
The Decline of Imgur on Reddit and the Rise of Reddit's Native Image Hosting - minimaxir
http://minimaxir.com/2017/06/imgur-decline/
======
novia
Imgur recently started doing something really annoying on their mobile site.
If you keep scrolling past the picture you were linked to, it shows a bunch of
other pictures that were not posted by the person who posted the first
picture. These extra pictures seem to be generally in the same category as the
picture that was meant to be linked to, so if the original picture is a
slightly risque photo, the photos that follow might be straight up porn. It's
very annoying to me.

~~~
tyingq
Reddit killed the model that allows them to be financially viable and "not
annoying". I suspect the alternative is to shut down.

The bit of community that exists solely within imgur can't be enough to
subsidize the bandwidth costs of everyone else, can it?

Thus far every image hosting site has gone the cycle of initially good,
annoying attempts at monetizing, then shutting down. Which, of course, leaves
a trail of forum posts, comments, etc, with broken images and links.

I wish some entity with deep pockets would just offer it as a public service /
loss leader so we could stop the cycle. Google, Amazon, etc.

~~~
komali2
I want to talk about that community, because it genuinely boggles my mind.
Their culture is as if they were crafted by /r/circlejerk as some sort of
cosmic joke. They repeat the same memes ad nauseam, in _every post_ ,
seemingly completely unaware. They lack any measure of what I consider healthy
internet cynicism - if you post a picture of your face and say "I beat
cancer!", you're getting upvotes, and there won't be a single comment in the
thread along the lines of "this is a picture of a face." I mean, it's easy to
bot upvotes on reddit, but it's trivial on imgur, because of the total lack of
self-awareness of the community.

I get that I come off as a total asshole - "why don't they hate the world, as
I do?!" But honestly, they seem like the most gullible bunch of back-patters
on the internet.

~~~
Pxtl
The meme problem I see on Reddit and Twitter too - so many sites developing
their own meme dialect that's completely incoherent if you're not up to your
elbows in it.

~~~
Yhippa
I have to use [http://knowyourmeme.com/](http://knowyourmeme.com/) more than I
care to admit.

------
fredsted
There's just no way to do a free image hosting site without it turning to crap
sooner or later. When Imgur started making it hard to copy the direct .jpg
links, it was game over.

What's interesting is that Imgur managed to pivot into a full-blown community
site, with threads, communities and voting. I don't think they're very
dependent on Reddit anymore. From a few cursory glances, they have a
relatively large amount of participation, and it's not unusual that an image
shared on Reddit has a huge comment section on Imgur, with Imgur users not
getting the context (that of course is over on Reddit).

Reddit is doing a smart thing here by hosting the images themselves. They're
now at a scale where hosting images is feasible. Being dependent of Imgur (and
Imgur not being dependent of Reddit) is a bad thing for Reddit, since most of
the popular content on Reddit is images, and so Reddit gives away a huge
amount of traffic to Imgur (which is basically a Reddit competitor now),
trading that for the expenses of running an image hosting site. I guess Reddit
realized it wasn't worth it.

------
jswny
Imgur pushing it's own website over direct image links is the exact reason
I've stopped using it. I understand they have to make money by but I just want
to put a damn picture on the internet and send the link to others. I don't
want to have to deal with Imgur's album/site link crap and dumb expansion into
being a social network. It's hard now to even find the direct link, nevermind
avoid Imgur's annoying messages about downloading its app and using its other
features.

~~~
stanmancan
Why not use Dropbox public links or something similar?

~~~
astrodust
There's limits on what you can share. imgur's big benefit is no cap on
hosting, so if your meme goes nuclear you're not going to get a "bandwidth
exceeded" page.

~~~
stanmancan
Fair enough, wasn't aware of the bandwidth limits. Thanks!

------
TazeTSchnitzel
Imgur is essentially a parasite upon reddit which exploited and relied upon
reddit's lack of native image posts. Imgur's dependency on reddit led to it
trying to compete directly with it to ensure its survival without its host
(Imgur is now also a place to find and comment on images), but also ensured
reddit would eventually drop it, thus paradoxically also hurting its survival.

Ultimately I think Imgur is destined to the same fate as TwitPic.

