7 ms·

To be fair, bandwidth isn't free. Imgur can't serve hotlinked content for free, forever.

beedogs 10y ago
Then they should never have started. Why does every 'free' service on the Internet inevitably devolve into an ad-laden, tracker-enabled shitfest?
- beambot 10y ago
  Because they probably aren't charities, and can't afford to donat e Free resources for your perpetual enjoyment?
  - beedogs 10y ago
    Then we're back to my initial point: they never should have started as one.
    - Dr_tldr 10y ago
      I imagine you in a grocery store somewhere, railing against free samples. "You never should've given me a piece of sausage if you were going to start charging for them."
      - beedogs 10y ago
        That is possibly the worst analogy I've ever read on HN.
        tripzilch 10y ago
        Only if you speak Dutch.
      - briandon 10y ago
        Not comparable since supermarket in-store free samples are tiny servings of a product you can purchase in the same establishment. Supermarkets wouldn't allow, much less encourage, anyone to consume large numbers of free samples instead of buying the actual for-sale product.
    - dave2000 10y ago
      You're wrong. It would be awful to live somewhere where you get to choose which companies are allowed to start.
    - taneq 10y ago
      The problem is that these sites start out as a small, useful service and then some VC with dollar signs in their eyes throws a few million dollars at them. The clothes make the primate, and suddenly what was three guys in a back room living on instant noodles feels obliged to "act like the million-dollar company that they are."
  - PhasmaFelis 10y ago
    > Because they probably aren't charities, and can't afford to donat e Free resources for your perpetual enjoyment? Then why did they start a free service to begin with, if they knew from the start it couldn't last? Right, to trick people into becoming dependent on the free service so they'll be reluctant to leave once the shady, UX-degrading monetization starts. You'll forgive me if I'm not sympathetic to that business plan.
    - voltagex_ 10y ago
      Back to reality: would imgur have become so popular if it wasn't free? Who would pay? Reddit users? I don't think so.
      - PhasmaFelis 10y ago
        You seem to be asserting that anything is okay as long as it makes money. Nobody has to make a website. If the only way you can think of to make money is bait-and-switch, then you can choose to do that, or you can choose to go back to the drawing board and come up with a less unpleasant business plan. If you choose the former, don't expect me to cheer because you found a way to make money, and you think that's the only thing that matters.
        voltagex_ 10y ago
        I agree with you. When imgur started there was a definite need. Now it's being replaced because there's a new need (caused by imgur changing the way it operates). Also, I don't think you're going to make everyone happy as a business, and that's (probably) okay.
    - meerita 10y ago
      +1 to this. People should stop being soften with unrealistic business that uses the ad hororem tactic. Imgur can explore dozens of models.
      - aavotins 10y ago
- ljk 10y ago
  unfortunately nothing is free in this world
- dave2000 10y ago
  A lot of sites/services start for a laugh, and/or because the people who start it assume/hope there'll be some way of making money from it when it gets popular. For a few, this is true. Some go dark, some give up, some sell up. It's up to them I guess.
- Eerie 10y ago
  Counter-argument: Wikipedia.
mbesto 10y ago
To be fair, they could have operated a simple and effectively profitable business, and grown at an economically normal rate. But hey, I guess I wouldn't say no to $40M of a16z's money and a $200M valuation either.
- enjo 10y ago
  I assume your familiar with their operating costs somehow? I have direct experience at a different (older) host. It was simply not possible to serve the tremendous bandwidth needs without increasingly aggressive monetization. I have no idea what they're costs look like and bandwidth is much cheaper than it was 10 years ago, but I'd wager that there was no profitable business for them at any point without intrusive ads.
  - mbesto 10y ago
    > but I'd wager that there was no profitable business for them at any point without intrusive ads. 5 years ago: "but it's profitable enough to hopefully hire another guy or two this summer."[0] The founder has completely bootstrapped the site since day 1, and has done an AMA on Reddit talking about the whole situation[1]. Ads are absolutely necessary to make it profitable, but clearly taking investment now means they are going to squeeze every ounce of dollar out of the site and hence the sentiment of "aggressive monetization". [0] - https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/eicjf/im_the_imgur_guy_ama_part_two/c18ate8 https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/eicjf/im_the_imgur_gu... [1] - https://www.quora.com/How-profitable-is-Imgur-com https://www.quora.com/How-profitable-is-Imgur-com
    - enjo 10y ago
      That was five years ago, they've experienced explosive growth since then which changes the equation. Because they were profitable then doesn't mean that you can simply linearly grow that as the amount of content being served grows. Particularly when you rely on ad revenue which has been on a downward trend over the last few years. Point being: unless you have been directly involved in the decisions accusing them of either malevolence or greed is a pretty tough accusation to make. Sometimes (usually) it's cold hard business realities that drive people to adopting these sorts of monetization strategies. So now the cycle will repeat. Someone will start a host that simply serves images. People will use it. They'll add some ads, people won't care much. They'll start serving more aggressive ads and someone will start another host... over and over again.
redthrowaway 10y ago
Which is what drives the circle of life for image hosts. "Man, all the image hosts suck ass and get in the way of me just seeing the damned image. I'm gonna create a new one, without all the cruft!" "This image host is going well, but the bills are killing me. We'll have to add ads, but obviously only where they're unobtrusive." "We're still bleeding cash, but we've got a huge userbase. We need to monetize it better. We'll toss in a couple interstitials to drive up ARPU." "Man, all the image hosts suck ass and get in the way of me just seeing the damned image. I'm gonna create a new one, without all the cruft!"
- InclinedPlane 10y ago
  I don't think that's it, quite exactly. I think it's more that when people see stats for lots of eyeballs they too often think "if we monetize those to the max, think of the money we could make" and then that shifts into thinking they're leaving money on the table.
  - oblio 10y ago
    The thing is, while there is huge demand for image hosting sites, that demand is really low "quality". After all, we're talking about sites hosting memes and screenshots from games, not original works of art created after tens and hundreds of hours of laboring in Photoshop.
    - boyce 10y ago
      All the pictures of text too, just because text posts on Reddit don't earn karma
      - NoGravitas 10y ago
        And to get around the 140 character limit on Twitter. Though admittedly, most of those are on twimg rather than imgur.
- kristofferR 10y ago
dave2000 10y ago
That's a reason for a pattern, not a dark pattern, though.
- cm2012 10y ago
  As someone who spends millions of dollars on targeted advertising, I can safely say Imgur and similar sites have no worthwhile targeting options unless Facebook buys them.
AznHisoka 10y ago
that's fine. nobody is demanding their services now including Reddit.

