Let's Talk BBQ
General => General Discussion & Topics => General Discussion => Topic started by: DWard51 on July 06, 2017, 09:06:39 PM
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Ok, Apparently I'm the next victim in the Photobucket $400 extortion scheme. Yep, they have replaced all my images with that stupid "pay up sucker" notice. Sorry, there is no way in hell I'm giving a dime to those losers after they way they sprung this on everyone. Time to cancel my account with them as I have everything backed up in 3 other places anyway. There is just no way to go through and edit all the places online I had photos though.
Thanks for totally destroying DIY on the internet Photobucket - I'll refrain from what I really want to tell you......
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I feel your anger Dward. RG just turned me on to Imgur, like it much better.
http://www.letstalkbbq.com/index.php?topic=20760.msg267932#new
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My new favorite is ...www.SmugMug.com
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I just checked all 3 of my PB acc and none say that.
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My don't say that but I received an email that said they noticed I was using their site to host pictures for 3rd party sites and that it would no longer be allowed unless I upgraded to their 399 plan.
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I never got an email. Also if I check my account, it looks normal to me. But any photos I had linked via the IMG function in boards are now showing that $400 ransom image. Pull up an older post with a PB linked image and see if it's still showing the image. If it's still working and the account is a currently paid account, their FAQS info said it will be good until the end of the current pay cycle, but upon renewing you have to move to the $400 level to use images via the IMG function (they call this 3rd party hosting).
They have basically broken 98% of the instructional posts on the web.
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What about Google Photos Just a thought, it's free & can be set up to do/share only what you want.
http://www.letstalkbbq.com/index.php?topic=20762.msg267939;topicseen#msg267939
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I never got an email. Also if I check my account, it looks normal to me. But any photos I had linked via the IMG function in boards are now showing that $400 ransom image. Pull up an older post with a PB linked image and see if it's still showing the image. If it's still working and the account is a currently paid account, their FAQS info said it will be good until the end of the current pay cycle, but upon renewing you have to move to the $400 level to use images via the IMG function (they call this 3rd party hosting).
They have basically broken 98% of the instructional posts on the web.
Nope- all my pics are replaced with that image.
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Mine does not tell me this either, BUT takes soooooooo long to go page to page and save what I want it feels like I'm being held up on time wasted >:( >:( >:(
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My posts are still showing as the pic i posted.
Did you use the free amount of their host? Or have you paid. I paid for 3 years. Still i guess i gotta keep checking.
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Who knows what algorithm they are using to determine who gets their photos blocked and who doesn't. I have never had anything but a free account, and my photos are still showing by way of old IMG links. Perhaps they are targeting the heavy users first...
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To date ... knock on wood ... I have never had an issue with being able to post an image link on a forum.
My Account on Photobucket is 4.59% full with 5,070 photos. As I mentioned on another post I only upload resized photos at 800 x 600 pixels which is what I post in the forum. The original photos are kept on my PC and backed up regularly on external drives.
A few years ago I upgraded my account type to a "Plus20" account which gives me a total of 22.3GB of storage. 2GB Initial + 20GB Plus20 + 0.3GB Reward storage. My 5,070 photos are using 1.0 GB of 22.3 GB (4.59%). Again, I only upload resized photos. Last year I paid $29.99 for one year for the Plus20 account ($2.50/month). But I'm not so sure that they still offer the Plus20 account since their options only appear to be Plus50 - $5.99/month, Plus 100 - $9.99/month, or Plus 500 - $39.99/month.
Since Photobucket works for me I will continue to use their service for IMG links in my postings and if I ever need to change to another service I have all the photos stored on external drives.
I'm sorry to hear that some of you are having problems with Photobucket and/or any other photo sharing applications. Hope you get things worked out.
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To date ... knock on wood ... I have never had an issue with being able to post an image link on a forum.
My Account on Photobucket is 4.59% full with 5,070 photos. As I mentioned on another post I only upload resized photos at 800 x 600 pixels which is what I post in the forum. The original photos are kept on my PC and backed up regularly on external drives.
