Sandbagger
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Post by Sandbagger on Jul 19, 2017 12:53:22 GMT -5
Looks like their long term scheme has just turned the corner. I had a feeling when I first saw the site and how it allowed people to upload pictures and to link to them from remote sites all for free was not the best business model. But now the other shoe has dropped. Now PB no longer allows what they call "3rd party hosting" to the site unless you upgrade (which means no longer free). I guess they're hoping that so many people have set up their websites, forums and social media site links and have uploaded so many pictures on PB, that they'll pay rather than undoing all of that (they obviously haven't met me  ). I see that some of Grumpy's default forum pics are hosted on PB, and are no longer being allowed to be displayed. Well, I'll go through what I can and see about putting them elsewhere (I'm sure all of the photo hosting sites will follow PB's lead eventually). If anyone uses PB to host your pics that you post here, you'll have to make the change as well. Sorry about that, but that's what happens when you take advantage of any sort of "cloud" storage. You relinquish control, and have little recourse if and when they decide to amend their terms of service. |
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Post by cbrown on Jul 19, 2017 14:09:17 GMT -5
Yep, I've been seeing this on all the forums that I visit. Damn shame, too. The community could some good photos; I just hope people kept copies of the photos they put on Photobucket.
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Sandbagger
Administrator/The Boss
Posts: 6,247
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Post by Sandbagger on Jul 19, 2017 14:13:07 GMT -5
Yep, I've been seeing this on all the forums that I visit. Damn shame, too. The community could some good photos; I just hope people kept copies of the photos they put on Photobucket. Photobucket claims that you can still access all of your pics and download them if you want. You just can't 3rd party host them anymore without paying. |
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Post by cbrown on Jul 19, 2017 14:14:37 GMT -5
#399.99 for a year?? Looks like people will be moving to another hosting service.
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Sandbagger
Administrator/The Boss
Posts: 6,247
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Post by Sandbagger on Jul 19, 2017 14:55:41 GMT -5
#399.99 for a year?? Looks like people will be moving to another hosting service. Yike! That's nuts! I figured it would be something like $59.95 or similar. Most people probably wouldn't scoff too much at that, but $400? Not in my lifetime.... |
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Post by MonkeyMan on Jul 19, 2017 15:12:10 GMT -5
<--- I lost my CB monkey  |
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Post by 2600 on Jul 19, 2017 15:22:32 GMT -5
Imageshack did something similar a few years back. Decided the service was worth a few bucks, and bought a regular account.
Drawback is that they have a bad habit of "losing" files. Mostly older ones, though. Been using them since around 2003, the heyday of "free" services on the internet. Don't think they have lost any files newer than about 2012 or so.
Makes it sound as if PB is circling the drain.
Might want to make sure you have all those pics backed up locally before they go "poof!" forever.
73
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Sandbagger
Administrator/The Boss
Posts: 6,247
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Post by Sandbagger on Jul 19, 2017 22:13:42 GMT -5
Imageshack did something similar a few years back. Decided the service was worth a few bucks, and bought a regular account. Drawback is that they have a bad habit of "losing" files. Mostly older ones, though. Been using them since around 2003, the heyday of "free" services on the internet. Don't think they have lost any files newer than about 2012 or so. Makes it sound as if PB is circling the drain. Might want to make sure you have all those pics backed up locally before they go "poof!" forever. 73 That's the plan. Hopefully I can do it, as the PB account was Scott's and I don't know his login info. I can still see them though, if I go there directly, so I should be able to grab them. |
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Sandbagger
Administrator/The Boss
Posts: 6,247
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Post by Sandbagger on Jul 19, 2017 22:33:49 GMT -5
Yep, I've been seeing this on all the forums that I visit. Damn shame, too. The community could some good photos; I just hope people kept copies of the photos they put on Photobucket. This is the old bait and switch scheme. Lure people in by offering a free hosting service. Wait a few years until people are hugely invested in using the service. Then pull the rug out and suddenly start charging (a lot!) for what you used to have for free. The company figures that they have you over a barrel, and that users will be more willing to pay the money than having to relocate all of their photos, and change all of their web links. Some people might liken this to a form of extortion. But no one is being forced to use PB. But the work involved in leaving could be extensive. Granted, it's their servers, their electricity, their internet access costs, Their overhead, and no one should expect anything to be free (or remain so) on the internet. But this should serve as a lesson to anyone who is attracted to any sort of "cloud storage" or hosting services that advertise free or very low cost to store your "stuff" on someone else's hardware. These companies are there to make money, and can change their terms of service at any time, and the user really has no recourse, except to stop using the service. |
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Post by BBB on Jul 20, 2017 12:59:04 GMT -5
IMGUR lets you hold about 250 photos for free (so far) I just delete a few old ones when I want to add new ones... imgur.com/ |
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Sandbagger
Administrator/The Boss
Posts: 6,247
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Post by Sandbagger on Jul 20, 2017 20:25:21 GMT -5
IMGUR lets you hold about 250 photos for free (so far) I just delete a few old ones when I want to add new ones... imgur.com/I would not trust any of these sites, as they will most likely follow the same path as PB did. You really have no idea what they might end up doing or when. It's probably no big deal for an individual to use for a handful of pics, as it's fairly easy to switch hosts, should you have to. But it's not looking too good here. I spent a little time today looking into how much Grumpy used PB for forum graphics, and it's not pretty. There are literally dozens of images, graphics and gif's that he stored there and linked to. To make matters worse, I can't access Grumpy's entire photo album, as he had it tagged "private" and I don't know his account credentials. Some of the images, I can see if I follow the links, others are "blocked", as PB hasn't caught up with all of them yet. But it's only a matter of time. I'm going to try hosting some of the images from my website's server, but it might violate the terms of service from my ISP. One thing's for sure, I'm not going to set up another photo hosting site, only to have it pull a "PB" on me a month, or a year or more down the road. Worst case scenario, we lose a bunch of images in the headers, footers and on the sub boards. Such is life. |
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Post by cbrown on Jul 26, 2017 12:49:55 GMT -5
Agreed, if this doesn't blast back in the face of Photobucket I believe the other hosting sites will follow suit. Maybe not at $400 a year, but there will be some cost.
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Post by MonkeyMan on Sept 29, 2017 15:14:17 GMT -5
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Sandbagger
Administrator/The Boss
Posts: 6,247
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Post by Sandbagger on Sept 30, 2017 8:06:26 GMT -5
Well, I'm not a chrome user so boo to me I also have to wonder how long it will be before Photobucket catches on to this little workaround and closes that hole. |
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Post by cbrown on Oct 4, 2017 13:06:53 GMT -5
No Chrome here, either. I hope this backfires bad on Photobucket and they either lower the rates or go back to their original deal.
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). 
