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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

#51

Post by flashman »

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.

I want to know whether Imgur's dark patterns are because the site isn't profitable, or because it isn't profitable enough. Because they've sort of cut their own throat here, and it would be interesting to know whether it was from necessity or greed.

Re: Reddit launches image uploads, ditching alliance with Imgur

#52

Post by sotojuan »

finnn wrote: post #31
Others wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What dark patterns are they implementing?

"direct" links to an image uploaded sometimes/usually redirect to imgur page, with lots of ads and shitty content, obnoxious, animated overlays that block out part of the image on mobile, etc

Probably not the right answer, but I only upload to imgur with a CLI client. You get a direct link back that has never shown that behavior. Also if the client only outputs the direct link you can pipe it to `pbcopy` on Mac to put the link in your clipboard.

Re: Reddit launches image uploads, ditching alliance with Imgur

#53

Post by static_noise »

siegecraft wrote: post #36

The imgur hate in here is odd. It seems like people are just assuming the worst based on one critical comment thread that got turned into a techcrunch article. Which is understandable, I don't understand how they can offer a free unlimited image hosting site (and they've offered it for so long that, well, you can see the backlash they got when direct linking is taken away). Still, their management seems savvy enough…

They started as an image host for those freeloaders. That made them big. Now they stopped providing that service.

Yes, imgur can do what it wants. But so can we. Also we may complain as much as we want for being deceived for so long.

Thanks for the free bandwidth and farewell imgur.

Re: Reddit launches image uploads, ditching alliance with Imgur

#54

Post by hsod »

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?

On iOS, they override the swipe-from-left-to-go-back gesture and instead use it to cycle you through new images.

Re: Reddit launches image uploads, ditching alliance with Imgur

#55

Post by static_noise »

sotojuan wrote: post #20
tlrobinson wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like a common pattern 1. Realize you need to make a lot more money (to meet investor expectations, pay for the fat the company has accumulated, etc) 2. Panic 3. Apply dark patterns ( http://darkpatterns.org/ ) 4. Something better comes along and eats your lunch 5. Repeat. It's sad because imgur was originally created as the "something better".

I'm sure they made mistakes but when you see massive growth like imgur did someone's gotta pay the sever bills somehow. Plenty of image uploading sites have come and gone because of server costs.

Dear lamb, we had a great time but now I have to eat.

Re: Reddit launches image uploads, ditching alliance with Imgur

#56

Post by mozumder »

oolongCat wrote: post #41
whalesalad wrote: post #35

Looks like it's backed by S3 x-amz-storage-class: REDUCED_REDUNDANCY Content-Type: image/jpeg Server: AmazonS3 Can't imagine that AWS bill...

What are some better alternatives to s3?

Colocation hosting your own servers around the world... you know, the original way.

Re: Reddit launches image uploads, ditching alliance with Imgur

#57

Post by pkulak »

oolongCat wrote: post #41
whalesalad wrote: post #35

Looks like it's backed by S3 x-amz-storage-class: REDUCED_REDUNDANCY Content-Type: image/jpeg Server: AmazonS3 Can't imagine that AWS bill...

What are some better alternatives to s3?

Use S3 but put a cache in front of it, at the very least.

Re: Reddit launches image uploads, ditching alliance with Imgur

#58

Post by finnn »

sotojuan wrote: post #52
finnn wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"direct" links to an image uploaded sometimes/usually redirect to imgur page, with lots of ads and shitty content, obnoxious, animated overlays that block out part of the image on mobile, etc

Probably not the right answer, but I only upload to imgur with a CLI client. You get a direct link back that has never shown that behavior. Also if the client only outputs the direct link you can pipe it to `pbcopy` on Mac to put the link in your clipboard.

No, you get a link that looks like a direct link (eg https://i.imgur.com/whatever.png) but it's not (always) a direct link. This is what people are complaining about. Sending that link to people sometimes results in them getting redirected to the ad-laden imgur page.

Re: Reddit launches image uploads, ditching alliance with Imgur

#59

Post by hsod »

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…

Mobile. They recently released an official app and the Imgur experience is terrible. Gifs (~%50% of the front page) take multiple clicks to play and are not pre-cached. By hosting their own images they can take control of the user experience and make their app much more pleasant to use.

Re: Reddit launches image uploads, ditching alliance with Imgur

#60

Post by empath75 »

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…

Are they going to host NSFW images also? I wonder how long the darker side of Reddit is going to last in that case. Seems like they're asking for a whole slew of liability issues.
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