A few years ago I upgraded my account type to a "Plus20" account which gives me a total of 22.3GB of storage. 2GB Initial + 20GB Plus20 + 0.3GB Reward storage. My 5,070 photos are using 1.0 GB of 22.3 GB (4.59%). Again, I only upload resized photos. Last year I paid $29.99 for one year for the Plus20 account ($2.50/month). But I'm not so sure that they still offer the Plus20 account since their options only appear to be Plus50 - $5.99/month, Plus 100 - $9.99/month, or Plus 500 - $39.99/month.
Since Photobucket works for me I will continue to use their service for IMG links in my postings and if I ever need to change to another service I have all the photos stored on external drives.
I'm sorry to hear that some of you are having problems with Photobucket and/or any other photo sharing applications. Hope you get things worked out.
My posts are still showing as the pic i posted.
Did you use the free amount of their host? Or have you paid. I paid for 3 years. Still i guess i gotta keep checking.
As I understand it, pay accounts prior to the policy change are good until the next renewal or December 31, 2018, whichever date comes first. Then you must either pay $40 a month or $399 a year to continue to use linking and the IMG function in boards.
So for now, you are grandfathered, but the big extortion scheme will catch up with you at some point.
I would be concerned with the life expectancy of Photobucket now. People are claiming to be leaving in droves (count me amount those) and deleting their accounts. Word was they had cash flow issues and ad revenues were no sufficient which is why they resorted to this insane scheme. Problem will be as the lower tier uses leave, many never to return based on principal alone, their per click ad revenue will continue to decline, and the spiral becomes self feeding. Their site has been taking longer and longer to load due to all the cookies and ad tracking crap they try to load already so the site was already getting flaky. So the question then becomes with the long term viability of PB being in question, will most people who might otherwise pony up $400 a year, now choose to do so, or go ahead and bite the bullet and move on to another service. Not me.....
In the end, I think they have committed corporate suicide and are not long for the world......
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I am not disagreeing with you SWard51 but it appears you are being quoted their Plus500 account at $39.99/month. Do you have more than 500GB of photos on photobucket? If so are they the original photos?
I emailed the photobucket Plus department to see what my renewal amount will be on Dec 12th 2017 for my Plus20 account ... for all I know they don't even have the Plus20 program anymore. If I want to stay with photobucket I might have to step up to the Plus50 plan.
I'll let everyone know what I find out. I hope I don't have to go from $29.99 a year (Puls20 - 22.3GB of which I use 4.59%) to $71.88 a year (Plus50 - 52.3GB of which I would be using 1.9%) ... Hey, I figure it's one less New York Strip I'll be smoking next year ...
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They are quoting the price for an account that allows third party posting. Copying the img link and posting it on the forum is considered third party posting.
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In order to post pictures to a forum from PhotoBucket in the future, one must upgrade to the Plus 500 plan @ $39.99 per month.
All my pictures that I posted on all forums in the past are no longer visible.
If they want to start charging for the ability to post to a forum (in the future) they have a perfect right, but I am totally P^%*#d that they had the b*#^s to do this. >:( >:( >:(
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I will say this again.....
It has been my experience that ANY "free" service will wind up costing you more than it potentially saved you. I learned this - like all of you here - the hard way. and with great personal frustration.
You are FAR better off to use a service that specializes in photo storage. Why not Google? Well...let's' look at Google's track record for your privacy - and our government. Or That Google has had other features that folks really liked, so they were using them....then Google decided to discontinue those add-ons.
What you really want is secure, dependable storage. Something you pay a little for will empower you and all the other users of such a service should they default. But - because they derive their income from photo storage and sales of prints...that is highly unlikely...Think about it. If it their main business, they are invested in the success of it whereas Google or Amazon offer it for "free"....but at any time can drop that "feature' - AND you will be back at square one.
I found - after much research - Smugmug. I know High On Smoke is using Smugmug as well. Lots of reasons they are trusted by professional photographers for photo storage. But they have several plans. From very reasonable to very expensive - depending on what your needs are.
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My photos are still on photobucket, they didn't delete them, just broke the links to forums like this one. This isn't about storage, for me it's about having a way to link an image to forums such as this since they can't be posted direct.
As far as for storage I prefer to use a backup drive that I have complete control over for photos and important documents, that way they are on my computer as well as a remote drive. Some photos I'll also put on One Drive, and Amazon.