Then they should never have started. Why does every 'free' service on the Internet inevitably devolve into an ad-laden, tracker-enabled shitfest?

beambot 10y ago
Because they probably aren't charities, and can't afford to donat e Free resources for your perpetual enjoyment?
- beedogs 10y ago
  Then we're back to my initial point: they never should have started as one.
  - Dr_tldr 10y ago
    I imagine you in a grocery store somewhere, railing against free samples. "You never should've given me a piece of sausage if you were going to start charging for them."
    - beedogs 10y ago
      That is possibly the worst analogy I've ever read on HN.
      - tripzilch 10y ago
        Only if you speak Dutch.
    - briandon 10y ago
      Not comparable since supermarket in-store free samples are tiny servings of a product you can purchase in the same establishment. Supermarkets wouldn't allow, much less encourage, anyone to consume large numbers of free samples instead of buying the actual for-sale product.
  - dave2000 10y ago
    You're wrong. It would be awful to live somewhere where you get to choose which companies are allowed to start.
  - taneq 10y ago
    The problem is that these sites start out as a small, useful service and then some VC with dollar signs in their eyes throws a few million dollars at them. The clothes make the primate, and suddenly what was three guys in a back room living on instant noodles feels obliged to "act like the million-dollar company that they are."
- PhasmaFelis 10y ago
  > Because they probably aren't charities, and can't afford to donat e Free resources for your perpetual enjoyment? Then why did they start a free service to begin with, if they knew from the start it couldn't last? Right, to trick people into becoming dependent on the free service so they'll be reluctant to leave once the shady, UX-degrading monetization starts. You'll forgive me if I'm not sympathetic to that business plan.
  - voltagex_ 10y ago
    Back to reality: would imgur have become so popular if it wasn't free? Who would pay? Reddit users? I don't think so.
    - PhasmaFelis 10y ago
      You seem to be asserting that anything is okay as long as it makes money. Nobody has to make a website. If the only way you can think of to make money is bait-and-switch, then you can choose to do that, or you can choose to go back to the drawing board and come up with a less unpleasant business plan. If you choose the former, don't expect me to cheer because you found a way to make money, and you think that's the only thing that matters.
      - voltagex_ 10y ago
        I agree with you. When imgur started there was a definite need. Now it's being replaced because there's a new need (caused by imgur changing the way it operates). Also, I don't think you're going to make everyone happy as a business, and that's (probably) okay.
  - meerita 10y ago
    +1 to this. People should stop being soften with unrealistic business that uses the ad hororem tactic. Imgur can explore dozens of models.
    - aavotins 10y ago
ljk 10y ago
unfortunately nothing is free in this world
dave2000 10y ago
A lot of sites/services start for a laugh, and/or because the people who start it assume/hope there'll be some way of making money from it when it gets popular. For a few, this is true. Some go dark, some give up, some sell up. It's up to them I guess.
Eerie 10y ago
Counter-argument: Wikipedia.

