3 ms·

I mean the site is ad infested and slow as hell to load, such a fall from their former grace when they were seen as an internet darling next to photobucket type

by sizzle 4y ago

I mean the site is ad infested and slow as hell to load, such a fall from their former grace when they were seen as an internet darling next to photobucket type sites when options for uploading and hotlinking were limited due to bandwidth constraints. I think Reddit started hosting their own content or whatever the redgif site is seems to have taken over Imgur for a while now and the images/vids load lightning fast in comparison to Imgur with my ad blocker lighting up like a Christmas tree every time I visit an Imgur link. I would be happy to never visit that site again.

chongli 4y ago
the site is ad infested and slow as hell to load, such a fall from their former grace when they were seen as an internet darling This is the cycle of a lot of ad-driven businesses. They start out sleek and quick to load because they’re ad-free. They grow insanely fast and burn runway. Then they begin loading the site down with ads to monetize the users. This leads to a gradual exodus and eventual death (or death in the star-like sense of eternal irrelevance). It seems to be an unstable equilibrium. If you want to stay on top in terms of users and actually make money you’ve got to have a lean and highly optimized site with non-intrusive ads. On the other hand, if you give in to the temptation to take any ad who wants you then you doom the site in exchange for a short term profit.
- biztos 4y ago
  I wonder: if you know this, and expect it will happen, is that kind of company still a good investment? It could be that Imgur has already more than paid back its acquisition price to MediaLab[0] and now they are willing to risk killing it in order to not have the NSFW hassle with their banks. Or not, but it seems like this happens enough that the money people should understand it by now. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28674883 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28674883
- timmytokyo 4y ago
  Enshittification [0] [0] https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-platforms-cory-doctorow/ https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-platforms-cory-doctorow/
  - dmix 4y ago
    Some like Facebook still manage to claw their way back into a happy mediocrity. Instagram is victim to this trying to follow every trend and turning themselves into another WeChat that has every feature ever.
    - Zak 4y ago
      I'm not sure if Facebook is in a state of happy mediocrity. Nobody I know who uses Facebook does so because they like Facebook even because there aren't better alternatives in terms of functionality. People use Facebook because its network effects are effectively impossible for alternatives to overcome.
- sizzle 4y ago
  How much did you founders profit from Imgur? never saw a figure anywhere.
judahmeek 4y ago
This trend has been previously described as "enshittification": https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/ https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/ HN thread on the above article: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34480479 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34480479
fknorangesite 4y ago
> whatever the redgif site is People were uploading lots of porn to gfycat, so the gfycat people basically cloned themselves and split the adult content off onto another domain in order to keep it separate.
- nemacol 4y ago
  This strikes me as the obvious solution to me.
samstave 4y ago
>the images/vids load lightning fast in comparison to Imgur You must be joking. I have been a user of imgur since it was create by mr. grimm ... I have had a paid account for ~10 years... v.reddit and i.reddit are absolute garbage by comparison. Now, that is to say, I use imgur very specifically - I have my own albums (and the album management system on imgur is trash and almost unusable) -- but the ability to just use something like greenshot where I do a snippet with PRTSC key and have it auto-upload to my imgur, and then copy the imgur url immediately to my clipboard is dope... but the album management UX on imgur does suck.
SllX 4y ago
Being the image host for Reddit has to be a lot less lucrative when Reddit is their own image host now.
govolckurself 4y ago
Tale as old as time. 1. "We need a better image host!" 2. Makes new image host. 3. Uh oh, hosting costs money. 4. Ads. 5. Lawsuits because illegal stuff. Uh oh, lawyers cost money. 6. "We need a better image host!"
- wraptile 4y ago
  You'd think that all the recent technological advancements (compression, cheaper hosting etc) would make a difference here. To me it seems like it's not necessarily budgeting issue but natural greed kicking in. I'm sure imgur people are not tightening their belts over this.
  - govolckurself 4y ago
    You can't host something like Imgur for free. No technological advancement can get over the fact that even electricity still costs money. And at their volume, they have nontrivial expenses. I have no idea how or where they're hosted, but my hobbyist hosting budget tops out around $20 a month. Beyond that, either pay me or leave.
    - sumtechguy 4y ago
      Take google for example. I think they got big at first for 2 big reasons. 1 their landing page was tiny I think the whole thing was maybe 20-50k on first load and 1k on second. It was fast to load. Then on top of that their search results were better. But that tiny front page made the thing look amazing. Remember this was at a time when their nearest competitors had ad laden bloated home pages that took a minute to render. That also helped them keep their costs wildly low at first. As network/hosts/drives/people costs money. They threw all of that out later on though as they took over the ad network. Starting off with 'fast loading ads'.
    - hbn 4y ago
      I wonder if there's enough demand for a good, free image host that someone could make one that ran completely on community donations. There are plenty of podcasts on Patreon that pull in tens of thousands of dollars per month just from like $5-$20 monthly pledges. That should be enough to not only cover costs but pay devs. Could even give some perks to backers if it was some incentive.

