- Reddit hasn’t said it outright, but it’s obvious that this is a move that’s at least partly designed to stop sending Reddit’s considerable user base to a website that is now a direct competitor. Imgur hasn’t said it outright, but if Reddit’s content creators are coming to Imgur first to upload the content, isn’t it better to keep them on the site?
Reddit shoulda bought it a long-ass time ago. But they didn't. Then it grew comments, and they still didn't. Then Reddit ceased to be the primary place that linked to it, and they still didn't. Here's the thing: Imgur tried to monetize for a while the same way Flickr tried to monetize for a while: "pay us to host your shitty content." However, considering Imgur compresses the shit out of your pictures and considering nobody was using for that, they stopped. but that's still their only real monetization strategy. Sure- A16Z threw a pile of money at them, that doesn't mean they make money. Shots were first fired when Imgur started having votes and comments. That it took Reddit like five flipping years to do something about it says a lot more about Reddit than it does about Imgur. Although, I guess it says that Reddit embraces the fact that they're basically a big, cultureless chan. Somebody gave me another like three years of Reddit Gold the other day for that Youngluck thing. Although it was actually like two months ago because I logged in for the first time the other day. Amazing how much better my mood is.