| Beggars absolutely can be choosers here, because there are tons of competing sites, many of which don't have any of the annoying features that imgur has been adding in recent months. Imgur obviously needs money to stay afloat, but there are less annoying ways they could have gone about it. Reddit has been bleeding money for years, probably more money than Imgur has yearly and for a longer time span, but they still have not compromised the integrity or usability of their site to gain money. They rely only on non-intrusive ads, Reddit gold, and donations. 4chan is in an even worse state, and has also only been making money through their 4chan Pass semi-donation feature. Imgur could have created a new subdomain for the "new" site, or could have setup some entirely different applications that integrate with the main site, instead of detracting from the main product. As a company, they have a right to do what they want to make money, but as users most of us will always keep moving to the best solution once the old ones start shooting themselves in the foot. Companies whose business model is to provide only a single free service for a massive userbase will always have to balance revenue and user alienation. Reddit and Imgur are leaning on opposite sides of that scale at the moment. Honestly, I would consider an acquisition (by Google or whoever) to be a much better solution for everyone involved compared to the things they're trying now in desperation to get more revenue. |