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As far as I know, Imgur actually started off as a bit of a public service. From Wikipedia: "Imgur was created as a response to the usability problems encounte

As far as I know, Imgur actually started off as a bit of a public service. From Wikipedia: "Imgur was created as a response to the usability problems encountered in similar services. Designed to be a gift to the online community of Reddit, it took off almost instantly, jumping from a thousand hits per day to a million total page views in the first five months."

samstave 9y ago
it was created by /u/mrgrim as a programming side project because all the other img hosts were shitty, and as it was born of reddit, essentially for reddit, it blew up. I cant stand the new i.reddit img service, but that could be me just being an off-my-lawn-er... but I am wary of reddits motivations, as I dont trust the admins all that much given the fact that they are a huge social manipulation tool - and if you don't toe the corporate line in the US, they shut you down.
- srett 9y ago
  For me it's quite the opposite. I like browsing the web in the evening on a 5 year old tablet. Ever since imgur started redirecting mobile clients to the full site for all direct image links the experience gets worse and worse. They keep adding more scripts and shit over time so currently when opening an imgur link the tablet freezes for about 4 seconds until it starts showing the loading spinner and then it takes another couple seconds depending on image size until I can finally see a plain old jpeg. Every fucking time. I mean I don't understand the decision to redirect mobile but not desktop at all. Desktops are faster (cpu and connection) and got more screen space to show ads. Why not the other way round?
  - samstave 9y ago
    Imgur has a ton of flaws, my gripe with reddit is the admins; as a mod of a controversial /r/ - I just don't trust their ability to be for free speech...
  - CountSessine 9y ago
    Me too. That awful gifv has never worked on my older Samsung tablet. I don't understand why not and I gave up trying to diagnose the problem. Other imaging hosts that serve up .mp4's as substitutes for .gif like giphy work just fine. It's just Imgur that couldn't figure out how to make this work properly.
    - Dylan16807 9y ago
      It's very likely the terrible redirect shenanigans they do on gifv. And have just expanded to all files on all platforms, oh boy.
- Zren 9y ago
  > Reddit's motivations It's effectively a tracking "pixel" for what you click, even if you block their javascript/redirect. It also keeps that data in house which they can sell (if they need to) rather than give all that data away to imgur for free. Though I wonder if the bandwidth costs will break even. They can also use it in order to craft personalised suggestions.
  - tyingq 9y ago
    I imagine they will also start checking referers and presenting pages, instead of images, to certain visitors. If that isn't happening already.

samstave 9y ago

it was created by /u/mrgrim as a programming side project because all the other img hosts were shitty, and as it was born of reddit, essentially for reddit, it blew up. I cant stand the new i.reddit img service, but that could be me just being an off-my-lawn-er... but I am wary of reddits motivations, as I dont trust the admins all that much given the fact that they are a huge social manipulation tool - and if you don't toe the corporate line in the US, they shut you down.

srett 9y ago
For me it's quite the opposite. I like browsing the web in the evening on a 5 year old tablet. Ever since imgur started redirecting mobile clients to the full site for all direct image links the experience gets worse and worse. They keep adding more scripts and shit over time so currently when opening an imgur link the tablet freezes for about 4 seconds until it starts showing the loading spinner and then it takes another couple seconds depending on image size until I can finally see a plain old jpeg. Every fucking time. I mean I don't understand the decision to redirect mobile but not desktop at all. Desktops are faster (cpu and connection) and got more screen space to show ads. Why not the other way round?
- samstave 9y ago
  Imgur has a ton of flaws, my gripe with reddit is the admins; as a mod of a controversial /r/ - I just don't trust their ability to be for free speech...
- CountSessine 9y ago
  Me too. That awful gifv has never worked on my older Samsung tablet. I don't understand why not and I gave up trying to diagnose the problem. Other imaging hosts that serve up .mp4's as substitutes for .gif like giphy work just fine. It's just Imgur that couldn't figure out how to make this work properly.
  - Dylan16807 9y ago
    It's very likely the terrible redirect shenanigans they do on gifv. And have just expanded to all files on all platforms, oh boy.
Zren 9y ago
> Reddit's motivations It's effectively a tracking "pixel" for what you click, even if you block their javascript/redirect. It also keeps that data in house which they can sell (if they need to) rather than give all that data away to imgur for free. Though I wonder if the bandwidth costs will break even. They can also use it in order to craft personalised suggestions.
- tyingq 9y ago
  I imagine they will also start checking referers and presenting pages, instead of images, to certain visitors. If that isn't happening already.