What if I need absolute surety my image(s) is not going to be subject to bit rot and not be available in a few years time? What if I do 'multi-posts' and share the same image across 10,000+ bulletin boards? Your bandwidth will run out very quickly if you saw the types of posting that I do (I use automation software to post to 10,000+ boards). And those posts last for decades. I am not sure I can rely on this service for my needs.
This is why I self-host my own image server and have it hooked up to a well-provisioned CDN for peace of mind. Then I have full control and can renew the domain for ten years each time to keep the images online.
If you needed such guarantees, I'd reckon you'd want to proxy through a domain name you control, anyways. I wouldn't trust the URL structure of a given image host to last decades, either. Or a given image host's hot-linking tolerance to stay the same.
Wow, never thought I'd meet ME in hackernews.
This is exactly what I do. I have a domain with a few services running and upload everything to that, then get a hyperlink to it to embed/raw post everywhere.
This is why I self-host my own image server and have it hooked up to a well-provisioned CDN for peace of mind. Then I have full control and can renew the domain for ten years each time to keep the images online.