Photobucket - Please Read

[mmhmm]

Jul 6, 2017 14:16:31 GMT -8 leif said:

I can now transfer images in bulk to zip files. If anyone needs help let me know. I built a little thing on my server to scrape your entire photobucket.

Leif, that's so very sweet of you. I know it's going to mean a lot and help so many here. Good on ya and thanks!

[leif]

Jul 6, 2017 19:15:15 GMT -8 mmhmm said:

Jul 6, 2017 14:16:31 GMT -8 leif said:

I can now transfer images in bulk to zip files. If anyone needs help let me know. I built a little thing on my server to scrape your entire photobucket.

Leif, that's so very sweet of you. I know it's going to mean a lot and help so many here. Good on ya and thanks!

Absolutely! I can transfer it to my host, or just upload it to my OneDrive and let you download your images .

[♥ ℒʊ√ ♥]

Photobucket defends its new policy in the press ~

www.denverpost.com/2017/07/06/photobucket-complaints-over-charging/

[Willow]

Jul 6, 2017 19:46:04 GMT -8 ♥ ℒʊ√ ♥ said:

Photobucket defends its new policy in the press ~

www.denverpost.com/2017/07/06/photobucket-complaints-over-charging/

Seems to me that PhotoBucket is now wanting to pretty much serve higher paying clients like businesses who will probably pay the 400. The fact that none of the other plans allow 3rd party hosting pretty much says, "we're not interested in helping the small guys."

I remember a few years ago a company that offered a Cbox type of thing, did the same thing leaving 1000's of forums and other sites without a chat feature. For the record, they are out of business now.

[♥ ℒʊ√ ♥]

Jul 6, 2017 20:30:57 GMT -8 Willow said:

Seems to me that PhotoBucket is now wanting to pretty much serve higher paying clients like businesses who will probably pay the 400. The fact that none of the other plans allow 3rd party hosting pretty much says, "we're not interested in helping the small guys."

I remember a few years ago a company that offered a Cbox type of thing, did the same thing leaving 1000's of forums and other sites with a chat feature. For the record, they are out of business now.

But why would any business or higher paying client rely on a third party of any kind, let alone this one with this type of track record, for their hosting needs, Willow ?

If you're in business or serve high paying clients, you would get a domain and self host. Otherwise, you're not a very savvy business person. Anything can happen to even a company that charges for their service. Paid companies fail.  So you limit your liabilities if you're running a business ~ whether high end or middle of the road.

A wise business exec wouldn't be that short sighted.

P'Bucket found their niche and then destroyed it. And the way they handled this would give any sensible person or business pause in shelling out $400 to a company that acted in such a manner.

[Willow]

Jul 6, 2017 20:39:46 GMT -8 ♥ ℒʊ√ ♥ said:

Jul 6, 2017 20:30:57 GMT -8 Willow said:

Seems to me that PhotoBucket is now wanting to pretty much serve higher paying clients like businesses who will probably pay the 400. The fact that none of the other plans allow 3rd party hosting pretty much says, "we're not interested in helping the small guys."

I remember a few years ago a company that offered a Cbox type of thing, did the same thing leaving 1000's of forums and other sites with a chat feature. For the record, they are out of business now.

But why would any business or higher paying client rely on a third party of any kind, let alone this one with this type of track record, for their hosting needs, Willow ?

If you're in business or serve high paying clients, you would get a domain and self host. Otherwise, you're not a very savvy business person. Anything can happen to even a company that charges for their service. Paid companies fail.  So you limit your liabilities if you're running a business ~ whether high end or middle of the road.

A wise business exec wouldn't be that short sighted.

P'Bucket found their niche and then destroyed it. And the way they handled this would give any sensible person or business pause in shelling out $400 to a company that acted in such a manner.

They are going after people/sellers who use places like Ebay and Amazon. Not real "corporate" business but people who can't afford other ways of doing it.

[♥ ℒʊ√ ♥]

Jul 6, 2017 21:29:53 GMT -8 Willow said:

They are going after people/sellers who use places like Ebay and Amazon. Not real "corporate" business but people who can't afford other ways of doing it.

But you said "higher paying clients". Those types of clients aren't high paying. That's why they used Photobucket's free service. I was a power seller on eBay and hosted my images on eBay.

These are for profit sellers and I'm sure even they now recognize the fact that allowing a 3rd party to host their images is downright dumb ~ particularly when the site they sell on allows image hosting.

Much like I'm kicking myself in the butt for not utilizing ProBoards for ALL of my images for my themes and not just some. I was one of those ninnies myself. 

I think this was a last ditch effort for the bucket and I'm not so sure they'll last out another year. If comments on their blog and Facebook pages are typical, most are leaving because they can no longer trust the company. I might consider paying the money for a year in order to get my themes sorted, but my distrust in the company and my doubts they'll be there for another year weigh heavily against that decision.

$400 to host for a year is NOT competitive. There are far better options out there. If they can't afford other ways of doing it, they certainly can't afford this inflated price. Purchasing a domain and having it hosted costs less. And at least, then they are in control of their fate.

