“The Formspring clone has successfully passed.”
– Anonymous

The personal Q&A format, or anonymous inbox, is a Q&A system for individual use. Most of these services often allow anonymous questions, though there is an option to disable these for a reason, and they're prone to shutting down since they aren't really designed to be profitable.

Considering the format's evolution from survey-taking software, the 'personal Q&A' format is meant to be a more efficient way to collect questions, since the alternative is manually sifting through letters and publishing them in a blog post. There is some 'ego' involved, thus its popularity with teenagers and young adults, but they mainly exist for an individual's short-term personal amusement and the sender's convenience.

However, these platforms aren't built to last since: reducing clicks is the entire point, you kinda have to go out your way to read these answers, shouting at the individual on a microblogging platform is free, and nasty messages are an inevitability. On the other hand, it's still important to let shy and quiet people to have a voice, that doesn't come with the baggage of a name or identity.

The format can be traced back to Tumblr in the late 2000s where users would borrow Formspring.com to collect questions, and the two companies picked up on this, so Formstack launched Formspring.me in November 2009¹⁾ and Tumblr would release the 'ask' on January 6, 2010²⁾³⁾ which later became iconic for the 'ask blogs' phenomenon in fandom spaces. AskFM came much later in June 14, 2010.

Unfortunately, Formspring struggled with finances,⁴⁾ rebranded in 2013,⁵⁾ and eventually shut down in 2015,⁶⁾ so alternatives like CuriousCat and Retrospring emerged. For the 2020s, we'd see CuriousCat and AskFM close in 2024,⁷⁾⁸⁾ then Retrospring and Neospring will close in 2025.⁹⁾¹⁰⁾ All things considered, these types of websites generally do not last long, making their future uncertain.

The ability to ask questions anonymously comes with the obvious downside of cowards abusing the ability for cyberbullying and harassment.¹³⁾¹⁴⁾ This is more of an issue with younger minds that haven't figured out that you don't have to respond to every question, especially complex or loaded ones, and you ultimately have control over what people see.¹⁵⁾ Just remember to silently vent to friends or family, if needed.

Regardless, it has led to cases of suicide^{16)17)18)19)20)} and unconventional self-harm,²¹⁾²²⁾ which brings us to these platforms issuing empty reassurances^23)24)25)26) or further restrictions on anonymity. Small websites have it especially bad since they're often understaffed and young people generally do not think about this stuff, not realizing the 'solution' is easier said than done.

From a business standpoint, these platforms don't generate much traffic and have low retention by design, which is 'bad' if you're using social networking logic. Typically, the enshittification phase begins when the platform introduces more 'social' aspects, then desperation sets in once your inbox gets flooded with seemingly random questions that intend to provoke a reaction, then the platform dies or transfers your data.

In other words, trying to convert a personal Q&A website into a social platform is putting the cart before the horse, it just won't work. The format arguably thrives when it's introduced as a small feature of a much larger platform, sometimes unconsciously,²⁷⁾ but you'd still have anonymous cyberbullying and hope that the staff has thick skin so they aren't trigger happy to ban your account.

• The BBC News ran a news story claiming that ISIL was recruiting people on AskFM in 2014.²⁸⁾
  • Honestly, the internet was just like that back then, so it's kinda funny looking back at it now.
• In 2024, the FTC banned NGL from serving users under the age of 18, over deceptive practices and falsely claiming that the platform had AI content moderation.²⁹⁾

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