So from my last post, I got the following comment from Alex:
Nooo, can’t see them! Something about Photobucket demanding an update to enable 3rd party hosting – just in case you don’t see it from your end.
hmm… so I found this in my Spam Folder:
Some features on your account have been disabled.
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Inbox
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14:16 (9 hours ago)  |
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So… what the fuck does all this mean?
I went to Photobucket to find out.
I see that their Terms of Service have just been updated, as of 28th June, 2017. And their plans have changed on us.
———————-
52.0 GB Storage
$5.99 / MO
Billed Annually
$59.99 / YR
Plus 50 offers 50GB of Storage and No Linking or 3rd Party Hosting
102.0 GB Storage
$9.99 / MO
Billed Annually
$99.99 / YR
502.0 GB Storage
$39.99 / MO
Billed Annually
$399.99 / YR
Plus 500 offers 500GB of Storage, Unlimited Linking and 3rd Party Hosting*
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So… if I – or any one of us hobbyists – wants to be able to host photos on Photobucket and use them on our blogs, or post them on forums, they expect us to pay US$400 a year.
I have two things to say to that:
- HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAH
- FUCK PHOTOBUCKET
So with this in mind, normal service is going to be pretty much disrupted for a little while, as I move all my photos to (most likely) IMGUR. Since I’ve got 5 years worth of Blog, that’s going to take some time. So I’ll start with my next post, and work backwards, uploading photos and changing links. It’s going to be a right pain in the arse, but unfortunately it’s the only option open if I want to retain my blog and its history and posts. My Dakka thread is also going to be proper fucked.
Some of you can apparently still see my images, but it seems from some googling that PB has been rolling this out over a period of time, so it’s only a matter of time before others can no longer see my images. I can, but I’m presuming that’s because I can see the images in my own account, but if they remove that, then even I’m going to be unable to properly rebuild my page without even more difficulty. Either way, it’s going to be a ton of time wasted.
I’m not even personally opposed to paying them for the hosting. I’m lucky enough to be able to afford to do so, though it pretty much kills younger hobbyists who are still living at home or at school as well as others who might be studying at uni or out of work. You’ll notice that the $60 and $100 plans state
No Linking or 3rd Party Hosting
Unlimited Linking and No 3rd Party Hosting
And that apparently means:
*What is 3rd Party Hosting?
Photobucket defines 3rd party hosting as the action of embedding an image or photo onto another website. For example, using the <img> tag to embed or display a JPEG image from your Photobucket account on another website such as a forum, Etsy, eBay auction listings, a blog, etc. is definitively 3rd party hosting.
Oh, and as far as my bandwidth and storage use, here’s my stats, since I drop the size of my images to make them easier to load and don’t store all (any) of my personal photos on there:
Azazel's Bitz Box. 
Got screwed similarly by Dropbox. Guess they got tired of goodwill from teh public and want to shrink their business.
It did finally get me to set up my own hosting with another company, so I guess it’s a good thing in the end?
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Yeah, I saw when that happened to you. Though they just deleted your images outright, didn’t they? That’s even worse.
I might look at hosting in the future, and honestly I wouldn’t have minded paying PB a reasonable amount – I’ve subbed to them in the past out of goodwill, but $400 a year? No.
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Didn’t delete it, I still use it as a bridge between devices sometimes. But It was one step toward being entirely self-contained, which is a better thing for stability.
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No, I meant that Dropbox just up and deleted your images. Not that you deleted your old blog/account.
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Photobucket needs to make money somewhere. However I guess that there aren’t that many volunteers to pay nearly $400 a year to do what is essentially the whole point of the service. Especially if storage use is low.
Therefore I make prediction – New policy will be reverted again in relatively near future. Unless, of course, the whole point of the exercise is to reduce the company to more manageable size (reference to BSG Cylon terms that is). 😉
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It may well be, but as far as I’m concerned, they’ve burnt their bridges with me. Once I migrate my stuff over (I’m doing both wordpress and imgur at once, which is painful) I’ll be deleting all my pics and then my account with them. If they’d allowed “linking and hosting” for $50 or $60 they’d probably find a lot more people willing to bite than asking $400.
