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163 points miiiiiike | 4 comments | | HN request time: 0.236s | source
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transcriptase ◴[] No.45103652[source]
I remember when imgur was created as a fast, no login-pushing, non-scummy alternative to ad-ridden clickjacking hosts that censored nsfw and controversial content.

Then it became all of that on steroids except with a comment section and a weird community that didn’t realize they were living in the plumbing of other platforms like Reddit.

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1. jabroni_salad ◴[] No.45104397[source]
We knew. The situation is the opposite-- external users did not understand the interface and constantly posted things that were meant to be private onto the public feed.
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2. jacobgkau ◴[] No.45105556[source]
You got downvoted, but anyone who's used Imgur within the past decade or so has to have seen indications of this. I remember around 2016 when I went to upload some photos for a Reddit post, I found the two different profiles (old-style and new-style) confusing. I could post something private on the old profile or the new one, but if I wanted to bring a post from the old one to the new one, it would get set to public, and also re-post it with a new timestamp... things like that.

Once Imgur stopped being a dedicated image hosting service, you had to go out of your way to lock down your posts if you wanted to use it as a dedicated image hosting service. Which I can see being confusing for both sides of the party.

3. transcriptase ◴[] No.45106071[source]
Imgur was a simple image host for forums and Reddit long before there was anything resembling a feed or even “users”. The interface was an upload button that gave you a URL that nobody else would have unless you shared it or someone guessed.

It was plumbing. And then a community formed inside it and wondered why things kept randomly showing up from above.

It’s actually pretty amusing and you sort of proved my point.

4. hbn ◴[] No.45106212[source]
That issue exists because of the community that spawned on top of what was built just to be a utility. Not the people using it for its original intended purpose.