
Imgur launches video - el_duderino
https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/29/imgur-video/
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djflutt3rshy
Way back when Imgur was first announced, not having ANY ads was a proud
selling point for the website, then competing against the much more obnoxious
Photobucket/ImageShack.

    
    
      Can I advertise on imgur?
    
      Hell no! This is a free site (as in beer) and there will never be any ads on it unless I end up selling out for a million dollars.
    

[https://web.archive.org/web/20090226191747/https://imgur.com...](https://web.archive.org/web/20090226191747/https://imgur.com/faq.php)

~~~
kalleboo
It says right there

> _unless I end up selling out for a million dollars_

Even better, he sold out for $40 million.

~~~
fredley
Seems like there's a gap in the market for an 'ad-free unless I sell out for
$1m' image hosting site.

~~~
Cthulhu_
You'd need an alternative means of making money then. Photobucket doesn't have
ads (AFAIK), but offers making prints off images.

What would e.g. a "pro" subscription for an image hosting site look like,
without restricting the basic functionality (upload images hassle-free,
without an account, and hotlink them anywhere)?

~~~
stephengillie
Imgur did have a "pro" mode for a while. I was paying them $1 a month. They
cancelled it at some point.

~~~
unicornporn
Who needs a pro mode when you have VCs paying!?

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stephengillie
Then the VCs tell you to sell all your users to advertisers?

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always_good
Why link to techcrunch instead of [https://blog.imgur.com/2018/05/29/upload-
video-with-sound-on...](https://blog.imgur.com/2018/05/29/upload-video-with-
sound-on-imgur-for-ios/)?

~~~
code_duck
That link is great to have up front too, but TechCrunch does have an actual
article here, not merely blog spam. This includes a talk with Imgur’s COO Roy
Seghal.

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rsoto
This seems like a lost opportunity for a full fledged YouTube competitor.

I know video isn't trivial, but if you're going for it, might as well go big.
There are lots of YouTube creators that have been demonetized and are resented
at them. It seems like a great opportunity to start capturing little pieces of
that huge pie. Almost every YT creator that I follow has been hit with a few
copyright strikes, most of them are not even fighting back anymore. Why not
offer those «selected» videos a new home? For them, even if on Imgur they earn
$1 dollar, it's $1 dollar they are not seeing from YouTube.

With some luck they can start to get some niche YouTubers, and after that, a
few years later you have a full YT competitor.

Sadly, what we get is 30 second max limit, maybe good enough to be another
Vine.

~~~
notatoad
YouTube doesn't just demonetize for the fun of it. They do it because
advertisers are threatening to pull their ads off the service entirely if
there's a risk of being placed against offensive content.

What makes you think any youtube competitor would have better luck convincing
advertisers to run ads against the same content youtube has demonetized?

~~~
AndrewUnmuted
It’s possible to monetize video in ways other than submitting to ad-tech.

~~~
polishTar
YouTube has that too. YT has a paid premium service, purchasable creator
sponsorships, superchat, a tickets/merchandise shelf, and an influencer
marketing platform (through YT-owned Famebit). These form alternative revenue
streams for many creators and are available even if the content isn't running
ads.

~~~
josteink
> YT has a paid premium service

Only for people in the US. That essentially means you lose out on 90% of the
world market.

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scrollaway
Feels like just yesterday that "doing video" was the most efficient way to
burn giant piles of money.

What changed? Compression got better, but it doesn't feel like bandwidth got
cheaper. Is it all just because it's easier to spin up a video hosting
infrastructure on some cloud stack?

~~~
megaman22
Video ads are the only thing that pay more than peanuts these days, right?
Banner ads and display ads are effectively worthless.

~~~
DaiPlusPlus
“Survey-ads” are an option too.

There’s a couple of similar Mechanical Turk micro-task vendors but they’re
selective about who they partner with.

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arprocter
They also recently removed the option to close the 'Open in App' nag so it
overlays all the time

~~~
baxtr
This is super annoying. Medium has been the worst so far in my opinion (top
bar and open in app below take a lot of screen real estate)

~~~
urda
Medium has been pissing me off with a push to sign up and the "Pardon the
interruption." popup spam.

Good god, no I don't want a medium account and will not want a medium account
thank you.

~~~
_asummers
Don't forget about when it asks you to share the highlighted text! I've
disabled that with some Chrome extension, thankfully, but haven't figured out
the popup yet.

~~~
ohtwenty
God, I hate that highlighted text, because it's always some faux-deep quote
that just pisses me off. Like I might have appreciated it if it weren't for
that stupid highlighting making it look like it's a teenager stopping halfway
through a presentation to look at you and make sure that you caught he said
something intelligent.

I get irrationally angry at that highlighting. BTW ublock origin might be able
to block the popup, if you right click -> block element

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starshadowx2
Short, shareable videos from a known content-creation minded community reminds
me a lot of Vine. I wonder if Imgur is trying to re-energize that community?

~~~
ozzmotik
i was just thinking the exact same thing, I'm glad that I'm not the only one.
i really loved vine greatly, and I had been thinking about making a service to
replace it, since I really liked the format. Though I think having a 30 second
time limit like the imgur video would sort of lose something in the
transition, as vines sort of have their impact and memorable nature from their
shortness. however there are also often times where I wish a vine did have
more time to develop and formulate a cohesive story so I could see longer
times as perhaps useful in certain situations.

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Rjevski
I don’t see how Imgur can be profitable to begin with.

Nobody will pay for it, and people are ignoring ads more and more (not to
mention that too much intrusive ads, like video ads will drive some people
away completely).

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TheCapn
>Nobody will pay for it

I'd pay for it if I was given the option.

I _like_ imgur's service. I _want_ to use it for the things I do and would
like them to keep being a quick image host. If that means paying annually so I
can keep my API key working the way it does and not having my experience
ruined by increasingly intrusive advertising I absolutely would throw money
their way.

There isn't "nobody" out there not willing to invest in their entertainment.
I'm sure we're a minority but we're not "nobody".

~~~
seiferteric
Maybe if all these little sites could band together into a single subscription
bundle it would be worth it, but I don't want 20 different subscriptions.

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elorant
Why isn't any of these sites trying to provide premium services in a
subscription model? You have a quarter of a billion users. Find something that
1% of them would pay for, charge $50 annually and you have enough money to
keep going for ages. Why does it always has to be advertising?

~~~
infinitismal8
>Find something that 1% of them would pay for,

That easy huh

~~~
codq
I always liked WhatsApp’s $1/year model.

$1/year is manageable by just about everyone, and with 250M users (or 1B+
users in the case of WhatsApp), that’s a nice yearly haul.

~~~
lamlam
I believe whatsapp is free now? I actually only remember paying once.

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supertrope
Facebook bought WhatsApp

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danellis
It's about time. I never understood the fascination with GIFs. Invariably, FMV
GIFs would either be accompanied by, or have requested, a YouTube source video
that actually had the audio.

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kayamon
Imgur has had video for a long time. They only difference is that they're now
planning on adding audio as well.

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Chinjut
Oh, cool, I'd be excited to see this video. What is it on?

