> Reddit would be checking each of the subreddits for content and aggerating it. Which would be more complex and more expensive to run.
Did you even take a second to look at Imgur before confidently saying something so incorrect? The homepage clearly references tags, with individual posts a la subreddits.
Also, it's not like each subreddit is an individual database table or something. You're making it seem like aggregation is a substantial cost when it's just a different DB query.
They have tags. Not subreddits. Tagging systems are completely different from how a subreddit works. In my experience a tagging system isn't that expensive to run. Comparing tags with sections seeems completely bonkers and very naive.
> Also, it's not like each subreddit is an individual database table or something. You're making it seem like aggregation is a substantial cost when it's just a different DB query.
In my experience, to make complex data like Reddit's highly available you need to do a whole bunch such as making subreddits separate buckets so to speak. The aggregation almost certainly has a substantial costs. This isn't some dinky MySQL database with few thousand posts.
Both sites serve - image, video, and text(comments or posts).
Imgur would almost certainly be cheaper to run due to the simpler nature of the site. Imgur would just need checking the overall site for content.
Reddit would be checking each of the subreddits for content and aggerating it. Which would be more complex and more expensive to run.
Realistically, it's the best comparision there is.