Popular animated gifs hosting service gfycat.com is shutting down on September 1, 2023 and all hosted content will no longer be accessible at that point.
@yesdogishere Time for a federated gif service! #federateallthethings
It didn’t say why. Are they just sick of running it? Is it hemorrhaging money? It’s practically a household name!
My guess is Snap bought gfycat, then figured out it cost most to run then they could make off it, so they’re shutting it down. Seems like they should sell it instead, even if it’s not for much money, at least it can live on. It’s like Amazon buying DP Review then shutting it down… luckily there some people stepped in to save it.
I hate this trend of bug companies buying up useful sites, losing interest, and just deleting them.
More likely they bought it to shut it down. Probably cheaper than allowing a potential competitor to survive.
That’s what a lot of companies do.
For those wondering: redgifs, which was started after snapchat banned nsfw content on giphy, is now owned by a different company.
