It's the cycle of image hosts (full article I pinched this from [1])

  - Create a great image hosting website
  - Decide to monetize it
  - Add advertising
  - Stop allowing hotlinking
  - Add more advertising
  - Add social tools like comments, voting - attempt build a community to look at your ads

There'll be a new one that picks up the lions share of the userbase eventually and we'll go through it all over again

[1] https://drewdevault.com/2014/10/10/The-profitability-of-onli...