Imgur has really fallen over the years. It was first created by a redditor who was frustrated by how terrible free image hosts were at the time, like ImageShack and Photobucket. If an image hit the front page of reddit, it would very quickly turn into a "This image has reached its bandwidth limit", not to mention you usually couldn't directly link an image, and the image view page was riddled with ads.
Over time, though, Imgur has tried to become a social network, and is trying to stop being the go-to place when you just want to host an image.
But, to be fair, I don't really blame them. Image hosting gets expensive quickly, especially when everyone on reddit uses you. Of course, now reddit lets you post images directly to them, which on one hand, leads less traffic to Imgur, but on the other hand, the traffic going to Imgur is now more likely to see ads and browse the gallery, rather than just directly download an image.
A new host emerges to address the sorry state of existing hosts, with a streamlined and straightforward path to uploading. Then the cold, hard reality begins to set in: you cannot make money as a dumb pipe that delivers user-supplied images. Monetization strategies begin subtly at first. Before you know it the site is desperately trying to sell your image on a coffee mug, or hijack links to display ads, or grow into a social networking site. Something- anything- that pivots away from straightforwardly posting images and linking to them.
One day, some bold new creator sees the sorry state of existing hosts, recognizes an opening, and the cycle begins anew.
https://imgbb.com/ is what I use now instead of imgur (or I self-host). It's light and easy, will see how it plays out in the future. I still remember liking ImageShack lol
I just use a regular VPS, so there's no AWS mystery billing going on anywhere AFAIK. Haven't hit the front page of Reddit but I have hit the front page of Hacker News for awhile.
I have thought about using a Lightsail instance. The cheapest one is only $3.50/month and includes 1 TB of transfer and should be plenty powerful to serve up static files.
Or yeah, just use DigitalOcean or someone else. They're pretty cheap, too.
AWS honestly always scared me because of the black box aspect, but I use my single VPS for a bunch of sites with different functions and like having understanding of what's going on there. But any $10-$20/month VPS would be able to host that kind of thing without too much issue.
Another option might be Dropbox. Not sure how quickly their free hosting will crap out if it hits reddit front-page level traffic, but it should be good enough to share here or with your friends or whatever.
Imgur has really fallen over the years. It was first created by a redditor who was frustrated by how terrible free image hosts were at the time, like ImageShack and Photobucket. If an image hit the front page of reddit, it would very quickly turn into a "This image has reached its bandwidth limit", not to mention you usually couldn't directly link an image, and the image view page was riddled with ads.
Over time, though, Imgur has tried to become a social network, and is trying to stop being the go-to place when you just want to host an image.
But, to be fair, I don't really blame them. Image hosting gets expensive quickly, especially when everyone on reddit uses you. Of course, now reddit lets you post images directly to them, which on one hand, leads less traffic to Imgur, but on the other hand, the traffic going to Imgur is now more likely to see ads and browse the gallery, rather than just directly download an image.