I really wish ipfs worked better. Keep the Internet Archive as the object store of last resort, but also provide an easy way for anyone to contribute storage and hosting to the network in a few clicks (with a reasonable expectation that the images they are mirroring are filtered for DMCA / illegal content).

I would happily donate a few terabytes, and a fat internet connection.

Here's the thing. The overwhelming majority of content that people want to share on the likes of Imgur never actually get that much traffic. Ergo, why not just buy a cheap xyz, be it a turn-key appliance, a Pi and roll your own, or do something more sophisticated? Or if they don't want to do that, why not just host it out of your cloud storage provider?

I don't really understand the niche that Imgur is serving. Past a point, it makes far more sense to have it on your own server (local or cloud), your own CloudFlare account in front of it etc. This weird middleground where people aren't making money off of their content, but still want to share it, but don't actually get that much traffic is a weird one.

Why not just stick some ads on it if you're getting that much traffic or stick it on someone else's ad-supported platform? And if it's porn, why not go through a porn site and monetize legitimately? Surely all legitimate and consensual pornography wouldn't have a problem with that, and they would get more traffic on the ads/subs, and thus more money.

A one-time upload fee could work with widespread expectations about how to entrust the money to long-term preservation, and how to report that transparently. I'm reminded of cemetery management which must split plot sale revenue between today's expenses and the trust that cares for the cemetery at least a century after the last one is sold.