Bye-Bye Photobucket

garrettb

garrettb

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Joined
Jul 27, 2012
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6,767
Photobucket tells me they have changed their terms and third party image hosting is no longer permitted unless I pay them $400 a year. This appears to have broken every image I've ever posted on a forum. Anyone else?




http://photobucket.com/p500/
http://photobucket.com/terms

"Plus 500 Plan: 502 GB of Storage and unlimited bandwidth for $399.99 / Year. The Plus 500 Plan allows for unlimited image linking and unlimited 3rd party image hosting."
 
Wow.

That's garbage.

But it's also a garbage app that hasn't fixed their 'login with Facebook' for over 6mos, so I gave up ages ago.
 
Not yet, but I've only ever used mine on this forum so I guess I just haven't reached my third party view bandwidth quota yet. When I do, I'll just find something else or figure out how to set it up on the storage I get with my ISP and never bothered to figure out how to use.
 
From their new Terms Of Service:

Free account : Each individual Member gets one free account that provides 2 GB of free storage or space available for your original photo files, or videos under 10min. The free account does not allow any image linking or 3rd party image hosting.
Click to expand...

Well, that will pretty well halt my use of Photobucket. The only reason I use it is for handy-dandy third-party linking. I guess they are doing this to force direct visits and therefore eyeballs on ads?

I may need to look at my semi-pro-related website service to see what they allow for image storage and linking.

EDIT: one more thing, well, two:

They have active controls for direct linking. What is the point in providing these if they don't want you using them? Very inconsistent.

My linked photos still work. Maybe just for now, maybe they will all slowly get disabled as they crawl their servers looking for direct access linkages.
 
Yep. I had already started transitioning to Flickr. The annoying thing about them though, is you can only post pics using the full web browser and not on mobile or the app. The full Photobucket site has been garbage forever, but the app has been great for me.

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Analytically speaking (I've been reading about platform business models for work) this is a major shift in strategy for them. It appears they are looking to slash user count to clear out the freeloaders and reduce their reliance on ad revenue. This will also allow them to greatly scale down their infrastructure to save money.

The desired result would be to attract a smaller, but more dedicated user base that is willing to pay for services. It's risky and suggests to me that the previous model has failed to be profitable. They will either sink or will transition to a platform geared towards professional photographers and retailers. Ad revenue would become a secondary profit stream by incenting casual users (if you consider $100/year for the privilege of linking casual) to use links to drive people to the site. And for viewers to do away with the ads will cost almost $30 annually.
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Emotionally speaking, it sucks big time. Until recently, it's the only place I've shared photos since I started on forums in the early 00's. I'm pretty gutted at the fact that my and thousands of other pictures will be gone from forum posts. But therein lies the risk we all take by relying on third parties.
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shinksma said:
My linked photos still work. Maybe just for now, maybe they will all slowly get disabled as they crawl their servers looking for direct access linkages.
Click to expand...

AP515 said:
Mine still works. Let's see for how long.
Click to expand...

I'm thinking it may be cascading through the usership. I found out about this via broken pics from a user on a different forum. I checked mine and found I'm in the same boat. However, I checked a bunch of other users' photos here and they're still up.

My other guess is they'll stay up until you try to host another pic, which flags your account and shuts you down.
 
shinksma said:
They have active controls for direct linking. What is the point in providing these if they don't want you using them? Very inconsistent.
Click to expand...

Same reason the cable company shows you channels you don't subscribe to: to encourage you to buy more services.
 
garrett said:
Same reason the cable company shows you channels you don't subscribe to: to encourage you to buy more services.
Click to expand...
This seems more like Seattle FilmWorks' old scam, where they would send out free film that only they could safely develop, holding the memories of the less cautious hostage for $12 a roll.
 
Wow - that sucks for what has to be the majority of their users. Some years ago, I decided to pony up for my own web hosting. A lot more than just pictures for less than a quarter of their price. Granted, my plan has less storage, but I haven't used 60% of that yet. It does lack an easy interface for doing this kind of stuff, but since I'm a bit of a geek, it doesn't really bother me, other than it'd be nice to post pics on the fly from something like Experience.
 
garrett said:
I'm thinking it may be cascading through the usership. I found out about this via broken pics from a user on a different forum. I checked mine and found I'm in the same boat. However, I checked a bunch of other users' photos here and they're still up.

My other guess is they'll stay up until you try to host another pic, which flags your account and shuts you down.
Click to expand...

I hosted another pic to a thread here an hour ago. Still working for me. We'll see...but, yeah, blows
 
I just heard this the other day on my forum.
I have never used Photo Bucket, as I have my own server for hosting HTML pages and pics.
Runs me $360 a year, but I have unlimited bandwidth.
 
And now all of my direct link photos are blocked.

Oh well. Guess I'll find somewhere else.
 
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-YkjgBFslxVdzFuVmxkZm00NHc
open

Received an email from Photobucket saying that I use the account for
3rd Party Hosting. And that I need to upgrade the account.

What's everyone else using to post pics?
 
So I notice folks use imgur essentially the same way I (used to) use Photobucket - direct link to a relevant photo.

Imgur's terms of service include this "Stuff Not To Do":

Also, don't use Imgur to host image libraries you link to from elsewhere, content for your website, advertising, avatars, or anything else that turns us into your content delivery network.
Click to expand...

So doesn't that mean don't use Imgur for direct links to photos of our stuff (like our guitars) from sites like this forum?

With PB going away for probably 95%+ of users, is Imgur going to get swamped with people like me trying to do just that, and therefore get all testy about it?

EDIT: or perhaps Imgur is OK with how we use it - we aren't a commercial enterprise, as such, just a user forum. If PRS the company started using it that way, that isn't what Imgur wants.
 
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with all forums now PLASTERED with photobucket upgrade jpg's, they are running a massive NEGATIVE ad campaign. Just about killing any image they might have had....
they are running themselves into the ground.
 
Just deleted photobucket - I would have paid a small fee to be able to keep using but nothing short of the $500 annual plan let you host to a site
There loss IHMO
 
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