Photobucket and Others Restricting Service

Pomsbz said:
Am I the only one expecting that in a few weeks they'll post a statement saying something along the lines of 'we didn't realise there would be so much negative feedback and to show that we listen to our customer base we are dropping the price hugely to only $40 a year for third party hosting'.

They'll make a killing. People will weigh up changing thousands of photos on various forums vs their anger and fold. Even if it's only 50%, they will have made a fortune. If only from the stock price shenanigans it will have caused.

Anyone think I'm just being cynical? :)
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I wouldn't give them my money at this point if it were $20 with a guarantee. I don't trust them. I hope theygo bankrupt and have tosell their house.
 
lieferung said:
Business costs go up over time, banner ad revenue plateaus. Remember, probably hundreds of millions of people are using this free service, that gets expensive to run. It had to crack at some point. The hooker analogy is crude but accurate, ain't nothing free in this world.
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If hundreds of millions of people are using a service and you have a dozen ads per page with three popups, on of those popups having five ads, then you are making money hand over fist for every page viewed multiple times a day by each person.

Even people with paid accounts are still restricted, and it doesn't cost $400 times hundreds of millions of people to run a site like that.
 
I like Fotki.com's front page:

Screen Shot 2017-07-04 at 8.40.57 PM.png

Close-up of the text above:
Screen Shot 2017-07-04 at 8.40.57 PM copy.png

:D

We of course have no idea if Fotki will hold steady with current pricing and options, but for now their fee schedule seems reasonable. I do like their style....

~ P.
 
I tried to Register a account with Imgur. When I click Register after typing in my info I get a blank white page, Try and log in and it says I'm not registered. Never got a email , nothing. It will not register me... POS
 
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JD Miller said:
I tried to Register a account with Imgur. When I click Register after typing in my info I get a blank white page, Try and log in and it says I'm not registered. Never got a email , nothing. It will not register me... POS
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I've been registered on imgur for maybe 6 months or so...Photobucket's slow loading and spotty service being the impetus.

Haven't had any significant issues with imgur up until the bucket announced its new policy. Since then it's been slow or downright uncooperative; hopefully only due to the influx of people making the switch and imgur being as caught off guard as everyone else.
 
I certainly don't mind that PB changes its policy and charges customers based on the previous subscription levels. But to go from zero to $400 is pathetic. There can be no doubt that they are desperate and this is the last kick of a dying animal.

The tragedy is that many years of work has gone into forums of all types all over the world. For example BF WIP threads which are invaluable will be lost forever due to this short sighted greedy money grab.
Talk about shooting yourself in the foot!

Fotki joined! To hell with PB!!

 
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"But 75 percent of Photobucket’s costs originated from “non-paying users leveraging 3rd party hosting,” Corpus added. And it resulted in “zero revenue.”

Isn't correct, because we have to frequently visit the site to upload and edit pics, get the sharing link, etc. That means we see ads every time we visit the site. And since their sales of ads is based on our visits, yes they did make money off of us.
 
trevitrace said:
I've been registered on imgur for maybe 6 months or so...Photobucket's slow loading and spotty service being the impetus.

Haven't had any significant issues with imgur up until the bucket announced its new policy. Since then it's been slow or downright uncooperative; hopefully only due to the influx of people making the switch and imgur being as caught off guard as everyone else.
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I tried several times to register at Imgur and all I get is that white blank page and It does not register me. I sent them a message about the problem... No response.. Just boggles my mind. All I can say is the site does not work
 
I think if 1 big site does this, it's only a matter of time before the others follow suit. I don't mind paying a little for photo hosting, but $400 is crazy. I'd rather pay the $400 to BF and upload my images here, and know they're never going away.

I set up a server and created my own website and hosted the images there so I can link to it. It is 500% more work, but I am in full control of them now.
 
BTW: I mentioned earlier I pay Fototime.com. Their base photo HOSTING business is $23.95 a year. I have photos from 2002 still visible.

They offer the BB linking to copy. I can upload an image and get to the link(s) in less than a minute. You can select 20 images and copy the BB links for all 20 on one page. I'm happy to pay for this convenience.

(I pay three times this because my highly visible Gallery threads use a substantial amount of bandwidth. My storage limit is not over capacity, but they keep tabs on bandwidth and downsize the images if you go overboard in a month period. Doubtful than any of your folks will need more.)

I bring this up because Imgur's MAIN core business (unlike PB) is NOT photo hosting. It is to draw onlookers to their meme front page. Hosting is a loss leader for them to get visitors to their site. They only got started, what, 2-3 years ago? To think that, down the road, Imgur won't look at this/your unrelated and storage/bandwidth arena (third party hosting) and make some $$ changes is naive. Maybe they won't penalize to the excess of PB, but who knows.

Fototime and Fotki and other pay sites exist for one reason: Prepaid storage and hosting. Be very clear on this.
 
Thanks for that distinction and recommendation Mr.SbyC :thumbsup:

Ray
 
SharpByCoop said:
BTW: I mentioned earlier I pay Fototime.com. Their base photo HOSTING business is $23.95 a year. I have photos from 2002 still visible.

