Imgur now blocks several VPNs and have issues loading embedded previews in several fediverse platforms. So instead of using imgur, you could use one of the following alternatives for uploading your images.
https://postimages.org/
https://imgbox.com/
https://imgbb.com/
https://www.imagebam.com/
Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. The individual hosts of the Fediverse are limited on space, and jamming that limited space full of images, rather than using an external image hosting service, is worse for the sustainability of these spaces
In addition, help out your instance admins by resizing the image if you don’t need it in high resolution.
Uploading a 250Kb file rather than a 2.5MB one makes a difference when thousands of users are doing it.
@aleph As an instance admin myself, we are looking into fine-tuning those settings to limit uploads of an x amount in file size. But are we are looking into some thumbnail library to reduce the image sizes indeed.
Saving images as webp gives massive savings, and I think everyone can view them nowadays.
Someone somewhere has to host the image. Realistically it should be the same people hosting the instance so you don’t run into cases where historical posts have all their images dropped. In an absolute ideal world everyone selfhosts their own images, but that’s an absolute fantasy.
Shouldn’t this be a per instance policy? Why would the onus be on the poster?
Because pretty much all instances are being run by volunteers and hobbyists, and not a for-profit who is profiting from your content. This is just something nice to do for reducing the resources they require to run the service.
I understand that. You and I are decent human beings, but a lot of people are dicks. So the instance owners should be the ones active at protecting their resources.