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Way back when Imgur was first announced, not having ANY ads was a proud selling point for the website, then competing against the much more obnoxious Photobucke

Way back when Imgur was first announced, not having ANY ads was a proud selling point for the website, then competing against the much more obnoxious Photobucket/ImageShack. Can I advertise on imgur? Hell no! This is a free site (as in beer) and there will never be any ads on it unless I end up selling out for a million dollars. https://web.archive.org/web/20090226191747/https://imgur.com/faq.php https://web.archive.org/web/20090226191747/https://imgur.com...

kalleboo 8y ago
It says right there > unless I end up selling out for a million dollars Even better, he sold out for $40 million.
- fredley 8y ago
  Seems like there's a gap in the market for an 'ad-free unless I sell out for $1m' image hosting site.
  - Cthulhu_ 8y ago
    You'd need an alternative means of making money then. Photobucket doesn't have ads (AFAIK), but offers making prints off images. What would e.g. a "pro" subscription for an image hosting site look like, without restricting the basic functionality (upload images hassle-free, without an account, and hotlink them anywhere)?
    - stephengillie 8y ago
      Imgur did have a "pro" mode for a while. I was paying them $1 a month. They cancelled it at some point.
      - unicornporn 8y ago
        Who needs a pro mode when you have VCs paying!?
        stephengillie 8y ago
        Then the VCs tell you to sell all your users to advertisers?
soperj 8y ago
I'm sure he's getting more than a million dollars though...
lee050484 8y ago
Yeah, you will have a hard time finding an image host that doesn't shove tons of advertisements down your throat. But at the same time, most of them are hosting a ton of recycled memes. Nothing of value. I'm currently test driving https://www.imagesocket.com https://www.imagesocket.com (for personal photos) if anybody else is looking for a viable alternative.
- swellep 8y ago
  A lot of those memes are probably the same image. Would it be possible for Imgur to remove duplicate images and just redirect users to the original? That might help save bandwidth.
  - Rjevski 8y ago
    Deduplication would save storage space, but won’t do anything for bandwidth; if you redirect users to an existing image they’re still going to download it and you’re still going to use up some bandwidth.
wyldfire 8y ago
As others have said MrGrim's predicate was satisfied ;) But the service is still superior to other competitors, still way better than the two you cite.
- ngold 8y ago
  Way better than what reddit founders got to sell out to Conde naste. Which is hilarious considering when it came out we were all stoked about reddit and imgur being open source and ad free.
  - wyldfire 8y ago
    Reddit's ads are really unintrusive even today. I don't think we should expect them to operate without something like ads for monetization.
    - gothroach 8y ago
      I'm guessing you haven't had the new site rolled out to you yet? Maybe it's just me but on the mobile version of the new site, of the top four posts one to three(!) are ads on every page. Oh, and only two posts are visible by default. I much preferred the unobtrusiveness of their ads previously.
      - bnjms 8y ago
        I find myself wishing the new ads were more intrusive! What we have taught them is that we are "okay" with ads as long as they're unintrusive. But what Reddit has understood is that if they can blend in the ads seamlessly that the ads are acceptable. But the ads are actually worse. -- And thank goodness for that. I waste far too much time there and nothing breaks me from the spell like loading the new theme.
      - y4mi 8y ago
        i can no longer login with the new page, because they've introduced a client-side password check that fails for my legacy account. right now, i'm still able to authenticate at old.reddit.com... but once they've deprecated that as well, i'll no longer be able to authenticate unless i change my password in this grace period. not doing that though
joering2 8y ago
Right on! They are at the final bastion -- continue saying "no" to being bought by Facebook, FB is plastering them with ads continuously. I say 90% of ads I see on the site is FB luring me into "see what my friends are doing". Wonder how much before enough money is enough money.
corobo 8y ago
It's the cycle of image hosts (full article I pinched this from [1]) - Create a great image hosting website - Decide to monetize it - Add advertising - Stop allowing hotlinking - Add more advertising - Add social tools like comments, voting - attempt build a community to look at your ads There'll be a new one that picks up the lions share of the userbase eventually and we'll go through it all over again [1] https://drewdevault.com/2014/10/10/The-profitability-of-online-services.html https://drewdevault.com/2014/10/10/The-profitability-of-onli...
rgallagher27 8y ago
It's almost as if they realised hosting millions of images and hiring developers costs money! What a shock!
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
  Initially it was a one-man operation that relied on donations from fellow Reddit users. I guess the donations eventually dried up or at least stopped covering the ever-increasing bandwidth costs.

