Reddit launches image uploads, ditching alliance with Imgur

It's used for all the images on the site.

Maybe I'll turn out to be right after all.

I don't know why reddit would want to take on the burden and cost of dealing with images. It might make it incrementally easier, but with something like RES the entire thing was seamless. Seems like a misplaced focus on a feature that doesn't bring that much value, and a lot more cost. I'll be curious to see how successful this ends up being. If they wanted to concentrate on making the site easier to use, they should have hired the people who made RES.

Plus countless forums and community sites around the internet. And it's not like redditors will switch away from imgur all at once, it's going to be a long process..

Bad news for the current shareholders of imgur.

All we want is an easy and reliable image hoster. You upload an image, they host it, you can link it, fin.

Perfect plan!

Except for the plot hole of not generating any money this way. That's where the suits creep in. First they finance you to grow and grow quickly you must. Imgur did it. Then you experiment with some methods of generating ad views or other revenue. People realize they hit on a gold mine and business starts to grow like cancer. Then there are some minor changes to optimize revenue. Then some founders start to cash out and jump the ship. Then the suits, loudmouths and ginas slowly but surely take over the company and due process replaces the dictatorship of the personal union of owner and leader. There's guitars and barbecue as the corporate drones dance around the firepit of burning money as they hurry to please the gods of corporate capitalism. A spiral is forming like a siphon circling around itself pulling everything in like a black hole. And it's great.

If you listen carefully in the storm of excitement you can hear a faint voice who still remebers the core of the business: Provide the service and don't fuck with the customer.

Or as some politicians said: You can fuck over some of your customers all the time and you can fuck over all of your customers for some time. Both is a great business plan. But you cannot fuck over all of your customers all of the time. Especially not if you don't have a stranglehold on their necks like a dictator or monopoly has.

The imgur we have today deserves to die.

It may redeem itself by remembering its roots and not wanting to become more than it is. That would be great!

One thing that is more important over the whole debacle is to watch reddit closely and be ready to jump ship quickly as they stumble deeper into the corporate trap. Having a plan B "just in case" for everything important will cost you resources but it pays out for itself in the long run.