It's a shame that we are getting to a place to have an extension for each site to avoid dark patterns. May be just all in one extension just like Greasemonkey.
StopTheMadness is kind of that.
Not at all.
> but that's pretty much was imgur has exclusively been used for since its inception
It's what imgur was built for and how it attracted users in the first place.
I think you're right that initially Imgur was happy to host images for reddit if it drove traffic to their homepage. They don't then "owe" their users who have paid a total of $0 to keep doing that forever if it stops being profitable to them.