Photobucket Restricts My (and Yours) rv.net Photos

I had already stopped using Photobucket, mostly because of the fabulous Photoposting is great webpage that uploads, automatically reduces resolution to appropriate size for posting and provides an IMG link to copy and paste in a post. This terrific webpage was created by an RV.net member. The photos are stored on his Imgur account.

I kind of like the idea of paying a reasonable price to support reliable and easy to use photosharing without advertising. But Photobucket's move without warning puts it last on my list.

I'm on the staff at Worldwide Seniors forum. We got caught with some of our main page graphics hosted on Photobucket in a former staff member's account. I deleted them, and think we are better off without animations increasing the display time. WWS is hosted by Zeta/Invision Free. It has only limited space for posters to use for pictures and it is awkward to use. With Photoposting is great, RV.net has the best photoposting available in any forum I've seen. Of course I access RV.net through forums.goodsamclub.com to avoid the problem with punctuation characters in posts.

MitchF150 wrote:
I got my PB email today, but it looks like my photos are still being shown on this site and others?

Was going to delete them all and cancel my free account (if you can even do that?), but figured I'd just wait and see when they stop showing up on the sites I've posted them to..

Mitch

I wonder if they are going to do what the phone companies did on throttling data and only go after the real heavy users and maybe those that they can identify as commercial users (ebay, etc.)

Larry

I got my PB email today, but it looks like my photos are still being shown on this site and others?

Was going to delete them all and cancel my free account (if you can even do that?), but figured I'd just wait and see when they stop showing up on the sites I've posted them to..

Mitch

Wikel wrote:
What would be better is if this site actually had a newer forum software engine and allowed posting of pictures directly with it vs. linking to some 3rd party site that could change the terms of service at any time. This is a content based forum, host your own content. Make it easier for people to post photos.

Invision is a good message board software. Conversion would be a pain but 1990's called and they want you to upgrade your message forum software :)

Get your fire extinguisher ready :E

I have suggested this before and met with...lack of enthusiasm and possibly insults to my heritage and ancestors, LOL.

A forum hosting its own pictures and content was a really dumb idea a while back. Doesn't seem so foolish now, though :R

Disclosure: I didn't have anything to do with Photobucket's decision, am not associated with them, and didn't know about it ahead of time.

Carry on. ;)

What would be better is if this site actually had a newer forum software engine and allowed posting of pictures directly with it vs. linking to some 3rd party site that could change the terms of service at any time. This is a content based forum, host your own content. Make it easier for people to post photos.

Invision is a good message board software. Conversion would be a pain but 1990's called and they want you to upgrade your message forum software :)

Time2,
They simply don't care. There are, or maybe were, so many millions on their site it doesn't make any difference whether you or I are there or not, or what kind of havoc it leaves in their decision's wake. I'm still trying to figure out where to go now and how soon to do it.
jefe

PB just caught up with me today. Had all pictures deleted and account cancelled in 20 minutes. I don't make money on my pictures so neither should they.

Sorry for anyone that has enjoyed the few pictures I have posted.

Now it's time to decide what to do about 3rd party photo hosting. Few of you guys seem to be affected by PB's decision to winnow their client base. Some on this forum actually have a continuing, long lived Blog embedded within the forum which have been very successful, in part due to the informative photos and content from the many contributors involved. Here's the Avion Camper Blog on the truck camper forum which has had over 600K hits. The black boxes have replaced all the author's pix. But the author is waiting to see what is left and where to drag his minions next to host his blog, certainly not on RV.net. start about here:
https://forums.goodsamclub.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/thread/tid/25053498/srt/pa/pging/1/page/382

I tried to get some straight, honest info about photo hosting on the net and ran into a LOT of misinformation and hot tempered hearsay, meaning it was meaningless. Some of this, of course is because many of the other pic hosting sites are tight lipped, holding their collective breaths to see where the PB chips fall, or even if it will survive. With some of the horror stories above, I agree that those that use PB from the very beginning like me, were very, very, lucky and, as my colleague in the LAPhilharmonic once said, "We get the government we deserve."
The bottom line that storage space and bandwidth costs money. Be prepared to pay for anything you can control and wish to have a long term experience with.
jefe

Do you have free email account? or what about all those free apps on your phone? I guess we will get away with it until they decide they can charge us for it.

Really, my point is Photobucket could have handled it better. Those who have left will never go back and those who stay will always resent it..

1L243 wrote:
And it only took the 14 years to figure it out.

I use Photobucket to enhance sites like this one with postings on mods and other things of interests. I am not selling anything or benefiting in anyway.

Photobucket could have given some advance warning. Or they could have had a commercial fee for those who make a living off of the internet posting like Ebay sellers and a free private party account but limit the amount of pictures you can have. In return we have to watch those stupid adds.

What is the definition of Ransom? demanding payment for the release of person or property?

The internet is free wait till they want to charge or tax that!

Sorry, The "Internet" IS NOT "FREE".

Internet is not a "Right" either.

Online storage is not free or a Right.

You folks that have used PhotoBucket FREE for years HAVE BEEN LUCKY.

I have gone through THREE DIFFERENT "online" storage solutions over the last 6 yrs..

First one cost $50 per yr with hot linking, after the first year and after they took my second year payment they SUDDENLY VANISHED..

The next one boasted "FREE" storage with hot linking, yeah, the free lasted 6 months then suddenly with no warning they changed the TOS that the "free" accounts no longer were allowed hot linking. The cost was to be $150 per year to get hot linking.

I was able to correspond with them about the change, they replied that they were not getting ANY AD REVENUE on the free accounts that were using the hot linking since they had no way of inserting ads into the link.. They did concede a bit and came up with a $50 per yr option with a lower storage space.. I declined.

So, by accident I discovered that when you setup an Google email account you GET FREE ONLINE STORAGE WITH HOT LINKING!

Sure they limit your max storage, but whatever, it works..

Yeah, technically it is not totally free, you are giving up DATA in exchange for the use of that Google drive but for the small amount of use I have for online storage I am fine with that..