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Author Topic: Goodbye Photobucket  (Read 16128 times)

Offline ZeroTwentythree

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Goodbye Photobucket
« on: July 06, 2017, 11:00:09 PM »
Photobucket has killed off free hosted images. So anyone with a free accout will now find their images on blogs, foryms, etc. replaced with an image urging users to upgrade.

http://blog.photobucket.com/please-review-latest-changes-photobucket/

http://blog.photobucket.com/photobucket-launches-unlimited-3rd-party-hosting-plan/


I would have no problem paying a modrst fee for a hosting service, and had considered it before. But Photobucket's service, mobile app, etc. just aren't worth spending money on.

So... time to finally decide on an alternative, and see what kind of damage control I can manage with my plogs & other forum posts.

Offline Darknight

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Re: Goodbye Photobucket
« Reply #1 on: July 07, 2017, 12:43:54 AM »
As I mentioned to Padre, you can get a basic hosting package inexpensively and these often have no bandwidth limits. I am quite happy to help people who are unfamiliar with FTP and so forth use theirs.

Padre has set up  Wordpress account, and that works very nicely indeed.
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Offline ZeroTwentythree

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Re: Goodbye Photobucket
« Reply #2 on: July 07, 2017, 01:13:11 AM »
As long as I post pics on my blog, I can use Blogger to host.

But I had also been considering a cheap web hosting package even before this happened, since Photobucket had been getting progressively worse.

Offline Artobans Ghost

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Re: Goodbye Photobucket
« Reply #3 on: July 07, 2017, 01:44:55 AM »
Just set up Wordpress and that has been easy, quick and can be a blog too for free. For a Luddite like me to get it together, it may show some promise.
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Offline Finlay

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Re: Goodbye Photobucket
« Reply #4 on: July 07, 2017, 08:20:03 AM »
We talked about this in "unhappy" back table thread.

Crazy business decision
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Offline Darknight

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Re: Goodbye Photobucket
« Reply #5 on: July 07, 2017, 01:21:52 PM »
Did they charge at all for it before? Or was it completely free?
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Offline Padre

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Re: Goodbye Photobucket
« Reply #6 on: July 07, 2017, 01:36:42 PM »
Free. But you had to put up with pop up adverts sliding from all sides, over and over, and taking over the whole page, so that every time you used it was a time consuming struggle and quite excruciating.

That experience, and the $400 per year demand, combine to make people walk away. If they had offered a moderate fee (approx. $100) I would have considered it, even with the ads (I was growing used to the ugly experience), because the third party linking held 3600 pictures of mine on the web.
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Offline Darknight

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Re: Goodbye Photobucket
« Reply #7 on: July 07, 2017, 01:48:41 PM »
Free. But you had to put up with pop up adverts sliding from all sides, over and over, and taking over the whole page, so that every time you used it was a time consuming struggle and quite excruciating.

That is what I thought (but without the level of editorial :) ) So, they offered it for free but the only people who saw the adverts were the people using it to upload pictures, not the people who were viewing the pictures embedded elsewhere (for example, on a forum)?

See, at that point, I don't know if I would call their decision to charge $400 per annum a bad business decision or the inevitable consequence of a God-awful business model from the get go. "Hey, guys! I've got an idea! We'll offer a free service whereby people can host pictures. We will generate revenue with adverts - but they will only appear when people are administering the albums. The people who are viewing the pictures (i.e. the vast majority of people using our bandwidth) will never see an advert!"

That is just a TERRIBLE model. If you have a hosting service (YouTube, Photobucket, DeviantArt, whatever) the majority of bandwidth and eyes on the site are ALWAYS going to be viewers, not creators. You need a model where the VIEWERS get adverts (because there are more of them to view them) and the creators have a smooth experience (to encourage them to upload more content).

Photobuckets fundamental model - of allowing people to embed pictures WITHOUT viewers having to see adverts - was always flawed. Them having to go crazy now is just the natural result of that.

It might work for them; if a certain percentage (a fraction of a percent . . . ) of users pay $400 per annum, they might generate the same revenue as they were before. It would be people like Padre but without his common sense who pay; people with LOTS of images invested in there and who consider $400 to be small potatoes.

This is, however, essentially a business model of extortion or a protection racket . . . merely a legal one.
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Offline Finlay

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Re: Goodbye Photobucket
« Reply #8 on: July 07, 2017, 01:58:06 PM »
you're right it's a consequence of the initial set up DK (and of any free photo hosting service) but the cost is extortionate compared to other suppliers, and will lead to nowhere but the destruction of photobucket, I reckon.
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Offline Darknight

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Re: Goodbye Photobucket
« Reply #9 on: July 07, 2017, 02:07:34 PM »
Oh, I fully agree. But I think they already WERE destroyed. If Padre's assessment is correct and the interface is unusable (I have only used photobucket once or twice, but I remember it being clunky) then they were hosed from the get-go.

$400 a year is absolutely, completely ridiculous. Name.com has their flagship plan ("Unbelievable Hosting" https://www.name.com/purchase/hosting) for $156 a year. You can run business websites on it (I know; I do). Unlimited bandwidth and storage. That is overkill for photo hosting, but it is still less than half of Photobucket! You would need to learn basic file management and organizational skills, but - seriously? $250 a year buys a lot of Lynda courses teaching you that . . .
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Offline ZeroTwentythree

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Re: Goodbye Photobucket
« Reply #10 on: July 07, 2017, 02:31:51 PM »
Their model had/has several aspects.

