5 ms·

Isn't this the cardinal sin of an image host? They are partially killing links in a way that wasn't previously communicated. And to make it worse, it directly

by slg 4y ago

Isn't this the cardinal sin of an image host? They are partially killing links in a way that wasn't previously communicated. And to make it worse, it directly targets what was previously the primary strength of the site, easy and accountless uploads with only a few clicks. Why would anyone use them as an image host again? I wonder if they are hemorrhaging money. This decision gives the impression that they simply don't want to be in the business they're currently in. Such drastic steps usually originate with desperation.

rrrrrrrrrrrryan 4y ago
If they want to monetize that old stuff, couldn't they just serve up an ad instead of an image for those ancient images, then display the full image if you visit the actual imgur page by deleting the .jpg extension? Or they could do what Facebook used to do (still does?), and put them on Blu-ray disk cold storage, then load them into one of those giant jukebox-esque machines that grabs the Blu-ray disk whenever someone click an ancient link and spend 60 seconds serving the image up or whatever. Hell, write all the images with their URLs to magnetic tape and donate them to the Internet archive, and let them figure out what to do with them if/when they eventually have the funds. Literally anything would be better than outright deleting those old images.
- arprocter 4y ago
  They recently changed something - if you follow a link to an image it now loads their page containing the image, and not just the actual file Presumably this was done to show ads on the page
  - 93po 4y ago
    I've seen them do this in some capacity for like a decade
    - arprocter 4y ago
      Strange - I'm pretty sure I used to be able to directly link to an image, and that would be the only thing that loaded (had to 'open image in new tab' after uploading to find the direct link) Possibly they did different things for different IP blocks?
      - justsomehnguy 4y ago
        It's somewhat related to Referrer in the headers, AFAIR
- miyuru 4y ago
  TIL about FB Blu-ray disk cold storage. Thanks. https://www.datacenterfrontier.com/cloud/article/11431537/inside-facebook8217s-blu-ray-cold-storage-data-center https://www.datacenterfrontier.com/cloud/article/11431537/in... The blog post has a link to video from FB itself from 2014 and it has no audio. its not the first old FB video I came across that had no audio. Wonder if the cold storage has something to do with it. https://web.facebook.com/Engineering/videos/10152128660097200/ https://web.facebook.com/Engineering/videos/1015212866009720...
  - compsciphd 4y ago
    I wonder if this is actually cost effective. In my data hoarding days (as a consumer, not FB scale), I found burning media an archive tool to be much more costly (and less reliable and more physical space) than simply using multiple hard drives. Now, it could very well be that FB is able to buy burnable media at a much cheaper rate than consumers (i.e. perhaps there is more margin in media that massively bulk purchasing can reduce and the type of HDs that FB would buy would be more expensive than consumer drives, it could also be that actively used burnable media would be more reliable than actively used hard drives. while it's cold storage, its not frozen storage that is rarely used, with that said, the jukeboxes are probably expensive and suffer more reliablity issues than the hard drives), but on the consumer level, it just didn't seem to be a doable thing. Ex: 8TB HD could cost $120. That's ~ 400 25GB single layer blurays. Now, 400 disks of optical media no matter how efficient one can store them will take up a lot more room than a single 8TB HD. For the 400 bluray blanks to be cheaper than the HD, they would have to be less than 30cents a disk. Glancing at amazon today, the cheapest I see for 25GB BDR blanks (and dual/triple/quad layer blanks are more expensive per GB, i.e. a 50GB blank would be $1.6 a disc) is about 40cents a disk. At that price level, you are better off just buying/copying to multiple disks for even better disaster recovery and it wont really cost you more than to store everything once on optical media. anyways, if anyone could point out flaws in my assumptions (or why at FB scale the answers are different) I'd be interested.
    - ridgered4 4y ago
      I'm also curious on how this could work and actually be more cost effective. I just can't see the robot being a reliable method and the cost savings being there. It almost sounds like some one's pet project. The only really interesting property of bluray is that they supposedly can last a very long time unlike other media, but I'd think you'd still want some redundancy at which point hard disks seem like the way to go.
oblio 4y ago
The cardinal sin of an image host is existing as inherently not a profitable venture. They keep sponging off the initial investment or VC rounds or whatever, but in the end they devolve into ad infested garbage, like those domain squatting pages.
Dalewyn 4y ago
>it directly targets what was previously the primary strength of the site, easy and accountless uploads with only a few clicks. I stopped using imgur several years ago precisely because I couldn't upload anything easily, account or no account. Mobile in particular couldn't upload period, the feature(?) simply wasn't even there. I've since moved on to using Discord, specifically a private "server" I made for the purpose, for my image hosting needs. God knows how long that arrangement will last. All this to say imgur has been useless garbage for many years, its decline to irrelevance is long overdue.
- hosteur 4y ago
  May I ask what you use instead? I frequently use Imgur because of its built in support in various tools such as Greenshot.
  - Dalewyn 4y ago
    Like I said, I just use Discord for image hosting now. I can upload by just pasting into the client, and it works anywhere Discord works. I can access images from anywhere by using/sharing the direct links. If I can easily and simply upload and access images, that's all I want out of an image hoster. Everything else is signal noise.
    - jabroni_salad 4y ago
      That function always struck me as an oversight rather than a feature, since the rest of the product is oriented around only being available "in the app". Personally I am running a mediagoblin server on a Droplet but I have a feeling that only works as long as nothing I make ever goes viral.

