My Dedicated Steemit Image Hosting website http://steemimg.com has been growing fast, this is expected as the demand for images hosting by users increases as the platform does. As I have mentioned before I have pre-purchased 10 years of server space for a set number of possible uploaded images, once this limit is hit (won't take long at this pace) I will have to cut off new uploads or dramatically limit total daily uploads.

I have plans to get all of the uploaded images onto IPFS so that the images would potentially have a place to live forever via the same image url even without my server actually holding the file. I was hoping this would be a potential way to have my server remain smaller and still be able to offer full image hosting essentially forever for free. I Find out that even while getting images onto IPFS you still need the server space for the actual network isn't where it needs to be just yet. I don't need to get into all of this here really so I just keep it at that.

So what it comes down to is if we want to try and keep this dedicated service going after my current limit is hit or just to use other free image hosting to host all of or images?

At the moment (obviously) the majority of Steemit Users don't use my service or else this conversation would have come up a lot faster... Currently I have 1400 users who are very active and seem to primarily use steemimg to upload their images. Even at this small number of users compared to total steemit users, image counts go up quickly, which drives up total image space, but whats most important is served bandwidth. I'm not sure how familier most of you are with how image hosting works but essentially the server can only handle so much bandwidth before slowing down and eventually failing. The more images that are hosted on steemimg the more images are requested and served to all of your looking at the post the image is contained in. The more popular steemit becomes, the more the posts are read, the more times these images are served equals A LOT of bandwidth.

One good thing is that posts don't last very long on steemit and after that first 24 hours requests for these images goes way down freeing up bandwidth of new posts and so on... I have been able to set up the server to handle this but it can only go so far. This leads me to... sorry to be long winded ;)

Monetization Proposal

My idea is simple, get sponsors... you.

Instead of throwing dumb, unrelated, obstructive, and bothersome ads onto the website I want to instead have Steemit Users and or their Steemit Posts sponsor a day (or longer) of essentially server costs.

I could treat this like any other ad space and have users bid on the space to promote their posts and or themselves (gain followers?). I would offer up the home page text dead smack in the middle with a small message and a link to your content. I could also offer up the customization of the background image.

I would then take the profits from these ad buys to maintain and upgrade the server. I think this would be a win win for the Steemit community and a new way to promote your content while helping maintain a service!

So... What do you think? Anyone want to get in on the first ad placement and put a bid in on the comments below? In addition to getting your placement on the very busy http://steemimg.com I could also get you and your post up on a post by me when trying to acquire a new ad placements, a Thank You of sorts.