Photobucket Restricts My (and Yours) rv.net Photos

$399 a year is extreme
charge should be based on how many photos ? space used ? how many web links ?
but a blanket charge of $399, with no previous warning
is what is upsetting people

i've got less than 500 pictures on PB and at least 100 of them are phone related, some smart, some dumb feature phone, some very low res 240*320 some higher, i'm sure most of the phone stuff is way out dated, and the HoFo pages are archived

anyway i'll be moving on to someplace else, maybe flicker

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!

Anybody with a half a lick of common sense should know this wasn't a sustainable business model. You can't give everything away and stay in business. Sooner or later you have to start charging for services, or fold. This should have been as obvious as an approaching freight train.

You can take your pictures elsewhere (ransom? really?), but the same thing will happen as other free hosting sites feel the pinch.

I too ran into the 'unlinking' 3rd party wall with P.B. 15B images held for ransom? I have maybe 3K pix on their site and have paid the 'no pop up ad' price so at least my pix are still there. The drag is, maybe 1K of those images were used on the Truck Camper Forum to give some flavor to my Trip Reports since about 2004. I'm not going back and reconstructing any of those, so the posts are virtually gone forever. Yes, I backed everything up but I'm not going back. During my long association with P.B. I changed over computers a couple times upgrading my Mac Book Pro lap top with and without IPhoto or just Photo and lost access to generations of photos from the earliest days.

Further, IF...the new B.P. protocol stands, many if not all image hosting sites will follow suit to cash in on the short sightedness of P.B. users. There is, as always, no free lunch. But the carnage caused by P.B.'s sudden and secretly announced protocol change has caused a real stir. We'll see if the company even survives with a mass migration and ill will. I'm afraid this change will put a real hole in RV.net's forum activity. Maybe it's time to move on anyway.
jefe

i think subscription photo hosting is going to fail as a business model

i don't know where that leaves us users, but i'm reasonably sure its going to Put photobucket and a few others out of business

All my Photobucket pictures I have posted on different websites for years have disappeared. My pictures are still on Photobucket but third party posting are not allowed unless I pay the Ransom..

I use the free advertisement loaded site and have put up with their weired advertisements that clog and slowed my computer down and made it difficult to even use the site.

Looks like i will delete my PB account and try and find another hosting service.

Here is PC Mag's take on it: https://www.pcmag.com/news/354711/photobucket-breaks-image-links-across-the-internet

If you go down thru the comments after this article, a guy named Chris Adams suggests that all other freebee hosting sites may eventually do this, too. He suggests that most ISP's offer their clients some free storage, and discusses how to use that space for linking photos in various forums.

You don't need much space for pics that going to be linked to forum posts. My camera produces images that are anywhere from 5 to 25 megs each (jpeg and RAW). I tweak them down so they are only 250 to 500 kb for forum posts. At this size, one gig of storage will hold over 2000 pics.

"What are the current limitations for a Imgur account like number of photos etc?"

You'll probably get more accurate information by posting this question on the Imgur website. You'll likely get some answers here, but the accuracy will be questionable.

I'm not at all sure which hosting service to use next. I updated one post with several pictures using my Imgur account. What are the current limitations for a Imgur account like number of photos etc?

I guess they are changing there business model,
Remember it is a business, my guess people are Not buying prints, cups, T shirts, and bric a brac, with images on it
So now they switch to paid hosting