by slg 4y ago

rrrrrrrrrrrryan 4y ago

If they want to monetize that old stuff, couldn't they just serve up an ad instead of an image for those ancient images, then display the full image if you visit the actual imgur page by deleting the .jpg extension? Or they could do what Facebook used to do (still does?), and put them on Blu-ray disk cold storage, then load them into one of those giant jukebox-esque machines that grabs the Blu-ray disk whenever someone click an ancient link and spend 60 seconds serving the image up or whatever. Hell, write all the images with their URLs to magnetic tape and donate them to the Internet archive, and let them figure out what to do with them if/when they eventually have the funds. Literally anything would be better than outright deleting those old images.

arprocter 4y ago
They recently changed something - if you follow a link to an image it now loads their page containing the image, and not just the actual file Presumably this was done to show ads on the page
- 93po 4y ago
  I've seen them do this in some capacity for like a decade
  - arprocter 4y ago
    Strange - I'm pretty sure I used to be able to directly link to an image, and that would be the only thing that loaded (had to 'open image in new tab' after uploading to find the direct link) Possibly they did different things for different IP blocks?
    - justsomehnguy 4y ago
      It's somewhat related to Referrer in the headers, AFAIR
miyuru 4y ago
TIL about FB Blu-ray disk cold storage. Thanks. https://www.datacenterfrontier.com/cloud/article/11431537/inside-facebook8217s-blu-ray-cold-storage-data-center https://www.datacenterfrontier.com/cloud/article/11431537/in... The blog post has a link to video from FB itself from 2014 and it has no audio. its not the first old FB video I came across that had no audio. Wonder if the cold storage has something to do with it. https://web.facebook.com/Engineering/videos/10152128660097200/ https://web.facebook.com/Engineering/videos/1015212866009720...
- compsciphd 4y ago
  I wonder if this is actually cost effective. In my data hoarding days (as a consumer, not FB scale), I found burning media an archive tool to be much more costly (and less reliable and more physical space) than simply using multiple hard drives. Now, it could very well be that FB is able to buy burnable media at a much cheaper rate than consumers (i.e. perhaps there is more margin in media that massively bulk purchasing can reduce and the type of HDs that FB would buy would be more expensive than consumer drives, it could also be that actively used burnable media would be more reliable than actively used hard drives. while it's cold storage, its not frozen storage that is rarely used, with that said, the jukeboxes are probably expensive and suffer more reliablity issues than the hard drives), but on the consumer level, it just didn't seem to be a doable thing. Ex: 8TB HD could cost $120. That's ~ 400 25GB single layer blurays. Now, 400 disks of optical media no matter how efficient one can store them will take up a lot more room than a single 8TB HD. For the 400 bluray blanks to be cheaper than the HD, they would have to be less than 30cents a disk. Glancing at amazon today, the cheapest I see for 25GB BDR blanks (and dual/triple/quad layer blanks are more expensive per GB, i.e. a 50GB blank would be $1.6 a disc) is about 40cents a disk. At that price level, you are better off just buying/copying to multiple disks for even better disaster recovery and it wont really cost you more than to store everything once on optical media. anyways, if anyone could point out flaws in my assumptions (or why at FB scale the answers are different) I'd be interested.
  - ridgered4 4y ago
    I'm also curious on how this could work and actually be more cost effective. I just can't see the robot being a reliable method and the cost savings being there. It almost sounds like some one's pet project. The only really interesting property of bluray is that they supposedly can last a very long time unlike other media, but I'd think you'd still want some redundancy at which point hard disks seem like the way to go.

oblio 4y ago

The cardinal sin of an image host is existing as inherently not a profitable venture. They keep sponging off the initial investment or VC rounds or whatever, but in the end they devolve into ad infested garbage, like those domain squatting pages.

Dalewyn 4y ago

>it directly targets what was previously the primary strength of the site, easy and accountless uploads with only a few clicks. I stopped using imgur several years ago precisely because I couldn't upload anything easily, account or no account. Mobile in particular couldn't upload period, the feature(?) simply wasn't even there. I've since moved on to using Discord, specifically a private "server" I made for the purpose, for my image hosting needs. God knows how long that arrangement will last. All this to say imgur has been useless garbage for many years, its decline to irrelevance is long overdue.

hosteur 4y ago
May I ask what you use instead? I frequently use Imgur because of its built in support in various tools such as Greenshot.
- Dalewyn 4y ago
  Like I said, I just use Discord for image hosting now. I can upload by just pasting into the client, and it works anywhere Discord works. I can access images from anywhere by using/sharing the direct links. If I can easily and simply upload and access images, that's all I want out of an image hoster. Everything else is signal noise.
  - jabroni_salad 4y ago
    That function always struck me as an oversight rather than a feature, since the rest of the product is oriented around only being available "in the app". Personally I am running a mediagoblin server on a Droplet but I have a feeling that only works as long as nothing I make ever goes viral.