Tianya is back in action.

Media reports confirm that the Tianya Community, which had been offline for over three years, officially resumed service at midnight on the specified day. Its domain shifted from tianya.cn to tianya.net, initially allowing browsing of some historical, highlighted posts. However, before netizens could "head home for a visit," the servers were overwhelmed. A surge of users triggered repeated "500 Internal Server Error" messages. While the mobile version was accessible, clicking on posts yielded no results. A former Tianya employee told Red Star News that access was indeed possible at midnight, but "the influx was too much, causing a crash."

A BBS forum launched in 1999, with an interface seemingly frozen in a bygone internet era, crashed its servers on its first day back. Topics like "Tianya Community," "Tianya Legendary Posts," and "Tianya's Return Overwhelms Servers" quickly climbed to the top of Weibo's trending list. Tianya's customer service explained that the lag was due to a sudden spike in visitors and advised users to keep trying.

Ironically, the server crash became the most direct proof of Tianya's revival. After three years of inactivity, it seems many still held a soft spot for it.

01 A Forum, a "Library" of the Chinese Internet

Veteran netizens are well aware of how glorious Tianya was in its heyday. It was an early hub for high-quality original content.

In March 1999, Xing Ming, a Chinese literature graduate working at Hainan's Information Center, founded the Tianya Community with nearly 20 million yuan accumulated from stock trading. Initially a stock discussion forum, it later expanded to include sections like computer technology and miscellaneous talks. By 2004, Tianya boasted 3 million registered users and roughly 20 million daily visits, at a time when China's total internet population was under 80 million.

Tianya had no algorithmic recommendations or traffic distribution mechanisms. Whether a post became a "Tianya Headline" depended solely on the number of clicks it received. This straightforward, almost rule-free approach nurtured authors and works that would later become influential in Chinese content creation.

In March 2006, a user named "Nian Yue" typed the first line in the "History Discussion" section: "History itself is fascinating; all history can be written engagingly." This marked the beginning of The Story of Ming Dynasty, which later sold over 10 million copies and generated over 40 million yuan in royalties. That same year, Tianxia Ba Chang serialized Ghost Blows Out the Light in the "Lotus Ghost Stories" section, inadvertently giving birth to Chinese tomb-raiding literature and spawning a multi-billion-yuan film and television IP industry. Also on Tianya, Kong Ergou penned Northeast Tales: Underworld 20 Years, Murong Xuecun published Chengdu, Forget Me Tonight, and Zi Jin Chen, who rose to fame on Tianya, later wrote The Bad Kids, which was adapted into the hit series of the same name.

Xiong Dun serialized her anti-cancer comic Roll Away the Tumor here; early internet celebrities like Sister Furong, Sister Feng, and Brother Xili emerged from Tianya. Net slang such as "sofa" (first comment), "ding" (upvote), "cai" (downvote), "guanshui" (spam), and "louzhu" (original poster) originated here.

At its peak, Tianya had over 130 million registered users and 250 million monthly active users, making it the only domestic comprehensive BBS to enter the Internet Lab's Global Top 500.

For those born in the 70s and 80s, Tianya was more than just a website—it was a public library where deep discussions on any topic awaited, with serious, well-researched replies below.

02 Missing the Mobile Internet Era

The issue is, if visiting a place is too cumbersome, even if it's exceptional, fewer people will come. Tianya ultimately missed the mobile internet revolution.

The seeds of Tianya's decline were sown during its peak. Around 2005, Sina and Sohu offered to acquire Tianya, but Xing Ming refused, accepting only equity investments. In 2009, Chen Tianqiao repeatedly offered 2-3 billion yuan, all of which were declined. Xing later admitted in an interview with Kechuangban Daily, "We treated Tianya as non-negotiable, believing that scaling the platform and users would naturally lead to monetization. This was immature."

The real turning point came in 2013, a critical window for China's internet shift from PC to mobile. Weibo launched its mobile app in 2009; Zhihu's mobile app debuted in 2010. Tianya only shouted "All in Mobile" in 2013, launching the "Weilun" client with the slogan "Weibo, WeChat, Weilun—three micros rule the world." This PC-era mindset in the mobile era led to awkward results.

