It's 3 AM tuesday, and I just got an "Imgur is overloaded" page, and it reminded me of my post last month.

[Theory] Imgur goes down quarterly because at the end / beginning of each quarter, there is a "push" to meet / set Advertising quotas.

Symptoms: Imgur struggles and goes down, half if not more of the front page links are direct links to imgur pages and not the image itself.

By mid-fiscal-quarter these "issues" seem to resolve themselves and posting patterns return to normal.

Edit: As a Bonus: It is difficult to audit imgur with the domain page disabled. I or someone would have to observe top subs, the posters and their behaviors.

https://redd.it/3eo56w