They host the photos. You can also share albums, creat slideshows, etc. You can also use what they are calling '3rd party hosting" which I thought used to be called hot linking as well. Whatever you call it, ads were displayed on all of thise uses - hist interface, viewing shared albums, slideshiws, etc. except for the "third party hosting."

So that's what they've cut off for the free accounts. Free accounts can still share albums, etc.

But the problem is that they've made a trainwreck of the ads to the point that the site is largely unusable without an ad blocker. Photobucket is the only reason I installed one, in fact. The site wouldn't work without it.

Between that, the fact that they crippled their mobile app's functionality so that its only use is to use it to buy physical prints, and the fact that they've had some reliability issues means that the only price worth paying is the free one they were offering. (And even then, as I said, I've been planning onoving images to a reliable paid host at some point anyway.)

Honestly, I'm surprised Photobucket has made it this long. And although I understand they need to make money, the problem is that their service isn't competitive with other options. The only thing they had going for them was the free hosting.

Offline Darknight

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Re: Goodbye Photobucket
« Reply #11 on: July 07, 2017, 04:02:43 PM »
The only thing they had going for them was the free hosting.

Which you can get from blogger, just off the top of my head . . .
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Offline patsy02

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Re: Goodbye Photobucket
« Reply #12 on: July 07, 2017, 04:14:14 PM »
You can get free hosting in umpteen places. This is just Photobucket trying to exploit their massive user base by getting them to pay up or accept the sunk cost of an unusable image catalogue.

And yes, Photobucket's UI is cancer and has been for years.
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Offline Von Kurst

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Re: Goodbye Photobucket
« Reply #13 on: July 07, 2017, 04:28:38 PM »
Haven't used Photobucket in years, using Shutterfly at the moment.

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Offline Henerius

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Re: Goodbye Photobucket
« Reply #14 on: July 07, 2017, 08:21:27 PM »
Strangely enough my "part" of photobucket seems all snafu on the moment.

I can see pictures I have posted, I can still access the site as normal (with add blocker)

The share function seems to be intact as well


Or is somebody not seeing the photograph just here above?
« Last Edit: July 10, 2017, 09:42:54 PM by Henerius »
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Offline Novogord

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Re: Goodbye Photobucket
« Reply #15 on: July 07, 2017, 08:26:22 PM »
I'm seeing Finlay and Fr1day, so it seems ok :-)
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Offline Henerius

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Re: Goodbye Photobucket
« Reply #16 on: July 07, 2017, 08:34:36 PM »
I just checked the site and indeed for the bigger photo bloggers it could be a menace to maintain their photo gallery hosted by PB.

I have two PB accounts and both have less then 5GB off photo's on them. My guess is I am to small a fish for them  :icon_rolleyes:
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Online Fidelis von Sigmaringen

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Re: Goodbye Photobucket
« Reply #17 on: July 07, 2017, 09:53:57 PM »
Well, I am a small fish too. [Edit: I checked and I have actually used 0,16 GB.] Basically, the only pictures I have are for my History of the Empire. But just a minute ago, I was given my notice.
« Last Edit: July 07, 2017, 10:12:08 PM by Fidelis von Sigmaringen »
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Offline ZeroTwentythree

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Re: Goodbye Photobucket
« Reply #18 on: July 07, 2017, 10:45:36 PM »
It's not the size, it's how you use it.  :engel:

Seriously, reading about how it's screwed up eBay & Amazon, they must be dealing with far, far heavier use that hobby forum people like us.

And for what it's worth, I'm also small fish, but my shared photos are all dead. Not sure why some are still showing up. My understanding is this is a sitewide policy. Maybe cached images?

Offline Darknight

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Re: Goodbye Photobucket
« Reply #19 on: July 07, 2017, 10:45:53 PM »
They are probably gradually moving through the user list, giving people the finger bad news as they go.
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Offline Baron von Klatz

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Re: Goodbye Photobucket
« Reply #20 on: July 07, 2017, 11:33:12 PM »
Small fish here as well so my sketches and few model posts are safe for now.

Just using Deviantart now to store my pics.When I'm hit I guess I'll have to update my forum galleries again. :-P
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Offline ZeroTwentythree

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Re: Goodbye Photobucket
« Reply #21 on: July 08, 2017, 12:15:22 AM »
Most of my pics are on my blog/site, so I'm going to post some additional links in my plog thread here, and just mive forward.

Just hoping I can download some of the older photos (hobby or otherwise) that I may have stored on PB but nowhere else.


Offline Darknight

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Re: Goodbye Photobucket
« Reply #22 on: July 08, 2017, 12:34:08 AM »
If you go to PB itself, you can access the images - you just can't embed them.
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Offline Finlay

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Re: Goodbye Photobucket
« Reply #23 on: July 08, 2017, 06:10:41 AM »
Henners your photo is not showing to me now
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Online Fidelis von Sigmaringen

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Re: Goodbye Photobucket
« Reply #24 on: July 08, 2017, 06:49:23 AM »
Well, my pictures are gone now. And come to thin of it:  there are some really awesome threads in the B&P from people that have not been active for some time, years even. Some of that may be irrevocably lost to warhammer-empire.
« Last Edit: July 08, 2017, 07:06:15 AM by Fidelis von Sigmaringen »
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