[PavlovsCat]

a.) flickr is a photo sharing site, no? the UI certainly seems to be optimized for mediocre or even pretty photos, not random noise. If I started pasting huge blocks of mime64 in HN comments to store encrypted personal stuff, or unencrypted cat pictures, would that be in the spirit of hacking, too? Or rather in the spirit of laming? (also notice the fact that I know better than to actually DO this even just ONCE, just to prove a point, because one never knows what random thing might incur a hellban)

b.) imagery aside, more like stepping into a storage locker, saying "I could theoretically live here!", everybody having their minds blown, and then not living in the storage locker because that'd be just pointless and awkward.

How about this: a tool to put something into series of high-ISO photos via steganography (and allow it to be updated, too) which can't be detected without the correct key.

[swombat]

Arguably, you could use HN as a storage mechanism because it just marks comments as dead, it doesn't actually delete them.

Hell, you could even write a utility to spuriously create HN accounts, stuff them full of comments that will be deaded but still accessible, and use that as a data store.

Whilst there is some "hacker spirit" to it, it is absolutely, totally a dick move. And yes, it is like shitting in the urinals, then smearing your shit all over the taps and the mirrors, because why the hell should the rest of us be able to use the facilities for what they were supposed to be used for, if you can have your fun for a few days?

We need a new name for this. It's not "Tragedy of the commons", it's more like "Tragedy of the common troll".

[jacquesm]

If you advertise free storage you can't really complain when people wonder what else you can store there.

If you advertise a forum then people will do what they can with that forum, some will troll, some will try to advertise (even if they have to spend a lot of time to groom their audience) and some will do that much more outright (spam).

If you launch any service on the internet these days you have to start by analyzing it from the angles of possible abuse first. This is frustrating in a way but it is also inevitable, just like in life there are no niches that contain harvest-able energy without some life-form that takes advantage of that by adapting to it.

Storage, CPU, bandwidth are the currencies of the modern age, giving out any one of those currencies is asking for it, especially when it's done in large denominations.