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Photobucket to stop allowing direct linking unless you pay.


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Ugh. The last two occasions I attempted to download some of my albums I failed to get anything to happen. There's only so many times you can see that "Hmm, something didn't click. Want to try again?" message pop up before the urge to go on a murderous rampage looks like the more relaxing option.

I've emailed customer support, but I'm guessing that I'm going to have to download each image separately.

Decorum prevents me from saying what i really think of them, but I bet you can guess!

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Am I the only person being driven to distraction by the fact that every time I try to look at an older thread, the pictures have been replaced by the Photobucket square of despair, making a nonsense of the contents which invariably refer to the pictures?

 

If I had any hair left, I'd be ripping it out.

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PB just sent me this

Photobucket is now offering a monthly plan


Congratulations! You're part of Photobucket's Elite Beta Group! You have been hand selected out of millions of users to be an essential part of our team of influencers. Best part so far? We have created a monthly option for our Plus 500 Plan. And YOU get the first crack at it. It's only available from the link below, so click below to get started!

 

Anybody else got this? Why me, who uses very little storage and not many links? I do pay PB a little each to remain ad free. It is also rubbish as it doesn't offer anything different to waht has already appeared.

I read the link above about what the new CEO said and the man is clearly out of touch.

John

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39 minutes ago, John R said:

Anybody else got this? Why me, who uses very little storage and not many links? I do pay PB a little each to remain ad free. It is also rubbish as it doesn't offer anything different to waht has already appeared.

Not yet, but using the same criteria, I should be getting one soon, as I haven't got much on there and haven't used it for about two years. I am beginning to feel a little bit miffed as PB haven't sent me a single email yet:blahblahblah:.

 

John.

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A silly lot to be sure.  It all seems like the flounderings of a desperate company.  I don't expect much from them in future if I'm honest.  Mind you, they've left us an awful legacy to remember them by haven't they? :fraidnot:

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I noted in the lined Denver post article that the there is an  online petition at Change.org

 

https://www.change.org/p/photobucket-reverse-the-photobucket-third-party-rule?source_location=minibar

 

Quote

“I feel like other users and myself have been punished for supporting the site throughout the years, with this hefty fee,” said James Cann, a 10-year Photobucket user who started the Change.org petition. “It’s a shame that such a drastic measure has been taken and I wish John and Photobucket the best for the future but unless something is done, I won’t be continuing with my account and I expect this will be mirrored by frustrated users worldwide.”

The petition had 647 users as of Thursday afternoon.

now stands at 1,443....

 

but it does look like pretty monumental corporate cock-up...  

Quote

Was the customer backlash expected?

Corpus paused. For 12 seconds.

“No,” he finally said.

 

 

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"No"      - I don't believe that for a second.

 

 It was thought through as far as was possible.

Or there would have been a quicker answer to that , the pause was indicative of the unknown/unprecedented LEVEL of backlash.

Better management would have offered a timeline for the withdrawal of service.

But , I guess , barfbucket subscribes to a 'rip the bandage off quickly ' kinda management style.

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15 hours ago, John R said:

PB just sent me this

Photobucket is now offering a monthly plan


Congratulations! You're part of Photobucket's Elite Beta Group! You have been hand selected out of millions of users to be an essential part of our team of influencers. Best part so far? We have created a monthly option for our Plus 500 Plan. And YOU get the first crack at it. It's only available from the link below, so click below to get started!

 

Anybody else got this? Why me, who uses very little storage and not many links? I do pay PB a little each to remain ad free. It is also rubbish as it doesn't offer anything different to waht has already appeared.

I read the link above about what the new CEO said and the man is clearly out of touch.

John

 

I received the same email. Similar to John, I did not have a lot of content stored in Photobucket (about 300 images) and I was a subscriber of one of Photobucket's affordable plans.

Whether the ransom is paid in one hit or in monthly instalments, it doesn't change how ridiculously over the top $399 per annum is for photo hosting.

I have cancelled my Photobucket subscription which was due to renew next month and made alternative arrangements with respect to image hosting.

I suspect image hosting does not generate any revenue for the host site because no traffic "lands" on the host site's web page where the image is displayed along with advertisements. The forum thread in which the image is displayed links directly to the image file on the host site's server. Serving up image files costs real money. Other image hosters are constrained by the same issue as Photobucket - serving up image files without any advertising revenue is a loss generating business.

