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They began on Reddit because Reddit was incapable of handling image uploads.

by slig 5y ago

dpedu 5y ago
IIRC at the time imgur launched, all of the other free image sharing websites were pretty bad. Reddit itself didn't start allowing uploads until long after imgur.
- degenerate 5y ago
  Correct. ImageShack was the most widely used host on reddit and had recently disabled hotlinking (after nearly a year of ad bloat on their main site) so user MrGrim on reddit created Imgur and announced it on Reddit 12 years ago: https://old.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/7zlyd/my_gift_to_reddit_i_created_an_image_hosting/c07u7kr/ https://old.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/7zlyd/my_gift_t... He did an AMA 3 years later: https://old.reddit.com//r/IAmA/comments/y81ju/i_created_imgur_ama/ https://old.reddit.com//r/IAmA/comments/y81ju/i_created_imgu...
  - tschwimmer 5y ago
    Holy crap, I have not thought about imageshack for a decade. It was hot garbage: slow, ad ridden and if I recall correctly they would disable your hotlinked images if they used too much bandwidth. Imgur was something of a godsend at the time. Now it's commodity unfortunately.
    - pfraze 5y ago
      The disabled hotlink images are the only reason I know imageshack exists. How’s that for marketing?
    - jagger27 5y ago
      I remember when ImageShack was the best of all the bad options. TinyPic and PhotoBucket were super slow, and I remember popular forums back then either didn’t support image uploads, or they were even slower to load than external hosts. So much internet history has been lost to “this image has exceeded its bandwidth limit” placeholders from PhotoBucket and TinyPic. Imgur really did change everything.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - gsich 5y ago
    And now Imgur has disabled hotlinking. Depending on device and/or image.
    - corobo 5y ago
      And has an interstitial ad to wait through before upload. I don't think even ImageShack thought of that one
  - epa 5y ago
    It was one specific date which imageshack decided to essentially ban all images being linked on Reddit. Imgur filled the void and grew via their own social.
- minimaxir 5y ago
  Here's a data analysis I made years ago on how Reddit native image uploads overtook Imgur uploads: https://minimaxir.com/2017/06/imgur-decline/ https://minimaxir.com/2017/06/imgur-decline/
- badsectoracula 5y ago
  IMO all the other free image sharing websites are still bad, i've yet to see anything that lets you -e.g.- make direct links to the images for use in Discord, Reddit, forums (phpbb), etc and not surround them with garbage and images tend to stay around for a long time unlike other places where they disappear after a while. The only thing i found annoying with Imgur is the mobile site not allowing zooming for some reason (can be bypassed by loading the desktop version but it is still an annoyance). Not sure if this will still be the case going forward though. I used to like Minus since they allowed all that stuff plus had unlimited GIF sizes and didn't reencode PNGs to JPGs (not sure if Imgur does that anymore) but after Minus was sold it went to hell and then disappeared completely.
  - quickthrower2 5y ago
    Who’s paying if there are no ads?
techrat 5y ago
> They began on Reddit because Reddit was incapable of handling image uploads. I'd argue they largely still are incapable of handling image uploads. Their gallery system sucks and the redesign just makes it harder to even see what was posted.
- cptskippy 5y ago
  The image uploading fails most of the time for me.
- hanniabu 5y ago
  And their video player is even worse!
- teraflop 5y ago
  It's not just a poor design. old.reddit.com currently has what ought to be considered a show-stopping functional bug: every gallery post (that is, every post with multiple images) has its URL replaced with the empty string, causing it to render as a purple link that goes nowhere. If you instead click the little "comments" link, the post loads as normal. This has been reported to the admins dozens of times since it first started happening about 3 months ago, and so far the only response is "we're looking into it". I'm not sure which possibility is more damning: the idea that they're incapable of fixing such an obvious regression, or that they literally don't care because they're trying to irritate everybody enough to switch to the newer, uglier version of the site. https://www.reddit.com/r/help/comments/o6ckmr/threads_showing_read_even_though_i_never_clicked/ https://www.reddit.com/r/help/comments/o6ckmr/threads_showin...
  - Abrownn 5y ago
    That 'empty string/purple link' issue still happens to me even on NewReddit. I can find old Galleries that work just fine on both, it's so weird.
    - teraflop 5y ago
      Interesting, I hadn't seen it reported on the new version before. I spend more time than I ought to browsing Reddit, and I literally haven't seen a single correctly-working gallery post on any subreddit in months.
kordlessagain 5y ago
Reddit forwards /r/imgur to /r/drugs
- throwaway1777 5y ago
  Fake news.
- SquareWheel 5y ago
  No it doesn't. If you mean reddit.com/imgur, that's the ID from a random post in /r/Drugs. Reddit automatically expands the post ID to the original thread.
- ryder9 5y ago
  bullshit artist

They began on Reddit because Reddit was incapable of handling image uploads.

by slig 5y ago

They began on Reddit because Reddit was incapable of handling image uploads.