by sizzle 4y ago

chongli 4y ago

the site is ad infested and slow as hell to load, such a fall from their former grace when they were seen as an internet darling This is the cycle of a lot of ad-driven businesses. They start out sleek and quick to load because they’re ad-free. They grow insanely fast and burn runway. Then they begin loading the site down with ads to monetize the users. This leads to a gradual exodus and eventual death (or death in the star-like sense of eternal irrelevance). It seems to be an unstable equilibrium. If you want to stay on top in terms of users and actually make money you’ve got to have a lean and highly optimized site with non-intrusive ads. On the other hand, if you give in to the temptation to take any ad who wants you then you doom the site in exchange for a short term profit.

biztos 4y ago
I wonder: if you know this, and expect it will happen, is that kind of company still a good investment? It could be that Imgur has already more than paid back its acquisition price to MediaLab[0] and now they are willing to risk killing it in order to not have the NSFW hassle with their banks. Or not, but it seems like this happens enough that the money people should understand it by now. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28674883 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28674883
timmytokyo 4y ago
Enshittification [0] [0] https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-platforms-cory-doctorow/ https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-platforms-cory-doctorow/
- dmix 4y ago
  Some like Facebook still manage to claw their way back into a happy mediocrity. Instagram is victim to this trying to follow every trend and turning themselves into another WeChat that has every feature ever.
  - Zak 4y ago
    I'm not sure if Facebook is in a state of happy mediocrity. Nobody I know who uses Facebook does so because they like Facebook even because there aren't better alternatives in terms of functionality. People use Facebook because its network effects are effectively impossible for alternatives to overcome.
sizzle 4y ago
How much did you founders profit from Imgur? never saw a figure anywhere.

judahmeek 4y ago

This trend has been previously described as "enshittification": https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/ https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/ HN thread on the above article: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34480479 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34480479

fknorangesite 4y ago

> whatever the redgif site is People were uploading lots of porn to gfycat, so the gfycat people basically cloned themselves and split the adult content off onto another domain in order to keep it separate.

nemacol 4y ago
This strikes me as the obvious solution to me.

samstave 4y ago

>the images/vids load lightning fast in comparison to Imgur You must be joking. I have been a user of imgur since it was create by mr. grimm ... I have had a paid account for ~10 years... v.reddit and i.reddit are absolute garbage by comparison. Now, that is to say, I use imgur very specifically - I have my own albums (and the album management system on imgur is trash and almost unusable) -- but the ability to just use something like greenshot where I do a snippet with PRTSC key and have it auto-upload to my imgur, and then copy the imgur url immediately to my clipboard is dope... but the album management UX on imgur does suck.

SllX 4y ago

Being the image host for Reddit has to be a lot less lucrative when Reddit is their own image host now.

govolckurself 4y ago

Tale as old as time. 1. "We need a better image host!" 2. Makes new image host. 3. Uh oh, hosting costs money. 4. Ads. 5. Lawsuits because illegal stuff. Uh oh, lawyers cost money. 6. "We need a better image host!"

wraptile 4y ago
You'd think that all the recent technological advancements (compression, cheaper hosting etc) would make a difference here. To me it seems like it's not necessarily budgeting issue but natural greed kicking in. I'm sure imgur people are not tightening their belts over this.
- govolckurself 4y ago
  You can't host something like Imgur for free. No technological advancement can get over the fact that even electricity still costs money. And at their volume, they have nontrivial expenses. I have no idea how or where they're hosted, but my hobbyist hosting budget tops out around $20 a month. Beyond that, either pay me or leave.
  - sumtechguy 4y ago
    Take google for example. I think they got big at first for 2 big reasons. 1 their landing page was tiny I think the whole thing was maybe 20-50k on first load and 1k on second. It was fast to load. Then on top of that their search results were better. But that tiny front page made the thing look amazing. Remember this was at a time when their nearest competitors had ad laden bloated home pages that took a minute to render. That also helped them keep their costs wildly low at first. As network/hosts/drives/people costs money. They threw all of that out later on though as they took over the ad network. Starting off with 'fast loading ads'.
  - hbn 4y ago
    I wonder if there's enough demand for a good, free image host that someone could make one that ran completely on community donations. There are plenty of podcasts on Patreon that pull in tens of thousands of dollars per month just from like $5-$20 monthly pledges. That should be enough to not only cover costs but pay devs. Could even give some perks to backers if it was some incentive.