrote about his personal experiences in the Iraq War and the construction of the Gwadar Port from the perspective of a military worker.

kkndme posted articles around 2010, making macro - predictions about the domestic real estate market. This article, which clearly stated in the title that it was written before the housing price soared, was later called the strongest work on Tianya because many of its predictions came true.

Xiong Dun's comic "Bye Bye, Tumor!" about her personal experience of fighting cancer also started serialization on Tianya.

In 2008, it was one of the most popular years for forums. At that time, most magazines, media, and interest communities had their own forums. For example, Popular Software, Jin Gu Legend Wuxia Edition, and Headphone Club.

CNNIC released a set of data. At that time, there were 253 million Internet users in China, and nearly 100 million people visited forums.

But this is where the problem lies.

Tianya was popular back then because it could accommodate everything, and the content in each field was of the highest quality. However, later, this content was taken away by more specialized and efficient platforms.

For public event discussions and celebrity gossips, there is Weibo.

For life experiences, consumption guides, and personal displays, there are Xiaohongshu and Douban.

For novel serialization and online literature creation, there are Qidian, Jinjiang, and Tomato Novels.

For long - form opinions and knowledge sharing, there are Zhihu and WeChat official accounts.

People still need that kind of content, but they no longer need to look for it on Tianya.

The big V's on Tianya back then have scattered everywhere. For example, Ning Caishen, "I'm really too CJ", etc., have all found new platforms.

Secondly, there are limitations to working out of love. The reward mechanism on the Internet has completely changed.

Many people who wrote long posts on Tianya back then never thought they could make money from it.

For them, the biggest reward might be that the post was up - voted, someone asked questions, someone had in - depth discussions, and someone said "amazing". Their motivation was very simple.

But now, real knowledge and valuable sharing have become scarce resources that can be monetized.

For example, Xiaohongshu set up a tens of millions of yuan creation fund at the end of May. Similar mechanisms also exist on Douyin and Bilibili. In an era when platforms are spending a lot of money and traffic to retain creators, how many people are willing to contribute high - quality content selflessly?

What made the legendary posts on Tianya extinct was not the shutdown of a few servers, but the demise of the Internet era that advocated free sharing.

Maybe the team trying to revive Tianya now also knows this result.

During the three - year suspension, Tianya first held a 7×24 - hour non - stop live - streaming e - commerce event called "Restart Tianya in Seven Days and Seven Nights".

The purpose was to raise 3 million yuan to pay off the server arrears.

As a result, the peak number of viewers was only about 1000, which was even less than the number of viewers in the live - streaming room where my mom often watches people sell tissues.

Finally, the total sales in the live - streaming room reached 361,000 yuan, with a direct income of 149,900 yuan. Adding the 54,800 yuan in donations from netizens, it was just a little over 200,000 yuan.

The live - streaming at that time made many people discuss that they were not very professional in live - streaming e - commerce.

The selected products were not really necessities. Most of them were souvenirs. They also looked quite crudely made, like designs from twenty years ago.

There were also occasional mishaps during the process.

In March 2024, it was said that the site would resume access by May 1st at the latest, and a series of restart plans were launched, such as selling 99 - yuan paid downloads of legendary posts and 299 - yuan one - on - one historical data downloads.

This year, a 1999 - yuan "Founding Member Package" was launched.

They still haven't managed to raise enough money.

Why have they failed again and again?

Because the people and the content ecosystem from the past are gone. They have been trying to revive just an empty shell, a soulless body. How can it be revived?

I admire those who insist on restarting Tianya. Whether it's subsequent maintenance or reviving Tianya, it costs a lot of money. In today's society, going against the current for the