Image Hosting on Reddit • Hacker News Board

Re: Image Hosting on Reddit

#41

Post by mmanfrin » Tue, Jun 21, 2016, 7:50 PM UTC

slig wrote: post #29

galistoca wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would Google buy when they can just create one overnight if they wanted? Probably much more stable than Imgur too. Imgur is just a commodity. Youtube is not.

Imgur has a community. Tons of users that goes directly there to see funny images and GIFs. Yes, Google can create a infinite scalable image hosting overnight, but creating a community is a lot harder.

Imageshack was in the same position 5 years ago. And Photobucket 3 years before that. Image hosts go through a cycle of upending the tyrant and then becoming the villain.

Re: Image Hosting on Reddit

#42

Post by galistoca » Tue, Jun 21, 2016, 7:53 PM UTC

fweespeech wrote: post #32

galistoca wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would Google buy when they can just create one overnight if they wanted? Probably much more stable than Imgur too. Imgur is just a commodity. Youtube is not.

> Imgur is just a commodity. Youtube is not. Video hosting + community is a commodity. Image hosting + community is a commodity.

Monopoly is not a commodity.

Non-monopoly is a commodity.

Re: Image Hosting on Reddit

#43

Post by mmanfrin » Tue, Jun 21, 2016, 7:54 PM UTC

cortesoft wrote: post #13

dmerrick wrote: post #10

It's really unfortunate that Imgur took such a turn for the worse. Originally it seemed like Imgur was a benevolent gift to Reddit users... a clean, simple, easy to use image hosting service that everyone could use for free. I guess it was too good to be true, because now it's tricky to link to a direct image (though not impossible), and the standard landing page is filled with unnecessary clutter. As an aside: if yo…

Imgur started off as a benevolent gift to Reddit users, but then as more and more people started to use it, the expenses became too great to keep it the way it was. There is no money in serving images directly with no advertising, but there is certainly costs. What were they supposed to do?

s/imgur/imageshack

s/reddit/somethingawful

Re: Image Hosting on Reddit

#44

Post by swang » Tue, Jun 21, 2016, 7:58 PM UTC

nicotonic wrote: post #34

swang wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same thing with ImageShack. They use to host images for SA and then got really shady with linking images. Hosting images is a high cost service that most people don't want to pay for, so there's very little ways to make money.

What is SA? Something Awful?

Ah oops. Yes.

Re: Image Hosting on Reddit

#45

Post by tzs » Tue, Jun 21, 2016, 8:04 PM UTC

No reference counting? This seems like it will cause problems:

[–]iBeReese 1246 points 3 hours ago Is there a planned retention policy? Or is it an "as long as reddit has the money to maintain the servers the images will stay forever" kind of deal?

[–]Amg137[S,A] 1421 points 3 hours ago We will keep the images as long as they are associated to a post. However if you delete a post we will also delete the image

[–]speedofdark8 1007 points 3 hours ago How are reposts handled? If i upload something into /r/aww, get the link for that post's image, submit that link to /r/cats, then delete the /r/aww post, will the link in /r/cats still work?

[–]oldschoolred[A] 795 points 3 hours ago No it wont... once the uploader removes the original post the link to that image will break

Re: Image Hosting on Reddit

#46

Post by Splendor » Tue, Jun 21, 2016, 8:08 PM UTC

ruipgil wrote: post #26

Besides whamlastxmas point, the danger that I see is also tied to copyright infringement. Imgur and other small sites, mostly because they don't have much profit, don't suffer a lot from copyright takedowns. I think reddit won't have the same treatment, and Imgur will still be a viable long-term solution.

Especially when reddit is spending so much time trying to court Hollywood celebrities.

Re: Image Hosting on Reddit

#47

Post by makomk » Tue, Jun 21, 2016, 8:15 PM UTC

shalmanese wrote: post #22

dmerrick wrote: post #10

It's really unfortunate that Imgur took such a turn for the worse. Originally it seemed like Imgur was a benevolent gift to Reddit users... a clean, simple, easy to use image hosting service that everyone could use for free. I guess it was too good to be true, because now it's tricky to link to a direct image (though not impossible), and the standard landing page is filled with unnecessary clutter. As an aside: if yo…

What really killed them was the GIF explosion. Average image size remains largely static and bandwidth and storage costs steadily decline so if you get your timing exactly right, you can hit that sweet spot where your CPM declines slower than your hosting costs and provide an increasingly profitable business. However, GIFs completely upended that calculation by increasing the average file size by an order of magnitud…

Eh, they're serving GIFs up as video and low-res, short compressed videos aren't actually all that big these days.

Re: Image Hosting on Reddit

#48

Post by yuhong » Tue, Jun 21, 2016, 8:16 PM UTC

makomk wrote: post #47

shalmanese wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What really killed them was the GIF explosion. Average image size remains largely static and bandwidth and storage costs steadily decline so if you get your timing exactly right, you can hit that sweet spot where your CPM declines slower than your hosting costs and provide an increasingly profitable business. However, GIFs completely upended that calculation by increasing the average file size by an order of magnitud…

Eh, they're serving GIFs up as video and low-res, short compressed videos aren't actually all that big these days.

It probably is still larger than normal non-animated images

Re: Image Hosting on Reddit

#49

Post by cookiecaper » Tue, Jun 21, 2016, 8:17 PM UTC

ythl wrote: post #14

dmerrick wrote: post #10

It's really unfortunate that Imgur took such a turn for the worse. Originally it seemed like Imgur was a benevolent gift to Reddit users... a clean, simple, easy to use image hosting service that everyone could use for free. I guess it was too good to be true, because now it's tricky to link to a direct image (though not impossible), and the standard landing page is filled with unnecessary clutter. As an aside: if yo…

> a clean, simple, easy to use image hosting service that everyone could use for free How do you monetize such a site without bloating into the current Imgur? It seems like the only way to have a "clean, simple, easy" image hosting service is to be a billionaire and to do it out of the goodness of your heart.

Yeah, you either have to convince people to pay to upload or use it to feed into some other money-making enterprise (like serving ads).

We really need a better way to pay the people who create and serve the content we all love to consume.

Re: Image Hosting on Reddit

#50

Post by makomk » Tue, Jun 21, 2016, 8:21 PM UTC

School-Cotton wrote: post #30

marcosdumay wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's ironic because a stable link from Wikipedia must be some great way to improve one's SEO.

No, because Wikipedia citation links have rel="nofollow".

With the exception of links to a limited list of other Wikis, one of which is Jimmy Wales' for-profit site Wikia. (At least, they used to be exempted from nofollow, it's possible that's changed at some point.)