~~~
nazka
That's some strong words. Imgur wasn't a parasite, it was offering a service
that Reddit didn't offer but we needed. Yes Imgur was quite dependent on
Reddit at the beginning but now Imgur has its own community and the two are
quite different.

If you look at the numbers, after the beta Imgur was starting to grow again.
It was a hit yes, but not an exodus.

~~~
castis
Edit: Whoops! I was definitely wrong here.

It was absolutely a parasite. It would not have survived to grow to the size
it did without Reddit. Parasites can offer a beneficial service to the host
but cannot live without it.

It has since evolved into something possibly capable of existing on its own
but only time will tell.

My guess is it lives for a few more years at best.

~~~
nazka
I don't think we have the same definition of a parasite or we see things
differently. For me a parasite is a startup being a copy-cat, eating your
market share, stealing your content, and stealing your customers. But Reddit
and Imgur are two different websites. If Reddit was that mad about it, they
could have done it in a month on S3... If you want a parasite I will say 9gag.

It's true that Imgur has to grow its product now to something bigger. I won't
even give them many years if they don't do that for a product that simple and
ephemeral. They have challenges here.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
The characterisation of Imgur as a parasite isn't a value judgement. Imgur
isn't doing anything wrong (nor reddit for that matter).

~~~
ruleabidinguser
You may not want it to be but I'm that case you probably should've chosen a
different word...

------
owenversteeg
Why on earth would Reddit want to add a massive expense (image hosting) at a
time that they're already hemorrhaging money? Especially since imgur was still
a fairly adequate host for the site. Reddit's image hosting seems like burning
money for nothing. Not to mention the Reddit image URLs are horrifying. I
upload stuff to imgur just for the nice, short URLs.

~~~
rm999
Reddit did the right thing - they realized a majority of their users are on
Reddit for the images, which makes it a core competency. Reddit was using
Imgur as a free image host, which Imgur was obviously not ok with. I realized
this last summer when imgur started redirecting direct image links into its
ad-ridden bloated mess of a social image page. It was an obvious attack on
reddit. I don't know if imgur ended up undoing this or not, but it made it
painfully obvious that reddit and imgur cannot peacefully coexist in the way
it used to.

edit: just found this, it looks like they're continuing to move away from
being a simple image host for reddit.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/assholedesign/comments/6eip2q/imgur...](https://www.reddit.com/r/assholedesign/comments/6eip2q/imgur_is_just_straight_up_redirecting_to_their/)

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
> Reddit was using Imgur as a free image host, which Imgur was obviously not
> ok with.

It's funny though, because that's what Imgur was created to be. The problem is
it's absolutely unsustainable as a “business model”.

------
Grom_PE
Websites like Imgur are able to detect whether the browser is requesting the
image as a part of an <img> tag or a separate document by sniffing the Accept
header.

So when a direct Imgur image link is opened in its own tab, Imgur can redirect
to a webpage if it feels like it. In Firefox, by changing about:config value
"image.http.accept" to

    
    
      */*
    

it's possible to avoid this behavior and it will load exactly what you asked
for.

I never quite understood why do browsers let a webserver know the context
you're loading the requested resource in, for privacy's sake.

~~~
rnhmjoj
Thanks for the info: I didn't know about this one. Fortunately
`image.http.accept` already defaults to this in Firefox 54.0.

------
redm
This is not really a surprise, this cycle happens from time to time, i.e.
Photobucket, ImgShack, etc.

As soon as Imgur took funding the die was cast. They have to show more ads,
get more traffic to their pages, and drive engagement.

Imgur was at its best when it was simple to upload and link. Those days are
gone.

~~~
komali2
I don't see how you can make money from the following model:

>Upload an image to easily directly link to elsewhere.

From the single ad view of the OP that uploads, they expect to make enough
money to fund the thousands of people that will then download the image?
Doesn't make sense. I wish it did, because that's a user-friendly world, but
_somebody_ is paying to keep that server running.

~~~
redm
Perhaps but that's how these services get so popular in the first place.

There are mechanisms where free image hosting makes sense. Remember when we
used to pay for email? There are always ways to monetize products indirectly,
or have value add, when direct monitization doesn't work well.

