It’s probably a combo of a lot of things, like screenshotting, encoding issues, accidental conversion, etc, but at least for sites that advertise themselves as image repositories, I’m pretty sure it’s to get you to actually visit the site. I’ve run into sites where the real image actually costs money to download, and ones where it’s free and they’re probably hoping for ad revenue from the page view.
Maybe people just appreciate the style. Like kids buying VHS tapes and watching movies in “full screen” pan and scan. They think the bug was the feature.
Is this happening because people are screenshotting images? Fundamentally misunderstanding the reason for the background? It’s maddening
It’s probably a combo of a lot of things, like screenshotting, encoding issues, accidental conversion, etc, but at least for sites that advertise themselves as image repositories, I’m pretty sure it’s to get you to actually visit the site. I’ve run into sites where the real image actually costs money to download, and ones where it’s free and they’re probably hoping for ad revenue from the page view.
Maybe people just appreciate the style. Like kids buying VHS tapes and watching movies in “full screen” pan and scan. They think the bug was the feature.