mbesto 10y ago

To be fair, they could have operated a simple and effectively profitable business, and grown at an economically normal rate. But hey, I guess I wouldn't say no to $40M of a16z's money and a $200M valuation either.

enjo 10y ago
I assume your familiar with their operating costs somehow? I have direct experience at a different (older) host. It was simply not possible to serve the tremendous bandwidth needs without increasingly aggressive monetization. I have no idea what they're costs look like and bandwidth is much cheaper than it was 10 years ago, but I'd wager that there was no profitable business for them at any point without intrusive ads.
- mbesto 10y ago
  > but I'd wager that there was no profitable business for them at any point without intrusive ads. 5 years ago: "but it's profitable enough to hopefully hire another guy or two this summer."[0] The founder has completely bootstrapped the site since day 1, and has done an AMA on Reddit talking about the whole situation[1]. Ads are absolutely necessary to make it profitable, but clearly taking investment now means they are going to squeeze every ounce of dollar out of the site and hence the sentiment of "aggressive monetization". [0] - https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/eicjf/im_the_imgur_guy_ama_part_two/c18ate8 https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/eicjf/im_the_imgur_gu... [1] - https://www.quora.com/How-profitable-is-Imgur-com https://www.quora.com/How-profitable-is-Imgur-com
  - enjo 10y ago
    That was five years ago, they've experienced explosive growth since then which changes the equation. Because they were profitable then doesn't mean that you can simply linearly grow that as the amount of content being served grows. Particularly when you rely on ad revenue which has been on a downward trend over the last few years. Point being: unless you have been directly involved in the decisions accusing them of either malevolence or greed is a pretty tough accusation to make. Sometimes (usually) it's cold hard business realities that drive people to adopting these sorts of monetization strategies. So now the cycle will repeat. Someone will start a host that simply serves images. People will use it. They'll add some ads, people won't care much. They'll start serving more aggressive ads and someone will start another host... over and over again.

redthrowaway 10y ago

Which is what drives the circle of life for image hosts. "Man, all the image hosts suck ass and get in the way of me just seeing the damned image. I'm gonna create a new one, without all the cruft!" "This image host is going well, but the bills are killing me. We'll have to add ads, but obviously only where they're unobtrusive." "We're still bleeding cash, but we've got a huge userbase. We need to monetize it better. We'll toss in a couple interstitials to drive up ARPU." "Man, all the image hosts suck ass and get in the way of me just seeing the damned image. I'm gonna create a new one, without all the cruft!"

InclinedPlane 10y ago
I don't think that's it, quite exactly. I think it's more that when people see stats for lots of eyeballs they too often think "if we monetize those to the max, think of the money we could make" and then that shifts into thinking they're leaving money on the table.
- oblio 10y ago
  The thing is, while there is huge demand for image hosting sites, that demand is really low "quality". After all, we're talking about sites hosting memes and screenshots from games, not original works of art created after tens and hundreds of hours of laboring in Photoshop.
  - boyce 10y ago
    All the pictures of text too, just because text posts on Reddit don't earn karma
    - NoGravitas 10y ago
      And to get around the 140 character limit on Twitter. Though admittedly, most of those are on twimg rather than imgur.
kristofferR 10y ago

dave2000 10y ago

That's a reason for a pattern, not a dark pattern, though.

cm2012 10y ago
As someone who spends millions of dollars on targeted advertising, I can safely say Imgur and similar sites have no worthwhile targeting options unless Facebook buys them.

AznHisoka 10y ago

that's fine. nobody is demanding their services now including Reddit.