Photobucket now charges $399.99 for third party hosted images

wealdroam

Anyone who uses Photobucket for uploading images to this forum may need to re-think their strategy.

www.ghacks.net/2017/06/30/photobucket-now-charges-399-for-third-party-hosted-images

custardy

Noticed this on a works! email just yesterday.
However I was viewing on my mobile so couldnt make out the text in the image fully.

Strider590

Talk about shooting yourself in the foot, i'm assuming the company got bought out and the new owners aren't quite as internet savvy as they think they are........

I host my own images on my own home server, i'm fairly sure running that doesn't cost me anywhere near as much as Photobucket want to charge for their service.

Chrishazle

This has been much discussed on 3 car forums I frequent, and there are options other than PB that are free and allow 3rd party linking. So, if you have photos stored on PB, make sure you have copies elsewhere as the PB ones could disappear!

Uxb

According to other forums some business sellers on ebay have been using photobucket to host umpteen hundred photos of their wares.
So one can see why PB might have got mega fed up of their free service being (ab)used for profit.....and they figure quite rightly that such business users should pay a business grade price for the "service".

So it looks like the usual of the minority spoil it for the majority - which seems to the the universal case for just about anything these days.

Pity PB could not have arranged for limited hosting/bandwidth restrictions for the casual user - but I suppose this just adds costs and complexity.

One suspects any of the other free photo sites will now take action to make sure they do not get deluged with users wanting something for free.
In the end this is all costing the hosting organisation something and either they make it back on ad's or they have to start charging. If ad blockers are becoming universal then the only option left is paying for it.

If it was so cheap and easy to do I'm sure forum admins and web host sites etc will find it easy to host all the photos on their own sites in future all for free of course!......or maybe they too will find that it is not financially viable.

droopsnoot

The biggest issue for me is how they've done this - specifically with no advance warning at all. I don't dispute their right to change their terms, or do anything they want with their business. Given the number of marketing emails they usually send, it seems unreasonable that they didn't bother to mention this before they implemented it.

Chrishazle

Seems the options are Flikr, imgur.io and postimage.org. Member on another forum I frequent has tried postimage.org, reckons it's easier and better than PB!

Strider590

All we need now is for the CEO of PB, to play golf with the people in the UK who control the internet filters and suddenly there will be no other option..........

The way things are going lately I actually wouldn't be surprised if all the free image hosts do get blocked in the blacklists given to UK ISPs AND/OR those used by internet forums to stop "undesirable" images being posted.

2 of my 7 domains got blocked for a short time, rendering my own image hosting useless for a short time on a whole load of forums. No reason for them to have been on any black lists at all.

forgotmyname

With all the adverts and backdoor data collection they get from visitors they are not exactly losing out.

PB are one of the worst sites out there, a 24" monitor does not give me enough space to list every single url, it loads in the background.

Uxb

DavidP24 wrote: »

Is a Pain in the A to use anyway, I use IMGUR

.....whose T&C's specifically state no third party linking is permitted.

Johnmcl7

Uxb wrote: »

According to other forums some business sellers on ebay have been using photobucket to host umpteen hundred photos of their wares.
So one can see why PB might have got mega fed up of their free service being (ab)used for profit.....and they figure quite rightly that such business users should pay a business grade price for the "service".

So it looks like the usual of the minority spoil it for the majority - which seems to the the universal case for just about anything these days.

Pity PB could not have arranged for limited hosting/bandwidth restrictions for the casual user - but I suppose this just adds costs and complexity.

One suspects any of the other free photo sites will now take action to make sure they do not get deluged with users wanting something for free.
In the end this is all costing the hosting organisation something and either they make it back on ad's or they have to start charging. If ad blockers are becoming universal then the only option left is paying for it.

If it was so cheap and easy to do I'm sure forum admins and web host sites etc will find it easy to host all the photos on their own sites in future all for free of course!......or maybe they too will find that it is not financially viable.

Photobucket have had a system to limit bandwidth on hosted images and would replace it with a warning that the user has exceeded their bandwidth. As you've mentioned though the problem still is if people are primarily viewing the photos hosted elsewhere, they're not seeing ads and there's no money for doing it.

They've clearly tried to counter that by going with really aggressive adverts on their site to the degree I didn't realise many people used it now.

John