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We'll do it for $398! :wicked:  but seriously - I think we're all well-enough versed (as well as still angry) about the situation for me to take down the announcement on the forum header, would you say? :)

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Funnily enough I seem to have used up all my likes, catching up with threads I'm in to.  👍

 

So, instead I will simply add

 

Yes Mike, time to gives us other news as and when 👌

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11 minutes ago, Mike said:

............ I think we're all well-enough versed (as well as still angry) about the situation for me to take down the announcement on the forum header, would you say? :)

Yes, I think most members are aware of the situation now.

 

Mike

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Mike, what about the long term implications? In the short term we can switch to FlickR or a similar site with a reasonable fee for 3rd party hosting but FlickR may go the way of PB and if someone using a subscription site fails to renew then the same situation will recur.

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I started to shift my images to Flickr and relinked some of my old builds. But as it looks I will not repair all as I am unable to download all MY pictures from Photobucket. I always get the same error message - no matter which browser I use... "ups - something went wrong. Please try again later"... I did. To no avail... They really know how to put people off.

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13 minutes ago, Caerbannog said:

I started to shift my images to Flickr and relinked some of my old builds. But as it looks I will not repair all as I am unable to download all MY pictures from Photobucket. I always get the same error message - no matter which browser I use... "ups - something went wrong. Please try again later"... I did. To no avail... They really know how to put people off.

I contacted PB several times about this error and finally they responded. Apparently they know about the issue and are "working on it", though I don't hold out much hope. They were very helpful in pointing out that I could individually download the thousands of pictures I have there.

I shan't tell you what my first thought was, but I bet you can guess!

 

I'm temporarily using Flickr, but would very much like to find a hosting site that allows folders and sub-folders and allows me to re-order pictures as I see fit

 

Cheers,

Mark..

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On Kitmaker I have asked admin to delete all of my threads , as I think they are pretty much useless now,. I will prolly ask the same here after they come to their decision. 

I don't see any need for threads to be ads for pb .

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23 hours ago, lasermonkey said:

I contacted PB several times about this error and finally they responded. Apparently they know about the issue and are "working on it", though I don't hold out much hope. They were very helpful in pointing out that I could individually download the thousands of pictures I have there.

I shan't tell you what my first thought was, but I bet you can guess!

 

I'm temporarily using Flickr, but would very much like to find a hosting site that allows folders and sub-folders and allows me to re-order pictures as I see fit

 

Cheers,

Mark..

I got the same mail yesterday, and will not hold my breath as well. Already started to download those pics I cannot find on my HD. So after a mere one million hours I will have my pics back. Hopefully.

 

I never heared of a hoster where you can organize your pics in different folder after you posted the links somewhere. Would be great of course. But as I start from scratch with Flickr I can organize the pics right away.

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On 31/07/2017 at 15:54, John R said:

Mike, what about the long term implications? In the short term we can switch to FlickR or a similar site with a reasonable fee for 3rd party hosting but FlickR may go the way of PB and if someone using a subscription site fails to renew then the same situation will recur.

 

Without the benefit of a crystal ball, there's no real way of telling.  As PB have already proved, the Corporate animal doesn't give a hoot about its customers, just the bottom line.  It's not a total surprise, but I think we all kind of knew that corporations had little in the way of moral compass or scruples. :fraidnot:

 

The best way of keeping your pictures and links intact is to have some webspace that YOU control.  In the olden days a chunk of webspace came with most internet packages, but that doesn't seem to be en vogue so much these days.  maybe it'll make a comeback?  It's still worth checking to see if you've got any, and give that a go.  You'll have to learn how to use FTP (File Transfer Protocol) if you don't know the ins & outs of Filezilla already, but it will repay you in spades when you never have to move your stuff again.

 

The other option is to find a site you have to pay for, and go through the T&Cs with a fine tooth comb to make sure they can't cut you off in the future.  I think the days of free photohosting are on their way out with this big middle-finger from PB, so finding one that's not going to rape your wallet is the prime requisite.  I wish you all luck :thumbsup:

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20 hours ago, krow113 said:

I will prolly ask the same here after they come to their decision. 

As and when we go live with the cull, we're trying to only cull threads that have no meaning without the photos.  Discussions and other people's photos that are still there would still be useful, so we should avoid killing those.  We'll give everyone the proper How-To when the time comes, and get people to report content that they have reviewed and think is now useless.  It's going to be a big job for all concerned (especially the Mods), but we have to give everyone time to re-populate their threads if they're minded, or for the unlikely event of PB having a rethink and moving their head-office back from cloud-cookooland :mental:

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