~~~
komali2
I'm not entirely sure why I _don 't_ have to pay for email. My only guess is
that because it's hosted by Google, I am more integrated in the google
ecosystem, which seems to be only something like google or yahoo could pull
off. I can't really think of any other companies that are "spread" enough to
make sense having an "ecosystem."

------
6stringmerc
You know how I can tell Reddit doesn't have any content creators in upper
management who consider these decisions? Because at least one of them would've
spoken up:

"Oh, we built many of our communities on sharing Copyright protected content
by way of our weasel-cousin IMGUR, so let's go ahead and bring all that
DMCA/Safe Harbors liability under our umbrella - you're joking, right?"

At least the Conde Nast lawyers will come out okay in this.

~~~
Sohcahtoa82
I think they did it because the writing was on the wall.

Imgur's current business model was not sustainable. Direct image linking is
expensive and can't be monetized. Imgur has been making an effort to lessen
direct image linking and may end up blocking it entirely eventually, which
would screw over reddit.

And so reddit had to be proactive and create their own alternative.

~~~
6stringmerc
The colloquialism / maxim "Out of the frying pan, into the fire" seems to fit
here.

------
lettergram
Imgur has a pretty different product, and honestly - this might lower their
traffic, but increase revenue (like the author mentioned).

I have friends who visit imgur regularly, and it's what I would consider a
meme platform. Although, I personally use it to just share photos.

Reddit's natively hosted app, is likely why they need increased investment.
Honestly, I see why Reddit wanted their own natively hosted images, but I
can't see how this will increase their revenue or help them succeed.

------
TekMol
To me, Reddits new image handling is a pain in the ass. I liked that I could
either look at the image/video _or_ read the commments. Now I have no choice
but to receive them both at the same time. Videos even start to autoplay.

Also: Is it new that Reddit allows animated ads? I always had the feeling
Reddit was a place where I could peacfully interact with others. Lately I am
afraid it turns into a page full of animated, colorful distractions that make
me feel uneasy.

~~~
shostack
Can you clarify on the animated ads you're seeing?

~~~
tomassre
Mobile App iOS has autoplay video ads. Twitch prime or whatever its called was
the first one I saw yesterday.

------
CM30
This is why you have be careful when it comes to starting a business or
service that's dependent on another to keep going.

Because it's very easy for the 'host' company to take your idea, undercut it
and 'force' you out of business. Or to make changes that completely kill your
product or service/screw up your marketing strategy.

It's a risk you have to take with a business so dependent on another
particular company or site.

~~~
j2bax
Seems like a fairly valid business strategy though. Step 1: Provide a solution
to a problem that isn't being addressed by an existing service with a large
audience. Step 2: Try to convert users of the host service to your own users
by offering other valuable features to them that aren't reliant on the host
service. Getting any access and visibility to users is the biggest problem. If
you can't retain the users after that point, then maybe you just aren't
providing enough value outside of what the host service can provide.

~~~
JTon
I don't think the parent was implying it is an invalid business strategy; just
that it has a set of risks.

~~~
CM30
Yeah. Nothing says a company like this can't work at all, just that it's risky
and can easily fail when times change.

But it can succeed, if either:

1\. The company buys you out and takes you inhouse instead of making a
competitor from scratch (this seems to be a common business strategy for
startups operating like this)

2\. You can spin off the userbase into separate service (like mentioned by the
commenter above).

3\. Somehow you can exploit the situation to build a brand for a completely
different business or industry. Kind of like how a lot of fan game developers
use their temporary fame to market themselves to the industry or retrofit
their work to be more original after the inevitable cease and desist notice.

------
skynetv2
the decline is completely imgur's doing - they went from a site that promised
to be simple, clean and easy to a site that mirrored the problems it started
out to solve.

frustrating overlays, slow, intrusive self promotion ... even worse on mobile.
anyone remember the annoying cat paw?

------
jklinger410
Imgur copied Reddit's functionality first, to be fair.

Maybe because they identified how easy it would be for them to get nuked by
Reddit?

