
Imgur, please don't be the next TinyPic or ImageShack - dylz
https://dillpickle.github.io/imgur-please-dont-be-the-next-tinypic-or-imageshack.html
======
briholt
Let's dig a bit deeper and ask _why_ is imgur doing these things? The fact is
image uploading is one of the most commoditized services you can offer. Long
term, the most you could possibly get out of that is razor-thin margins,
assuming Google, Amazon, or Microsoft doesn't just walk in one day and crush
your entire business with one fell swoop. Clearly, imgur is trying to build
some competitive advantages around their business - namely network effect by
creating a community on top of their content destination. They're comparing
the Facebook to Dropbox and asking which business model looks better. I'm sure
they realize this makes straight image uploading slightly more of a hassle,
but from their perspective the business benefits of community far outweigh the
loss efficiency-oriented uploaders. They know it's annoying and they don't
care.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _I 'm sure they realize this makes straight image uploading slightly more of
> a hassle, but from their perspective the business benefits of community far
> outweigh the loss efficiency-oriented uploaders. They know it's annoying and
> they don't care._

Which means they'll most likely die quickly. Nobody cares about their
"business side", they were an Internet No 1. image hosting because they were
hassle-free and mostly bullshit-free. What I expect to see is most users
leaving to someone willing to provide no-bullshit upload service, and imgur to
crawl into hole and die, like PhotoBucket or ImageShack.

The sad thing is, many links will probably get broken. Web, unfortunately, is
extremely fragile.

------
minimaxir
I discovered the redirect behavior about 6 months ago, which generated a lot
of controversy:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7190952](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7190952)

Interestingly, some of the arguments then were "What did you expect from a
free startup?" and "Who cares? You still see the image."

Recently (post-$50M), I've seen this behavior when clicking random imgur links
on the web from unaffected sites, but have been unable to reproduce it using
spoofing tricks.

~~~
opendais
I kinda agree with them. Imgur has to make the money it needs to survive. It
is really the only viable option in the long term.

That said, I do find myself using alternatives [e.g. mediacrush] more and
more. Its just not worth bothering with Imgur.

~~~
funkyy
Imgur was profitable from day 1.

What they are doing now is called greed.

~~~
bdcravens
Once you take VC money, greed is necessary - your customers are the VCs, and
they expect a several multiples exit.

~~~
TeMPOraL
That's why we're probably bound to replace our image hosting services every
few years. It's a waste of good links though, that will get broken in the
desperate attempt to recoup for fleeing users.

------
joslin01
Imgur is providing a valuable service. It doesn't ruffle my feathers if they
want to expand upon it. I really don't think Imageshack.us, Tinypic, or
Photobucket are fair comparisons.

Back in the day, imageshack & photobucket were all we had to upload photos
into albums because Facebook hadn't taken off and MySpace didn't know what it
was doing. After Facebook, the disconnect of User <-> Photos was gone. It was
clear, these are _my_ photos and look I'm even tagged in them. Imageshack and
Photobucket seem to have pivoted to try to stay competitive. Tinypic is hardly
worth mentioning because its quality is poor. Imgur's isn't.

So where do you go if you really just like popular photos? Imgur. The fact
that they have a community that dislikes Reddit should be indicative of the
success of their additions. Would you rather they stagnate and forever provide
free image hosting? Who's going to pick up the bill after awhile? They _need_
to do this.. and I think they're being pretty smart about it.

As a normal internet user, your points don't really stand out to me as a
reason why I should start to become weary of imgur. If they piss enough people
off, they'll get burned and another image hosting site will rise up to replace
it (because seriously, it's not that hard of a technical problem).

Finally, as a personal note, I don't really appreciate commentary that doesn't
at least try outline the pros of what they're doing. Oh no, they added a small
button to create memes with? oh the horror..

~~~
dylz
Thanks for the constructive criticism at the bottom -- I'll try to be more
neutral and remember to give arguments for both sides (this was my first blog
post).

~~~
joslin01
Thanks for understanding :)

------
meowface
The direct link redirecting and the extremely annoying "memebase" rebranding
were the last straws for me as well.