Who would want history to repeat itself? Fool me once, shame on you . . . . 

[leif]

If a business could afford $400 a month to host on PHotobucket, they can afford their own webhosting and server, that performs better than Photobucket. It is hostage and blackmail.

$400 a month is PROFIT for me. That much can run my image host for about 6 months. I would just hire a developer to help me make features faster with that kind of moolah. That is an insane amount to charge, in my opinion.

[Star's Legacy]

Jul 6, 2017 22:31:29 GMT -8 leif said:

If a business could afford $400 a month to host on PHotobucket, they can afford their own webhosting and server, that performs better than Photobucket. It is hostage and blackmail.

$400 a month is PROFIT for me. That much can run my image host for about 6 months. I would just hire a developer to help me make features faster with that kind of moolah. That is an insane amount to charge, in my opinion.

They are asking 400 a year, not in a month. Though it is still not price competitive compared to other options available.

[bouncy]

I came on here when one of our forums members raised this issue last night. We virtually all use Photobucket to host images and animated smilies for our forum, so we're a bit gutted.

Really dumb question time, but is it really a case of going through each individual broken link and replacing it? I'm thinking more about the smilies, as they are repetitive. Members can be responsible for sorting out their own pictures (if they're still around).

[m2marsh]

They found me last night and sent the extortion e-mail. I immediately went in there and deleted my account. I had already backed up all my images. I'm sorry, but I hope this brings their site down to its knees. Holding people's stuff for a $400 ransom is dirty dealing. I'd have paid $100.

[m2marsh]

Jul 7, 2017 2:08:15 GMT -8 bouncy said:

I came on here when one of our forums members raised this issue last night. We virtually all use Photobucket to host images and animated smilies for our forum, so we're a bit gutted.

Really dumb question time, but is it really a case of going through each individual broken link and replacing it? I'm thinking more about the smilies, as they are repetitive. Members can be responsible for sorting out their own pictures (if they're still around).

if you have an image that is used often, once you get a working link, an Admin can use the forum's censored word feature to fix a lot of them.

[bluegranite]

Just today I noticed that when I go to post a new thread on my forum, I'm getting a popup box on the left side of that create thread page, that is asking me to "update your account to allow third party hosting".  I came here and found this thread on Photobucket, which is the website/company mentioned in this popup. 

However, I dont' understand what's being asked.  

What is third party hosting? 

What is "image hosting" which I am reading about in comments on this thread?  I'm reading that proboards doesn't do 
"image hosting" ...what does this mean? Does this refer to image attachments on posts, or to images we link to via URL on the posts? or both?  Have I been unaware all along that it's not actually proboards which allows such images to be put in the posts, but another company, called PhotoBucket?  

What are the changes that are taking place?  

As far as I'm aware, I have never had an account directly with PhotoBucket (unless, though I didn't know about it,  that was taking place implicitly through having a Proboards forum), so what does it mean to be asked to update my account with them when I never had an account with them in the first place?  

Is my ability to post images as either attachments or as URL links in posts, now at risk...will this be lost? (WOuld be pretty bad, because I post a lot of links to images on other sites, to make the posts more interesting).  Or would images only be lost if I had originally used Photobucket to store them or got them from Photobucket?  I dont' have an account with them that I know of...but is there some way that anyone with a Proboards forum automatically had an account with them, that I didn't know about?  

Lots of questions and lots of confusion.  

I'd really appreciate some clarification:

(1) Will it be possible to continue to post image attachments on posts, without using PhotoBucket?
(2) will it be possible to continue to post URL links to a variety of images on the web, without using Photobucket? Eg like this image I'm posting here on this post, which is a screenshot I took, and which I then posted on another Wordpress website that I own.  So my image has a URL that is on a website I own.  Or, I might find an image on a news story -- like the New York Times, and post that on my forum, to illustrate a point I'm trying to make.  Would that still be possible.  

[bluegranite]

I read in previous comments that some forum creators lost images hosted by Photobucket...I'm looking over my forum and dont' see any lost images, neither the images posted as attachments, nor those posted as URL links to another website.  So far so good, all is okay.  

Sooo....why this nasty popup box every time I go to post a new thread?  Is that going to always appear?  Is ProBoards allowing this for a short period of time just to notify those who have a PhotoBUcket account? I want to get rid of that.  ANy way I can get it out? 

I'm reading about "image hosting" and realizing it's being described as places to store images online and get them changed to URLs.  Is that all Photobucket is? LIke TinyPic? I have used TinyPic for many images on my site.  But, when I used TinyPic, I used it without ever creating an account.  Which I see the great advantage to, now that I'm reading about PhotoBucket's apparent move to hold users hostage by suddenly asking for a large fee to be paid for a formerly free service.  If you are able to store images on a site without ever creating an account, then that site cannot very easily turn around and ask you to pay a fee to continue to store images on their site  --- because a fee would have to be linked to an account, and if you store the images without an account then it's pretty impossible for them to now hold those hostage over a fee request.  

[Jaguar]

That image shows up when there was an image there hosted by PhotoBucket previously. So what image was there, was it from a plugin ?