Having missed the mobile transformation and dragged down by offline investment lawsuits, Tianya had little defense. It lost over 31 million yuan in 2013 and 40 million in 2014; after listing on the NEEQ in 2015, it lost nearly 20 million more that year and over 10 million in 2016; by 2017, it stopped disclosing revenue. In 2019, it delisted from the NEEQ with over 460 million yuan in enforced payments, and Xing Ming faced consumption restrictions.

On April 1, 2023, Tianya suspended access due to unpaid IDC fees to China Telecom Hainan. A month later, it admitted severe liquidity issues. The server of this once "world's largest Chinese community" went dark.

03 A 150,000-Yuan Nostalgia Play and a 1,999-Yuan Business Venture

After the servers went dark, capital wasn't the first to act—it was Tianya's veterans and users.

In late May 2023, Song Zheng (netname "Xiaohei"), former Tianya executive editor, teamed up with veteran netizens to launch a "Seven Days, Seven Nights—Restart Tianya" livestream fundraiser on Douyin, aiming for 3 million yuan—the minimum needed to restore server access. After seven days of nonstop streaming, only about 158,900 yuan was raised, 5.3% of the goal. The event was plagued by accidents: poor equipment, chaotic processes, and stumbling product introductions. Netizens joked, "A group who can't sell want to save a site that can't profit."

More embarrassingly, the 150,000 yuan hadn't reached Tianya by March 2024. Xing told Beijing Business Today that the funds management team, XuanYuan ChunQiu, withheld the money due to "amortization of early operating costs and business disputes." This passionate self-rescue attempt turned into an unclear mess.

In late February 2024, news broke that Tianya Community faced bankruptcy review. Almost everyone thought Tianya was saying goodbye for good.

The turnaround came in late 2024. A new entity, "Chengdu Tianya Ke Network Technology Co., Ltd.," registered with Liu Guosheng as legal representative and 30 million yuan in capital, provided over 1 million yuan for Tianya's data continuity. In 2025, Tianya and China Telecom secured a legally binding arbitration ruling via the Hainan International Arbitration Court for data migration—preserving over 130 million users' data in Telecom's server rooms.

On February 6, 2026, the New Tianya Joint Working Group announced a plan to restore access by June 1 and launched 9,999 limited-edition "New Tianya Founding Member Product Packages" at 1,999 yuan each—potentially raising about 20 million yuan. According to New Tianya staff, the first founding member was a post-00s.

From failing to raise 150,000 yuan to selling 1,999-yuan memberships, this wasn't an internet veteran suddenly getting smart—it was a new capital structure emerging. Chengdu Tianya Ke, as the core investor, partnered with Hainan Shiyuan Tongda Private Fund Management Co., Ltd., to design the "Founding Member Product Package" as a dual "consumption + investment" structure: ordinary buyers get digital badges, 10-year access to "Tianya Legendary Posts Paid Zone," etc.; qualified investors holding specified badges can apply to participate in a special limited partnership, indirectly investing in Chengdu Tianya Ke's equity.

Epilogue

According to the New Tianya Joint Working Group's plan, "New Tianya" has three cards: first, the restored classic Tianya Community as a traffic entry and user engagement platform; second, "Tianya Ke," a global travel and fashion consumption social platform, monetizing via membership e-commerce; third, an overseas Tianya platform based on Web3.0, exploring decentralized community governance and IP digital asset trading.

The vision sounds grand, but industry analyst Zhang Shule, in an interview with Cover News, offered a blunt assessment: forums, as a content ecosystem, can't adapt to mobile internet reading modes. "The PC gene's incompatibility in the mobile era is hard to overcome." His conclusion: rather than repeated restarts, it's better to cherish the memory.

Tianya's dilemma was never just about money. 150,000 yuan couldn't save it, nor might 20 million. The real challenge is: in an era fed by algorithms, sliced by short videos, and spoiled by instant gratification, how many still want to spend half an hour reading a long post and write a thoughtful reply?

The server crash on restart day proved Tianya's nostalgic value remains. But nostalgia arrives loudly and leaves quietly. Tianya's true test isn't how many return on June 1—it's how many stay on June 2, June 3, and every ordinary day after.

A founder with a Chinese literature background missed the mobile internet train. Now, with a 1,999-yuan membership package, he tries to buy a return ticket for another way to surf the internet at mobile stations. Will this ticket sell?