They offer the BB linking to copy. I can upload an image and get to the link(s) in less than a minute. You can select 20 images and copy the BB links for all 20 on one page. I'm happy to pay for this convenience.

(I pay three times this because my highly visible Gallery threads use a substantial amount of bandwidth. My storage limit is not over capacity, but they keep tabs on bandwidth and downsize the images if you go overboard in a month period. Doubtful than any of your folks will need more.)

I bring this up because Imgur's MAIN core business (unlike PB) is NOT photo hosting. It is to draw onlookers to their meme front page. Hosting is a loss leader for them to get visitors to their site. They only got started, what, 2-3 years ago? To think that, down the road, Imgur won't look at this/your unrelated and storage/bandwidth arena (third party hosting) and make some $$ changes is naive. Maybe they won't penalize to the excess of PB, but who knows.

Fototime and Fotki and other pay sites exist for one reason: Prepaid storage and hosting. Be very clear on this.
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Yes, very good point. This is another reason why I would prefer to upload my pictures directly to Bladeforums. I'm still waiting for a definitive answer as to if there is a data limit, and what happens if I reach it.
 
SharpByCoop said:
BTW: I mentioned earlier I pay Fototime.com. Their base photo HOSTING business is $23.95 a year. I have photos from 2002 still visible.

They offer the BB linking to copy. I can upload an image and get to the link(s) in less than a minute. You can select 20 images and copy the BB links for all 20 on one page. I'm happy to pay for this convenience.

(I pay three times this because my highly visible Gallery threads use a substantial amount of bandwidth. My storage limit is not over capacity, but they keep tabs on bandwidth and downsize the images if you go overboard in a month period. Doubtful than any of your folks will need more.)

I bring this up because Imgur's MAIN core business (unlike PB) is NOT photo hosting. It is to draw onlookers to their meme front page. Hosting is a loss leader for them to get visitors to their site. They only got started, what, 2-3 years ago? To think that, down the road, Imgur won't look at this/your unrelated and storage/bandwidth arena (third party hosting) and make some $$ changes is naive. Maybe they won't penalize to the excess of PB, but who knows.

Fototime and Fotki and other pay sites exist for one reason: Prepaid storage and hosting. Be very clear on this.
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Thanks for the recommendation Coop. I just signed up for an account. That price is reasonable and what I would expect to pay for such a service.

To think, I was just about to upgrade my photobucket account too...
 
SharpByCoop said:
BTW: I mentioned earlier I pay Fototime.com. Their base photo HOSTING business is $23.95 a year. I have photos from 2002 still visible.

They offer the BB linking to copy. I can upload an image and get to the link(s) in less than a minute. You can select 20 images and copy the BB links for all 20 on one page. I'm happy to pay for this convenience.

(I pay three times this because my highly visible Gallery threads use a substantial amount of bandwidth. My storage limit is not over capacity, but they keep tabs on bandwidth and downsize the images if you go overboard in a month period. Doubtful than any of your folks will need more.)

I bring this up because Imgur's MAIN core business (unlike PB) is NOT photo hosting. It is to draw onlookers to their meme front page. Hosting is a loss leader for them to get visitors to their site. They only got started, what, 2-3 years ago? To think that, down the road, Imgur won't look at this/your unrelated and storage/bandwidth arena (third party hosting) and make some $$ changes is naive. Maybe they won't penalize to the excess of PB, but who knows.

Fototime and Fotki and other pay sites exist for one reason: Prepaid storage and hosting. Be very clear on this.
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Imgur was created by a redditor specifically as an image-hosting site for Reddit, it only became a social media site in the last 2-3 years but has held image-sharing abilities the whole time. The new mobile apps may have been designed with the social aspect in mind but it was originally designed specifically to host images to be shared on Reddit.
 
KingMC said:
Imgur was created by a redditor specifically as an image-hosting site for Reddit, it only became a social media site in the last 2-3 years but has held image-sharing abilities the whole time. The new mobile apps may have been designed with the social aspect in mind but it was originally designed specifically to host images to be shared on Reddit.
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Just wanted to say thank you matt, you put much time and effort into helping others here on bladeforums and you are an asset to this community.
 
Thanks for the clarification, Matthew. Imgur's original premise still doesn't make the long-term prognosis any more secure. Within this short span of time they have shifted purpose. Let's hope.

I'd LOVE it if they continued forever and ever, but those who don't study history are doomed to repeat it.

I want to point out ANOTHER site which has eliminated ALL past images: Bladeforums. It pains me to point this out and say this, but all the past stored images are no longer available. Even worse: You can't get them back (as yet?).

^^ I am pleased to report I am WRONG! (See post below) I think you can't access the files, but if they are showing up so much the better. I was confused.

There are a few threads asking about limits of size or quantity for the NEW site, yet no defined answers.

I NEED control over my content. Others aren't as needful. I'll pay.
 
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