[http://mediacru.sh](http://mediacru.sh) is a great alternative with a much
more minimalist interface, and is free and open source
([https://github.com/MediaCrush/MediaCrush](https://github.com/MediaCrush/MediaCrush))

~~~
Sir_Cmpwn
Thanks for mentioning us! I'm one of the lead devs for MediaCrush. I think
what sets it apart from the traditional list of promising but eventually
failed image hosts is two things:

\- It's open source, so you can fork it if we screw up

\- We are not a business and do not have a bottom line

I've recognized this pattern as well, and we hope to end it.

~~~
donniezazen
MediaCrush is indeed nice. I didn't know about it. Imgur can be painstakingly
slow. A fast and right to the point image uploading service is quite
refreshing.

I have a few questions.

1\. Do you have accounts to store pics?

2\. It would be nice if after uploading pictures the page would show all
possible links like embed and share.

3\. Do you plan to implement something like delete in 30 days?

Thanks.

~~~
Sir_Cmpwn
1\. No, but you can use the default localStorage mechanism. We've been slowly
working on accounts for a while now, but it's not a priority.

2\. Click "share" on the view page

3\. No, but an external service could hook into MediaCrush to provide that

------
DanBC
Imgur is just following in the fine tradition of software that hit a sweetspot
then kept adding new features.

See ACDSee, Nero Burning Rom, etc etc.

Jeff Atwood wrote about this in 2007. It's a great shame that websites aren't
listening to the mistakes made by previous software authors.
[http://blog.codinghorror.com/why-does-software-
spoil/](http://blog.codinghorror.com/why-does-software-spoil/)

~~~
StephenGL
Nero... Perfect for a brief moment... Then WtF waaa is al this stuff and why
does it all work poorly?

------
gnu8
Imgur is of little consequence. When it becomes too annoying to use it will no
doubt be replaced.

"This is the sixth time we have destroyed Zion and we have become exceedingly
efficient at it."

~~~
TeMPOraL
I'm just sad for the content that will go missing. Internet is a fast-
forgetting place, it's damn hard to find anything beyond few years ago,
because most of the links are broken.

~~~
scrollaway
Please donate to the Internet Archive, then!

[https://archive.org/donate/](https://archive.org/donate/)

They constantly have (or fund) projects archiving services being deleted, etc.

For example, _right now_ they are archiving an immense amount of Twitch.tv
VODs which will be deleted in just a few days. This is an example archive
which has recently been uploaded:

[https://archive.org/details/archiveteam_twitchtv_leech1_2014...](https://archive.org/details/archiveteam_twitchtv_leech1_20140814052241)

------
funkyy
It seems that breaking point when all changes to bad is when smart, fun and
game changing startup accepts round of funds let by one of the main Tech
Funds.

Is it coincidence, or are they legally or in any other way pressured to do it?

It seems most startups follow this route and I thought Imgur will be one of
those exceptions. I was wrong it seems.

~~~
TeMPOraL
I read a book by Felix Dennis (was featured on HN when he died), in which he
strongly recommends against taking VC money for the very reasons pointed out
in commends here - VCs will want to get their returns, they'll be merciless,
so you'll have to either become a shark or let your company die.

------
ChrisAntaki
> Flash being enabled even very shortly drains the batteries of a lot of
> mobile and laptop devices.

Flash enables multiple uploads on legacy browsers. Just enabling Flash for
something simple like an uploader should not drain batteries.

Back in 2010, when Steve Jobs wrote a letter demonizing Flash, he had some
points. Many complex banner ads were being made in Flash, and disabling the
plugin led to static image ads being shown. Static images are much easier to
display than streaming videos. What's worthwhile to note is that as HTML5
banners progress, with animations and video, we'll be faced with the same
problem.

Regardless, Jobs' letter had a noticeable and lasting effect on many
worldviews.

------
sergiotapia
I already loathe uploading images there to quickly share something because I
have to wait for the home page to load all the thumbnail, and all the heavy
javascript. Then I click upload and I have to wait for the javascript for
-that- to load.

Imgur used to be so fast and quick to use, feature creep is going to be the
death of it.

Something as simple as image hosting should not really take so long to load.

------
LukeB_UK
I actually enjoy the community at Imgur.

To me it seems Imgur has 2 uses:

    
    
      1) Image hosting
    
      2) Viral image community
    

One doesn't have to go with the other, but also they can work together.

As for their redirect behaviour? I don't think that's an issue at all. If you
don't want to get that page, host it yourself.

