Photobucket Hosting Changes

[peterm1]

I am actually fortunate in that every photo I uploaded to photobucket is contained in a backed up folder on my computer. I am not even sure why I did this but it may have been the second smart thing I have done in my on line life.

The first smart thing was setting up a regular back up schedule to a couple of different locations.

I have done something of this sort. For me online and cloud storage sites are more for publication purposes - not storage of my images per se. In fact I have always have each original image in one of a series download folders usually in both RAW and JPG form (together with all the images that never "made it" from each download from each camera). Then after processing, if I like an image I copy the image to be published to a "Published Images" folder which keeps all of these in one easily recognizable location. It is this latter folder I could use to republish to the web if needed as they are all in one place. Every so often the original downloads and copies are also backed up to an external storage drive on my home network to keep them safe.

Fortunately the Photobucket issue does not much affect me as I saw it going downhill some years ago and pretty much dumped it as a place for regular storage with a few exceptions. In my case I did so because I thought it had become ugly, dysfunctional, clunky and non user-friendly. Thank God I did.

 

[skopar steve]

It was painfully slow, and full of irritating pop ups. Just thought that was the price for storing and linking my photos. Paying $400. a year to use their very slow sight, even without ads is too much for me. All my images are stored elsewhere so I didn't lose any.

They even made it very time consuming to delete my account.

 

[Keith]

They are copping some serious heat on their facebook page which they won't be able to ignore in my opinion. I predict they will likely back peddle in some way (probably pricing) in an attempt to cool the flames but in many ways it will now be too late because they have well and truly shown their hand. And that hand was opportunistic greed!

 

[tunalegs]

is this now third thread of this topic in RFF?

Maybe, but I couldn't find the other two when I did a forum search...

I only brought it up because I noticed this in a couple of other threads here:

 

[tunalegs]

Nothing wroing with making a profit, its business after all.

This is the sort of "business" move I'd expect somebody to make so they can intentionally sink a company and run off with as much money as they can before the company has enough time to dwindle to nothing in the long run...

I imagine two likely probabilities for the future: photobucket isn't here anymore within two years, or they reverse their $400 ransom policy.

 

[Keith]

Quite a business plan ... I have to wonder what they were thinking? Oh yes ... hang on!

$$$$$$$$$$$ 😀

 

[rfaspen]

I still wonder why some are seemingly unaffected and others have been unlucky. Not a "global" policy at PB? What is it about the folks who aren't feeling effects that makes them immune?

Could it be geographic? Where are the unaffected located? Laws vary geographically ya know.

 

[Robert.M]

Just a test....

 

[agricola]

as suggested by another poster above, I just checked again - sure, the site is a bit more cluttered with ads than it used to be (I haven't been there for quite a while) - but I can still see all the stuff I've uploaded over the years.
And I can still see the shots I loaded over the past few days, and can link them to forums - for example this one from a show I shot last week:

if this can be seen after I post this then the links are working - for me at least.

 

[Keith]

More photobucket bull****!

More photobucket bull****!

I really can't see how they have got away with this.

Not only have they tried to extort $400 per year for hosting services out of us but I noticed today that I can't even download my own images any more ... it just downloads an empty file when you click on the download button.

No access to the pics at all now so may as well just delete the lot and put my account out of it's misery I guess!

 

[michaelwj]

That's a bit of a prick thing to do. What c**ts.
It's bad enough that there a so many threads without their excellent images, but now we might not even be able to see them again.
Do you think no one coughed up the $400, so they're trying to extort their customers?

 

[fireblade]

Woah, i must have just got in then. I got all my photos. They probably noticed everyone was doing the same and have now blocked that option.
Keith, try this, pay the first month, then download your images, then close the account.

 

[Keith]

Who knows ... but I just deleted all my pics and closed the account.

Absolute ****s Michael. 🙄

 

[Keith]

Woah, i must have just got in then. I got all my photos. They probably noticed everyone was doing the same and have now blocked that option.
Keith, try this, pay the first month, then download your images, then close the account.

Nothing hugely important to me there fireblade that I don't have on an external hard drive ... just glad to be rid of them.

They certainly have set a standard here ... and it ain't high! lol

 

[michaelwj]

They certainly have set a standard here ... and it ain't high! lol

I'm pretty sure they've won the race to the bottom. They may have even smashed through it. 😡

 

[tunalegs]

A couple of people had written programs allowing users to download all of their photos in one go, photobucket probably made changes to put a stop to this.

I have to be honest, I've never seen a company try so hard to piss off its users and alienate future potential customers. I'm fairly sure now that this is not a ploy to stay in business, but to end it quickly so a select few can make off with whatever money is left in the business.

 

[PKR]

Lots of angry people..
https://www.buzzfeed.com/katienotop...rnet-history?utm_term=.vmqRxgpGYA#.quVL94VWqr

 

[peterm1]

I keep getting emails from them telling me my terms of service have been changed and restrictions placed on my account. Given they are trying to force me to pay quite a large amount of money in exchange for full use of my own content I have been tempted to report them for "phishing". I have no objection to paying reasonable money for good service. After all its what I chose to do with Flickr. But Photobucket offer neither a good service (its a very 1995 web site if I can call it that) nor do they offer it on reasonable terms.

 

[jarski]

I have to be honest, I've never seen a company try so hard to piss off its users and alienate future potential customers. I'm fairly sure now that this is not a ploy to stay in business, but to end it quickly so a select few can make off with whatever money is left in the business.

Photobucket sets a warning example for the future. Let's see if/when someone decides to do same with Flickr.

 

[sevres_babylone]

Photobucket sets a warning example for the future. Let's see if/when someone decides to do same with Flickr.

Or do some kind of variation of this with cloud storage systems.