IIRC at the time imgur launched, all of the other free image sharing websites were pretty bad. Reddit itself didn't start allowing uploads until long after imgur.

degenerate 5y ago
Correct. ImageShack was the most widely used host on reddit and had recently disabled hotlinking (after nearly a year of ad bloat on their main site) so user MrGrim on reddit created Imgur and announced it on Reddit 12 years ago: https://old.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/7zlyd/my_gift_to_reddit_i_created_an_image_hosting/c07u7kr/ https://old.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/7zlyd/my_gift_t... He did an AMA 3 years later: https://old.reddit.com//r/IAmA/comments/y81ju/i_created_imgur_ama/ https://old.reddit.com//r/IAmA/comments/y81ju/i_created_imgu...
- tschwimmer 5y ago
  Holy crap, I have not thought about imageshack for a decade. It was hot garbage: slow, ad ridden and if I recall correctly they would disable your hotlinked images if they used too much bandwidth. Imgur was something of a godsend at the time. Now it's commodity unfortunately.
  - pfraze 5y ago
    The disabled hotlink images are the only reason I know imageshack exists. How’s that for marketing?
  - jagger27 5y ago
    I remember when ImageShack was the best of all the bad options. TinyPic and PhotoBucket were super slow, and I remember popular forums back then either didn’t support image uploads, or they were even slower to load than external hosts. So much internet history has been lost to “this image has exceeded its bandwidth limit” placeholders from PhotoBucket and TinyPic. Imgur really did change everything.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- gsich 5y ago
  And now Imgur has disabled hotlinking. Depending on device and/or image.
  - corobo 5y ago
    And has an interstitial ad to wait through before upload. I don't think even ImageShack thought of that one
- epa 5y ago
  It was one specific date which imageshack decided to essentially ban all images being linked on Reddit. Imgur filled the void and grew via their own social.
minimaxir 5y ago
Here's a data analysis I made years ago on how Reddit native image uploads overtook Imgur uploads: https://minimaxir.com/2017/06/imgur-decline/ https://minimaxir.com/2017/06/imgur-decline/
badsectoracula 5y ago
IMO all the other free image sharing websites are still bad, i've yet to see anything that lets you -e.g.- make direct links to the images for use in Discord, Reddit, forums (phpbb), etc and not surround them with garbage and images tend to stay around for a long time unlike other places where they disappear after a while. The only thing i found annoying with Imgur is the mobile site not allowing zooming for some reason (can be bypassed by loading the desktop version but it is still an annoyance). Not sure if this will still be the case going forward though. I used to like Minus since they allowed all that stuff plus had unlimited GIF sizes and didn't reencode PNGs to JPGs (not sure if Imgur does that anymore) but after Minus was sold it went to hell and then disappeared completely.
- quickthrower2 5y ago
  Who’s paying if there are no ads?

techrat 5y ago

> They began on Reddit because Reddit was incapable of handling image uploads. I'd argue they largely still are incapable of handling image uploads. Their gallery system sucks and the redesign just makes it harder to even see what was posted.

cptskippy 5y ago
The image uploading fails most of the time for me.
hanniabu 5y ago
And their video player is even worse!
teraflop 5y ago
It's not just a poor design. old.reddit.com currently has what ought to be considered a show-stopping functional bug: every gallery post (that is, every post with multiple images) has its URL replaced with the empty string, causing it to render as a purple link that goes nowhere. If you instead click the little "comments" link, the post loads as normal. This has been reported to the admins dozens of times since it first started happening about 3 months ago, and so far the only response is "we're looking into it". I'm not sure which possibility is more damning: the idea that they're incapable of fixing such an obvious regression, or that they literally don't care because they're trying to irritate everybody enough to switch to the newer, uglier version of the site. https://www.reddit.com/r/help/comments/o6ckmr/threads_showing_read_even_though_i_never_clicked/ https://www.reddit.com/r/help/comments/o6ckmr/threads_showin...
- Abrownn 5y ago
  That 'empty string/purple link' issue still happens to me even on NewReddit. I can find old Galleries that work just fine on both, it's so weird.
  - teraflop 5y ago
    Interesting, I hadn't seen it reported on the new version before. I spend more time than I ought to browsing Reddit, and I literally haven't seen a single correctly-working gallery post on any subreddit in months.

kordlessagain 5y ago

Reddit forwards /r/imgur to /r/drugs

throwaway1777 5y ago
Fake news.
SquareWheel 5y ago
No it doesn't. If you mean reddit.com/imgur, that's the ID from a random post in /r/Drugs. Reddit automatically expands the post ID to the original thread.
ryder9 5y ago
bullshit artist