As Cash and yourself both said, time to burn their goodwill to the ground and shrink that business right down!
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Oh man, what a ball ache! Typical tech co… hook ’em in and then start with the charging. I’m guessing that all the 3rd party links were giving them a bandwidth/connection capacity issue.
I put all my stuff native in WordPress for sensible money – no complaints thus far. Good luck with the move mate!
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Yeah, pain in the arse. Especially since I’ve been using them since I started – and occasionally paid for a year’s sub at a time, purely out of goodwill since I’m nowhere near the basic storage cap.
I’d have happily paid WordPress long ago, but I don’t really want all my details available via a url lookup, or want to pay the bigger chunk of extra to have wordpress keep my personal details anon.
And what a time, too! Right after my spate of daily posts!
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Its a bit of a sucky move from Photobucket and for a hobby blog, $400 a year can be far better spent (if it can be afforded!)
I must admit I’m still using blogger but do wonder how long it will be before they start charging too!
Awesome work on the Slayers by the way!
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Thanks for the kind words on the Slayers, Richard.
I think Blogger is safe since they’re part of the Google family, and Google is all about giving free access t everything, charging you only your privacy and their apparent need to harvest all of your personal information and have as many of your details made public in their “linked everywhere” ecosystem.
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Oh that’s bollocks mate, stupid move on their part too. Good luck with fixing up all your old blogs, not an enviable task but you’ve got some great stuff in the archive, it’s well worth saving. I host all my stuff directly in wordpress, so far it’s not given me any bother (although who knows when that’ll change?).
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Thanks mate. I’ve got close to 2 weeks worth of posts done now. One of the big reasons I continued to use Photobucket was that it made it easy for me to share my stuff both here and on my P&M thread on Dakka (and any other forums I also posted on). Imgur and WordPress both make it really easy to use, but I don’t think I can host external hotlinks from WordPress, and Imgur is ok with forum posts but not images being on Blogs for some reason – so I have to do everything twice. Bleugh.
Oh, and the hours this is taking (about 4-5 so far, across both dakka and here) are coming out of the time I’d be spending painting, or reading other blogs, or gaming, or…. so, you know, fuck Photobucket. I think they deserve another one of those. At least one.
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I’ve had problems with accessing my photobucket account just for photos of my own family, holidays etc let alone anything they deem ‘chargeable’. I noticed a change in their service a few years back – lots of ‘upgrade your account for $x’ messages that I’d never had before. I have multiple back ups of precious photos now just in case…
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Yep, I’ve noticed a slow but steady change in the quality of their service, but like many people, the combination of already having all my stuff there, and the convenience of hosting in one location for both my wordpress and forum posts helped my inertia.
Luckily, I have backups of most of my images, both on HDD and originals on the SD cards, with only the first/oldest ones not on my HDD here (old computer crashed!), which I’m recovering from PB bit by bit. I’ll have to remember to back them all up onto a separate external HDD right after I finish the rehosting project. I’ve also discovered that wordpress costs like $3 a month these days, so I’ll be bumping up my plan from freebie to that version tomorrow.
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$400? That seems extreme by any standard. I use a combination of WordPress at roughly 15% of my limit after 4 years of blogging) and Imgur.
I used to have a photobucket account for posting images and its possible I have a similar spam message waiting for me due to liked images on a forum I haven’t used in 8 years!
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Yeha, it’s a bit insane to think that. I guess someone in management wants to shrink their hosting business and shed all the damned freeloaders, and just keep business accounts (and enough execs went along with it). Corporate suicide at its finest. I’m now using the same combo as yourself – these images hosted here on wordpress, and duplicates over in Imgur. It’s the migration that’s a nightmare – multiple hours per day to rebuild all my posts, bit by bit…
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