Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Image Hosting on Reddit

reddit.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 163 posts

Re: Image Hosting on Reddit

#21

Post by minimaxir »

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…

In 2014, I wrote a blog post (http://minimaxir.com/2014/02/moved-temporarily/) calling out Imgur's shady redirect practices on Facebook/Twitter, with a warning that things will get chaotic if they try that tactic on Reddit. Guess I was right?

Notably, when that post was submitted to Reddit, it got eviscerated, nothing that "hey, they provide a service for free, they deserve ad revenue!"

Re: Image Hosting on Reddit

#22

Post by shalmanese »

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 magnitude and pushed the viability of a cruft free image host further down the road by another few years.

Frankly, I'm surprised Google never just bought imgur and absorbed it under youtube or something. Being the default place on the web to host images seems like something way more strategically valuable to Google than any standalone image host.

Re: Image Hosting on Reddit

#23

Post by revelation »

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.

That's what the lore tells us, but maybe it's just plain wrong and the old incumbents were just greedy and terrible. I think imgur was bootstrapped for a long time and didn't have much in the way of monetization, certainly hotlinking still worked then.

The changes came when imgur took VC money.

Re: Image Hosting on Reddit

#24

Post by galistoca »

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…

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.

Re: Image Hosting on Reddit

#25

Post by pyvpx »

revelation wrote: post #23
ythl wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

That's what the lore tells us, but maybe it's just plain wrong and the old incumbents were just greedy and terrible. I think imgur was bootstrapped for a long time and didn't have much in the way of monetization, certainly hotlinking still worked then. The changes came when imgur took VC money.

imgur worked because a CDN named voxel could readily use the bandwidth bump provided by hosting images to decrease their overall network costs.

Re: Image Hosting on Reddit

#26

Post by ruipgil »

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.

Re: Image Hosting on Reddit

#27

Post by marcosdumay »

revelation wrote: post #19
whamlastxmas wrote: post #18

I don't think this is going to work for reddit long-term unless they change it so that removing the post tied to the image doesn't remove the image itself. People are going to share these images endlessly, perpetuating on Facebook posts and Instagrams for years and years. If they don't change their minds, we're going to see endless broken image links all over the internet as those reddit posts get deleted.

It's with my deepest regret that I have to tell you.. people already don't care for broken links. Every other link citation on Wikipedia is broken, if it's a link to a newspaper, the probability approaches 1 as these sites just don't bother in their perpetual quest for SEO and ad value.

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

Re: Image Hosting on Reddit

#28

Post by munificent »

v1tyaz wrote: post #20
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 was originally offered as a "gift" to Digg users, and when it didn't gain traction there MrGrimm re-branded it as a "gift" to Redditors.

Citation? My recollection is that imgur didn't show up until after the Digg exodus and happened on Reddit first, but maybe I just didn't see the Digg side of it.

Re: Image Hosting on Reddit

#29

Post by slig »

galistoca wrote: post #24
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…

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.

Re: Image Hosting on Reddit

#30

Post by School-Cotton »

marcosdumay wrote: post #27
revelation wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's with my deepest regret that I have to tell you.. people already don't care for broken links. Every other link citation on Wikipedia is broken, if it's a link to a newspaper, the probability approaches 1 as these sites just don't bother in their perpetual quest for SEO and ad value.

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".
Post reply on HN