~~~
meowface
>I actually enjoy the community at Imgur.

I couldn't disagree more. Comments in the reddit default subs are bad enough
when compared to the kind of discussion you see on HN, but comments on imgur
are a mixture of the kinds of things you'll see on 9gag or funnyjunk fused
with some of the worst of reddit's default subs' communities. They're absolute
drivel, and they're only going to get worse because Imgur is specifically
trying to attract these kind of people now.

~~~
LukeB_UK
Comparing Imgur to HN is comparing apples to oranges in my opinion, they have
different purposes and target audiences.

Target audiences:

    
    
      Imgur - General public.
    
      HN - Technical people, hackers, business people, founders.
    

Purposes:

    
    
      Imgur - People submit funny/touching/stupid/whatever images and people post comments
    
      HN - People post interesting/thought-provoking articles/sites and discuss them.

~~~
DanBC
Imgur used to have a great community. Even though it was a large community it
was still good fun.

Now? Not so much.

I'm not sure how the community collapsed so fast or if it can be rescued.

------
Dolimiter
Worse was when they ran noisy auto-play video adverts last month. Every time I
viewed an image, I was faced with "HEYY WAZAAAPP!!! JUSTIN BEIBER!!!"
nonsense.

I'm in Europe, the USA didn't get them, so there wasn't so much of a fuss.
They managed to get away with it. Appalling and cynical.

~~~
kemayo
That probably wasn't deliberate on their part. My own experience with running
ads is that the networks sell slots to each other in some sort of human
centipede-esque manner. And some of the lower levels of this selling centipede
get shady and will run abusive ads. You just have to watch out for them and
block them / report them to your own network when you can.

------
imnotsure
Too late, sorry.

------
kjackson2012
"Oh no, a free web site isn't behaving the way that I want it to!"

I don't know if it's just because I'm old, but people need to stop whining
about how free websites are behaving. If we were paying customers, then I
believe we should have a voice in how the product works but if we're using it
for free, then this feeling of entitlement has to stop.

Beggars can't be choosers. And whoever owns imgur has to make money as well,
they're entitled to do whatever it takes to make as much money as they can,
and if they lose you as a customer but make more money, that is their
prerogative.

~~~
meowface
Beggars absolutely can be choosers here, because there are tons of competing
sites, many of which don't have any of the annoying features that imgur has
been adding in recent months.

Imgur obviously needs money to stay afloat, but there are less annoying ways
they could have gone about it.

Reddit has been bleeding money for years, probably more money than Imgur has
yearly and for a longer time span, but they still have not compromised the
integrity or usability of their site to gain money. They rely only on non-
intrusive ads, Reddit gold, and donations.

4chan is in an even worse state, and has also only been making money through
their 4chan Pass semi-donation feature.

Imgur could have created a new subdomain for the "new" site, or could have
setup some entirely different applications that integrate with the main site,
instead of detracting from the main product. As a company, they have a right
to do what they want to make money, but as users most of us will always keep
moving to the best solution once the old ones start shooting themselves in the
foot.

Companies whose business model is to provide only a single free service for a
massive userbase will always have to balance revenue and user alienation.
Reddit and Imgur are leaning on opposite sides of that scale at the moment.

Honestly, I would consider an acquisition (by Google or whoever) to be a much
better solution for everyone involved compared to the things they're trying
now in desperation to get more revenue.

~~~
kjackson2012
Then switch. Stop whining about it. If this is as big of a problem as the OP
purports, and if people start leaving in droves, then imgur will die. This is
the risk that they are taking, and they know this and so do you and the OP. So
just switch. Stop whining about it.

~~~
plorkyeran
Whining about it _is_ switching. Since nearly everyone views far more images
than they upload, which image host they spend the most time interacting with
is dictated by what other people choose. Complaining about the currently
popular choice is perhaps not the most effective way to get people to switch,
but it is also not entirely ineffective.

