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Reddit launches image uploads, ditching alliance with Imgur

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Re: Reddit launches image uploads, ditching alliance with Imgur

#21

Post by sethhochberg »

goalieca wrote: post #12
wlesieutre wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. Imgur realized that being solely a user-friendly image host wasn't much of a money maker, so they started gradually turning into the Photobucket style messes that it was originally aiming to destroy. Now they run their own community/discussion site and try to show it down the throat of anyone who lands there trying to look at a picture. It's not been good for the user experience of anyone who was just there for…

Question. What's wrong with making just a little bit of money?? (which is presumably still more than i will ever see!)

They raised millions of dollars of VC funding. There certainly are ways to raise money to grow your business slowly and under terms that you're in better control of (small business loans from traditional banks are a great example), but when you agree to take VC money you do it with the intent that you'll grow, baby, grow.

Re: Reddit launches image uploads, ditching alliance with Imgur

#22

Post by EpicEng »

zitterbewegung wrote: post #18

Having a third party host Reddit's images gave away a bunch of control to the point that imgur has its own community based upon the site . At the time Reddit didn't have the resources to make a competitor but this seems to be a good move now that imgur is doing dark patterns.

>imgur is doing dark patterns

Would you mind explaining that to me? I've never heard the term.

Edit: Nvm, sorry; easy to google.

Re: Reddit launches image uploads, ditching alliance with Imgur

#23

Post by fooey »

pfarnsworth wrote: post #15

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…

Reddit basically needs an image hosting service to succeed, and Imgur is now at least as obnoxious as all the previous generation of hosts that lead to it being created in the first place

Re: Reddit launches image uploads, ditching alliance with Imgur

#24

Post by funkyy »

EpicEng wrote: post #22
zitterbewegung wrote: post #18

Having a third party host Reddit's images gave away a bunch of control to the point that imgur has its own community based upon the site . At the time Reddit didn't have the resources to make a competitor but this seems to be a good move now that imgur is doing dark patterns.

>imgur is doing dark patterns Would you mind explaining that to me? I've never heard the term. Edit: Nvm, sorry; easy to google.

For everyone else wanting to save Google's bandwidth bill:

"Dark Patterns are User Interfaces that are designed to trick people."

Re: Reddit launches image uploads, ditching alliance with Imgur

#25

Post by Others »

zitterbewegung wrote: post #18

Having a third party host Reddit's images gave away a bunch of control to the point that imgur has its own community based upon the site . At the time Reddit didn't have the resources to make a competitor but this seems to be a good move now that imgur is doing dark patterns.

What dark patterns are they implementing?

Re: Reddit launches image uploads, ditching alliance with Imgur

#26

Post by nbadg »

pfarnsworth wrote: post #15

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…

I think you're mistaking value to redditors with value to reddit. Clearly the benefit to the average redditor is minimal at best. But considering imgur is creating its own communities at this point, and linkjacking direct images to point to ad-serving pages on mobile, imgur is arguably increasingly a direct competitor to reddit. By serving images directly through reddit, reddit can increase the time you spend there, increasing their ad revenue.

Re: Reddit launches image uploads, ditching alliance with Imgur

#27

Post by thejosh »

pfarnsworth wrote: post #15

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…

Imgur has its own community which may not use reddit (or even hear about it), which gets most of its viral images from redditors uploading it.

Re: Reddit launches image uploads, ditching alliance with Imgur

#28

Post by ChrisGranger »

Others wrote: post #25
zitterbewegung wrote: post #18

Having a third party host Reddit's images gave away a bunch of control to the point that imgur has its own community based upon the site . At the time Reddit didn't have the resources to make a competitor but this seems to be a good move now that imgur is doing dark patterns.

What dark patterns are they implementing?

I'd guess they're referring to the way Imgur puts sponsored content in among the images now, looking almost like any other user-uploaded post.

Edit: evidently, direct image links are serving ads on mobile. I haven't tried it to confirm this myself.

Re: Reddit launches image uploads, ditching alliance with Imgur

#29

Post by static_noise »

pfarnsworth wrote: post #15

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…

Reddit needs to grow its revenue to be sustainable.

It looks to me as if all recent changes work towards the goal of making reddit a mainstream site platable to the average customer who does not know or care about adblock and innovative marketing techniques.

RES is for the power user who does not generate any revenue.

It won't be very long before we need a new reddit for power users where we can move on to with our guns, cocaine and hookers.

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