kalleboo 8y ago

It says right there > unless I end up selling out for a million dollars Even better, he sold out for $40 million.

fredley 8y ago
Seems like there's a gap in the market for an 'ad-free unless I sell out for $1m' image hosting site.
- Cthulhu_ 8y ago
  You'd need an alternative means of making money then. Photobucket doesn't have ads (AFAIK), but offers making prints off images. What would e.g. a "pro" subscription for an image hosting site look like, without restricting the basic functionality (upload images hassle-free, without an account, and hotlink them anywhere)?
  - stephengillie 8y ago
    Imgur did have a "pro" mode for a while. I was paying them $1 a month. They cancelled it at some point.
    - unicornporn 8y ago
      Who needs a pro mode when you have VCs paying!?
      - stephengillie 8y ago
        Then the VCs tell you to sell all your users to advertisers?

soperj 8y ago

I'm sure he's getting more than a million dollars though...

lee050484 8y ago

Yeah, you will have a hard time finding an image host that doesn't shove tons of advertisements down your throat. But at the same time, most of them are hosting a ton of recycled memes. Nothing of value. I'm currently test driving https://www.imagesocket.com https://www.imagesocket.com (for personal photos) if anybody else is looking for a viable alternative.

swellep 8y ago
A lot of those memes are probably the same image. Would it be possible for Imgur to remove duplicate images and just redirect users to the original? That might help save bandwidth.
- Rjevski 8y ago
  Deduplication would save storage space, but won’t do anything for bandwidth; if you redirect users to an existing image they’re still going to download it and you’re still going to use up some bandwidth.

wyldfire 8y ago

As others have said MrGrim's predicate was satisfied ;) But the service is still superior to other competitors, still way better than the two you cite.

ngold 8y ago
Way better than what reddit founders got to sell out to Conde naste. Which is hilarious considering when it came out we were all stoked about reddit and imgur being open source and ad free.
- wyldfire 8y ago
  Reddit's ads are really unintrusive even today. I don't think we should expect them to operate without something like ads for monetization.
  - gothroach 8y ago
    I'm guessing you haven't had the new site rolled out to you yet? Maybe it's just me but on the mobile version of the new site, of the top four posts one to three(!) are ads on every page. Oh, and only two posts are visible by default. I much preferred the unobtrusiveness of their ads previously.
    - bnjms 8y ago
      I find myself wishing the new ads were more intrusive! What we have taught them is that we are "okay" with ads as long as they're unintrusive. But what Reddit has understood is that if they can blend in the ads seamlessly that the ads are acceptable. But the ads are actually worse. -- And thank goodness for that. I waste far too much time there and nothing breaks me from the spell like loading the new theme.
    - y4mi 8y ago
      i can no longer login with the new page, because they've introduced a client-side password check that fails for my legacy account. right now, i'm still able to authenticate at old.reddit.com... but once they've deprecated that as well, i'll no longer be able to authenticate unless i change my password in this grace period. not doing that though

joering2 8y ago

Right on! They are at the final bastion -- continue saying "no" to being bought by Facebook, FB is plastering them with ads continuously. I say 90% of ads I see on the site is FB luring me into "see what my friends are doing". Wonder how much before enough money is enough money.

corobo 8y ago

It's the cycle of image hosts (full article I pinched this from [1]) - Create a great image hosting website - Decide to monetize it - Add advertising - Stop allowing hotlinking - Add more advertising - Add social tools like comments, voting - attempt build a community to look at your ads There'll be a new one that picks up the lions share of the userbase eventually and we'll go through it all over again [1] https://drewdevault.com/2014/10/10/The-profitability-of-online-services.html https://drewdevault.com/2014/10/10/The-profitability-of-onli...

rgallagher27 8y ago

It's almost as if they realised hosting millions of images and hiring developers costs money! What a shock!

SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
Initially it was a one-man operation that relied on donations from fellow Reddit users. I guess the donations eventually dried up or at least stopped covering the ever-increasing bandwidth costs.