Photobucket Goes Rogue

fish dog wrote in post #18631818
Nope...never again. Screw me once, shame on you, screw me twice, shame on me. They're not getting a second chance to "surprise" me at some future date.

Agreed.
I think it's time for me to look into my own website hosting, get rid of these "photo" hosters.
It seems to be going away for the most part.
It'd be cheaper to maintain my own domain/website after calculating yearly costs.

SkedAddled wrote in post #18632676
Agreed.
I think it's time for me to look into my own website hosting, get rid of these "photo" hosters.
It seems to be going away for the most part.
It'd be cheaper to maintain my own domain/website after calculating yearly costs.

More work though. It's a time/money trade off.

Pekka wrote in post #18631517
https://www.bizjournal​s.com …hat-angered-millions.html

https://www.denverpost​.com …cket-image-hosting-plans/

Ballen Photo wrote in post #18631698
Will this work, or is it too little, too late? Time will tell, but once you lose customer trust, it will be hard to gain back.

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Too little, too late ..... yup, that's exactly right.

The most recent changes do not appear to come from goodwill, or PB management wanting to "do the right thing".

They are still trying to get money out of people for something that, until just a few months ago, they gave you for free.

When you allow people to do something for free, for years and years, and then you try to force them to pay for exactly the same thing, that will feel like extortion to a lot of people. . Especially so when another huge photo hosting site - Flickr - was always free and still is free, for both hosting and third party linking.

Concerning the new, much lower pricing, it seems like they tried to get a crapton of money out of people, it didn't work, so now they've simply adjusted their pricing to get what they can out of people. . It's still about getting what they can out of you.

This whole situation is not unlike an aspiring photographer who gives their images away for free for years and years, and then suddenly tries to charge for their photography. . Here on this forum we tell people all the time that this won't work, because we've already established a low sense of value and people have developed the concept that our free images aren't worth anything, because they're free. . Same thing here with Photobucket - they told us for years and years that their service isn't worth anything, and now they try to make us pay for it. . No wonder we're pissed at them.

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SkedAddled wrote in post #18632676
Agreed.
I think it's time for me to look into my own website hosting, get rid of these "photo" hosters.
It seems to be going away for the most part.
It'd be cheaper to maintain my own domain/website after calculating yearly costs.

I'm happy to pay $60/yr to Smugmug. The site isn't covered with ads and they deal with running the back end stuff. I have a domain name pointed to it.

So what is everyone using now? One of the reasons I used photobucket was the ability to generate code for multiple images all at one time. It is too tedious to select 1 photo, generate the link, copy and paste it and then do it all over again for the next photo.

It seems that imgur can do it but I haven't tried it yet. Not sure if flickr can do it and after a brief search it doesn't look like it can.

Pekka wrote in post #18392299
Wow.

There is a long discussion about this in http://blog.photobucke​t.com …/comment-page-1/#comments

New TOS is linked in http://blog.photobucke​t.com/update-terms-service/

"The free account does not allow any image linking or 3rd party image hosting."

What they have done is really not good practice, all embedded image show an "ad" instead, and their clients need to pay to get the images displayed correctly!

Remember that if you want to restore the important images in your posts, you may edit the post and upload those here instead (2 per post).
They will always show here, no matter what.

Hopefully Photobucket will loosen their embed restrictions after a while, people seem to be very angry about it.

So if a person doesn't restore their photo we can't see it, correct? Because I come across so many photos that I can't view.

truecolors wrote in post #18663565
So if a person doesn't restore their photo we can't see it, correct?

That's correct. I restored many of mine, but it'd take a very long time to restore all of them.

truecolors wrote in post #18663565
So if a person doesn't restore their photo we can't see it, correct? Because I come across so many photos that I can't view.

OhLook wrote in post #18663575
That's correct. I restored many of mine, but it'd take a very long time to restore all of them.

This is a big reason why I always have my posted images hosted right here by the POTN server. . Why use a 3rd party - what advantage does that offer us, as members? . Pekka certainly doesn't seem to have any problem with bandwidth or storage space being taken up, so that isn't a viable reason for us not to host them here. . So what would the reason be, then?

