Why aren't attachments allowed?

[TheGrassGuy]

I downloaded an image of my fictional renumbering plan, but I can't upload it as an attachment! Why aren't attachments allowed on this forum? I had to make do with an image host on Discord, which drastically reduced image quality

[hotdogPi]

Some people can upload to the gallery. I'm not sure how it's decided; I was granted access despite not having a history of uploading my own photos at the time.

Keep in mind that an 800×600 photo is 800*600*4 = 1.92 MB. Three photos per post (or more, for some of ghYHZ's or Max Rockatansky's posts, or for an animated GIF) * 25 posts per page = 144 MB of server space just for a single page worth of content. Multiply by 25 if they're 4000×3000 photos.

[Duke87]

Keep in mind that an 800×600 photo is 800*600*4 = 1.92 MB.

Only if you're being silly and saving your images in an uncompressed format.

Nonetheless, yes, your images take up a lot more bandwidth than plain text does. There are any number of places off site you can upload pictures to and hotlink them from who are willing to provide that bandwidth.

I believe Imgur will be willing to host your image without dithering it.

[Scott5114]

Because Web server pricing is determined by disk space used, among other things. Alex would rather the space he is paying for go toward hosting aaroads.com than letting other people decide to how to use it by uploading whatever they want to it.

As mentioned before, imgur is a perfectly good hosting solution. Or if it's a road photo you took yourself, consider licensing it freely and upload it to Wikimedia Commons. There, it could be used by a roadgeek to potentially illustrate a road article.