Before Imgur, it was hit-and-miss as to whether an image would load, either because the Imageshack etc would take it down for bandwidth reasons, or the host wou

Before Imgur, it was hit-and-miss as to whether an image would load, either because the Imageshack etc would take it down for bandwidth reasons, or the host would get crushed under traffic load. Think about how many major subreddits exist because Imgur provides free, reliable hosting. Imgur allowed Reddit to scale its audience massively in quick, easy-to-digest content areas... and Imgur did that for Reddit for free. Can you imagine how much gratitude that would engender?