The only reason I used photobucket was for linking images to forums like this. For them to break all those links was just wrong. I wouldn't have a problem with them notifying me and wanting money for any future uploads, I may very well have agreed to that. but for them to wipe out 7 years of effort with no warning is just wrong.
Photobucket is done.
(http://i.imgur.com/Tdkh7dz.jpg)
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I too used to use Photobucket until all the web problems they were having. When it worked it was okay but it was down more than up, so I went looking for another site that I could use to upload my photos and videos. I found Smugmug. Yes it costs, but I was also paying on Photobucket. For me Smugmug is a lot simpler to use for posting on forums than Photobucket. I can upload a full photo and pick the size I want to put on a forum. I also have 3 external drives where all my original photos are stored. So, if something happens to Smugmug or to any other place I store my photos I still have my original ones. I might add that the majority of my original files are in the raw format. The ones uploaded are all JPEG.
I don't work for Smugmug and have no interest in it other than a reliable option to store photos and upload them to forums.
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For a free service to just use for posting on forums try imgur. you can also upload a full size photo and pick the size for a forum.
But with my pitiful slow internet I finally learned that it's much quicker for me to resize first and then upload.
http://www.letstalkbbq.com/index.php?topic=20764.msg267995#new
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In order to post pictures to a forum from PhotoBucket in the future, one must upgrade to the Plus 500 plan @ $39.99 per month.
All my pictures that I posted on all forums in the past are no longer visible.
If they want to start charging for the ability to post to a forum (in the future) they have a perfect right, but I am totally P^%*#d that they had the b*#^s to do this. >:( >:( >:(
And more importantly, they should not be surprised when all those pissed off former users (including the ones who "had" been paying at the less than top account level) will beat feet and take they business and money elsewhere........ We have a perfect right also.
I believe the backlash from this is going to be the end of photobucket as a company. Trust lost is hard if not impossible to regain.
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I did have one thought about photobucket today. A lot of people are talking about moving their images elsewhere and deleting their PB account? Well, why (delete the account)? If you copy the images to another service and start using the alternative, that's great. But why free up space on PB server by deleting your account? The bastard's have given all of us the finger and said pay up, so just say nope and give them the finger back by leaving your images there to hog storage space...... Meanwhile, they are no longer collecting any per click revenue on the adds as no one is clicking on those images just sitting there taking up space.
I suspect the calls to the images from the old forum posts will also be enough activity to keep the accounts open, just non-revenue generating on multiple levels.
So take that PB!!!!!
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I did have one thought about photobucket today. A lot of people are talking about moving their images elsewhere and deleting their PB account? Well, why (delete the account)? If you copy the images to another service and start using the alternative, that's great. But why free up space on PB server by deleting your account? The bastard's have given all of us the finger and said pay up, so just say nope and give them the finger back by leaving your images there to hog storage space...... Meanwhile, they are no longer collecting any per click revenue on the adds as no one is clicking on those images just sitting there taking up space.
I suspect the calls to the images from the old forum posts will also be enough activity to keep the accounts open, just non-revenue generating on multiple levels.
So take that PB!!!!!
My thoughts EXACTLY! I have very few pics on PB, maybe less than 50 and I haven't linked to them in eons but guess what? I'm leavin'em there :P
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I had a slide show at the top of my blog and it was replaced with the PB saying I needed to up date. I just figured the pics were gone too and never checked. Well the slide show came back and I checked and all my pics are there. Maybe my blog is considered 2nd party, does anyone know? Never the less I will not use PB again, I am happy with Smug Mug. Don
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I have 1600 high res photos there, see no reason to close account or delete them. May even keep uploading more just for the heck of it. LOL
Heck, maybe even some videos.
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I had a slide show at the top of my blog and it was replaced with the PB saying I needed to up date. I just figured the pics were gone too and never checked. Well the slide show came back and I checked and all my pics are there. Maybe my blog is considered 2nd party, does anyone know? Never the less I will not use PB again, I am happy with Smug Mug. Don
I was a little mixed up on this, google blogs hosts their own photos. I must have made my slide show in PB . It disappeared for a while but is back mow. Don
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I downloaded the smugmug app.
it won't accept my email / password combo and it doesn't have a place to register as a new user.