~~~
lloydjatkinson
...Imgur was MADE by reddit!

~~~
citrusui
According to Wikipedia, it was a “gift to Reddit”.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imgur#History](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imgur#History)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/7zlyd/my_gift_t...](https://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/7zlyd/my_gift_to_reddit_i_created_an_image_hosting/)

~~~
patorjk
I remember a long time ago people pointing out that it was actually posted to
Digg first. Imgur's creator says it was posted to multiple services on the
same day [1], but that he deleted the original Reddit post. The post saying it
was a "gift to Reddit" came a day after the post to Digg failed to gain
traction.

[1]
[https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/9tlwi/im_the_imgur_gu...](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/9tlwi/im_the_imgur_guy_ama/c0edn5u/)

------
sp332
That last graph shows the total number of image submissions has almost
doubled? imgur submissions dropped by 250,000 but native uploads increased by
almost a million.

------
myrandomcomment
What is everyone experience of the Reddit hosting vs. Imgur? For me the Reddit
hosting seems less responsive then the old Imgur hosting. Reddit has always
seemed to have an issue with scaling out for load (my opinion from my
experience) and taking on the hosting themselves just seems to have made this
worse.

~~~
monochromatic
Reddit hosting is noticeably slower, and sometimes WAY slower.

------
Sir_Cmpwn
Seems apt to link the blog post I wrote when my own image hosting service went
under:

[https://drewdevault.com/2014/10/10/The-profitability-of-
onli...](https://drewdevault.com/2014/10/10/The-profitability-of-online-
services.html)

------
escherize
For image hosting I use an s3 bucket with MonoSnap (a free program). You can
configure Monosnap to record an area of your screen as a gif/mpeg or capture
your screen, or you can drop files onto its tray icon, and it will upload the
file to s3, and copy a shortened link to your clipboard. For most images it
takes about a second. It's been very helpful for me.
([http://take.ms/BBVGW](http://take.ms/BBVGW))

------
buro9
Bandwidth isn't really imgur's problem now.

So long as you have users, you have bandwidth, you have revenue.

The problem is now storage. As users and revenue may decline the bandwidth
bill declines too... but the storage bill always increases and never declines.

This is the real problem with image hosting, keeping alive old images and
storage costs always growing regardless of current usage and revenue.

~~~
tqkxzugoaupvwqr
Imgur has (had?) a policy of deleting images that were not requested within
the last six months.

------
ben_jones
So now that Reddit is trying to raise money are we going to get a huge
increase in Reddit articles on HN? This is a serious question because
everytime a company appears to be in "fundraising mode" the "local news" (HN,
Tech Crunch, SF Chronicle) seems to be perforated by positive or optimistic
articles for the entity in question.

------
digi_owl
Do Reddit support hosting galleries? Optionally with the ability to download
them as archives?

------
pkamb
Imgur used to let you upload a bunch of photos, then "generate multiple links"
to output a text block of all the links in Markdown, BBCode, etc. So annoying
that they removed the feature.

------
CommanderData
What gets me is loading a gif on Imgur compared with alternatives.

Imgur seems to want show it's loading gif before the actual gif.

Sometimes I can be waiting at least 10 seconds for the gif to actually begin
loading.

No thanks.

------
Kiro
Everyone is hating on Imgur as a community but I personally think that's the
best part of it. It's the only "front page" I visit daily apart from HN.

------
yummybear
The graph seems to indicate that the number of images almost doubles during
2016, but the number of submissions do not?

~~~
satsuma
Might count large albums as submissions? Upload a single image and it's one
image, one submission. Upload 10 images into one album and it's 10 images, one
submission.

Could be wrong but that's my guess.

------
mmanfrin
For every post in this thread:

s/imgur/imageshack s/reddit/somethingawful

~~~
Grue3
I remember when waffleimages died...

------
jsac
[https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/6ib4n9/what_ive...](https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/6ib4n9/what_ive_learned_hunting_down_shills/)

------
Cozumel
Why doesn't Reddit just buy Imgur?