For me, it would be a huge, inconvenient hassle to go to my website and copy and paste links. . So much quicker and easier to just attach an image from my hard drive directly to a post.

Also, by attaching images directly, I can precisely control the look and the size of each image that I post by editing and exporting for this specific audience. . The way I want an image to appear on my website or on another forum isn't necessarily the way I would want that image to appear here to the POTN membership. . If we just copy links then we aren't custom-preparing the image for the POTN membership, and whatever nuances we might want to communicate to the POTN membership may not come through as readily as they would if we prepare the image specifically for each audience that we present it to.


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Tom Reichner wrote in post #18663624
This is a big reason why I always have my posted images hosted right here by the POTN server. . Why use a 3rd party - what advantage does that offer us, as members? .

According to the rules, & until they are changed, linking allows us to post 8 images per thread, instead of just 2. Which I think is important for a photography forum, no?

PhotosGuy wrote in post #18663655
According to the rules, & until they are changed, linking allows us to post 8 images per thread, instead of just 2. Which I think is important for a photography forum, no?

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Personally, I find it bothersome when someone has more than 2 images in a post. . . When someone has, like, 5 or 6 images in a post, I think, "Geez - I wish they would've only posted one or two of those." . . . But that's just my opinion; I'm sure that others feel differently.

Yes, I know that you said per thread, not per post, but I wanted to respond about images per post, not images per thread.


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Tom Reichner wrote in post #18663624
Why use a 3rd party - what advantage does that offer us, as members? . Pekka certainly doesn't seem to have any problem with bandwidth or storage space being taken up, so that isn't a viable reason for us not to host them here. . So what would the reason be, then?

I had a Photobucket account before I found POTN. I continued to use it when I started posting images here. Did Pekka host images when the board used vBulletin software? I don't even remember.

One reason to use an external host is the freedom to put more than two images in a post, as PhotosGuy says. Another reason is that frequent use of Pekka's hosting facility pushes one's guilt button unless one makes donations to cover some of the cost. I address the latter issue by sending money once in a while, not knowing how much is appropriate. (I use the POTN server exclusively since I left Photobucket.) I can't do anything about the former issue.

I used to participate in a discussion forum where you couldn't upload photos directly. For that, I had to use an external host. That forum fizzled out, but using such sites is another reason that someone might want an external host.

I just noticed this Photobucket advert. watermark while browsing some old photos I still have hosted there but I have shared here:

-Douglas- wrote in post #18768005
I just noticed this Photobucket advert. watermark while browsing some old photos I still have hosted there but I have shared here:

Hosted photo: posted by -Douglas- in
./showthread.php?p=187​68005&i=i161581689
forum: Photography Industry News

Sad, but I guess they'll teach us free users a thing or two..............
Too bad Photobucket, you'll never see a dime from me.
It's been forever since I've uploaded any images to PB and I need to quit procrastinating and delete those that are there, although fixing broken links on POTN will be a major pain!

Yeah, I've seen those watermarks that say "Proudly hosted on Photobucket," and thought, what a crock that was. Oh well.

-Douglas- wrote in post #18768005
I just noticed this Photobucket advert. watermark while browsing some old photos I still have hosted there but I have shared here:

Hosted photo: posted by -Douglas- in
./showthread.php?p=187​68005&i=i161581689
forum: Photography Industry News

Sad, but I guess they'll teach us free users a thing or two..............
Too bad Photobucket, you'll never see a dime from me.
It's been forever since I've uploaded any images to PB and I need to quit procrastinating and delete those that are there, although fixing broken links on POTN will be a major pain!

Hmmm...it does not do that any of my images posted on Photobucket and shared elsewhere like in my POTN posts, and I do not have a paid membership on Photobucket (yes, I do pay the modest amount to be ad free)

Wilt wrote in post #18768117
Hmmm...it does not do that any of my images posted on Photobucket and shared elsewhere like in my POTN posts, and I do not have a paid membership on Photobucket (yes, I do pay the modest amount to be ad free)

Technicaly, that is a paid membership. . And that is why you have not experienced most of the problems that other PhotoBucket users have suffered - it is because you pay the nominal monthly fee. . Surely you realize this is what separates you from all of the completely free users.


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