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Geek Culture / Photobucket policy change :(

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Scraggle
Moderator
20
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Joined: 10th Jul 2003
Location: Yorkshire
Posted: 18th Jul 2017 07:48 Edited at: 18th Jul 2017 07:51
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I used to store my profile pic on Photobucket and have it linked here.
Photobucket now want to charge you for linking to third party sites, so that isn't an option any longer.
I actually stopped using Photobucket a long time ago and forgot that my avatar was stored there until this happened and I can't remember the password I used to log in with. Additionally, I no longer have access to the email address that I would use for a reset password email, so I can't get hold of my avatar pic to host it somewhere else

Long story short: I'm uploading a new pic to use as my profile and keeping it here.
AGK V2 user - Tier 1 (mostly)

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Phaelax
DBPro Master
21
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Joined: 16th Apr 2003
Location: Metropia
Posted: 18th Jul 2017 13:18
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I read about this on slashdot about a week ago. If you want to link your photos to 3rd party websites, you'll have to pay $300 a year. No warning of this change either. Photobucket pretty much killed themselves with this.

"I like offending people, because I think people who get offended should be offended." - Linus Torvalds
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Kevin Picone
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Location: Australia
Posted: 18th Jul 2017 14:00
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i've never used it, but what was their old model ? or was just another infinite debt generation machine online

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Dark Java Dude 64
Community Leader
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Joined: 21st Sep 2010
Location: Neither here nor there nor anywhere
Posted: 18th Jul 2017 19:08 Edited at: 18th Jul 2017 19:10
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<<<< I've fallen victim to it myself!

Quote: "I'm uploading a new pic to use as my profile and keeping it here."
Unless it's changed, people who aren't logged into the forums won't be able to view your avatar if you do that. But meh, traffic is so low these days that it likely won't matter much. I may do that as well, come to think of it...

Quote: "but what was their old model"
It was totally free as far as I recall! I used it for my forum avatar for years, never paid a dime.

Quote: "If you want to link your photos to 3rd party websites, you'll have to pay $300 a year."
Whoa, are you serious? That's insane. From free to $300.00 dollars a year. EDIT I just found another source that says $399.00 a year. Wow.

Quote: "Photobucket pretty much killed themselves with this."
I'd say so!
Yes!
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Ortu
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Posted: 18th Jul 2017 19:16
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Such a desperate move means they'd likely be dead in a few months anyway if they are unable to recoup hosting and bandwidth costs.
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Phaelax
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Posted: 19th Jul 2017 13:28
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Photobucket has been around for a long time. Earliest photo sharing site I know of at least. They could have gone about this a much better way. For starters, warn users at least a month in advance. Secondly, make the subscription cost reasonable. I can get my own hosting and domain for $100/ year, why pay them $400?

I've mostly used imgur as of late. It's quick and easy.

"I like offending people, because I think people who get offended should be offended." - Linus Torvalds
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The Slayer
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Joined: 9th Nov 2009
Playing: (Hide and) Seek and Destroy on my guitar!
Posted: 20th Jul 2017 10:39
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Yeah, join the club...allmost all of my photo's are on photobucket...lol...including my homemade badass profile gif......still looking for the best alternative...I still don't understand why all of a sudden they changed their licenses.
Quote: \"Close those quotes before they start to spread!...too late! Aaaaaagh!!!
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Dark Java Dude 64
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Location: Neither here nor there nor anywhere
Posted: 20th Jul 2017 20:59 Edited at: 20th Jul 2017 21:13
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The craziest thing is perhaps this: in an interview, the CEO of the company claimed that they didn't expect the outrage from users. That's either an outright lie, or they were absolutely crazy for thinking everyone would be totally on board with the decision.

Random fact, Photobucket is actually based in the same city I live in. Apparently they have just 20 employees. Very small company, compared to what you'd expect.

EDIT I was skimming through another article, and they have some pretty good points about why this might actually be a decent business move. Even if just 1 percent of the service's users decide to pay the fee, the company will bring in an extra $400 million per year in revenue that they otherwise would not have. As the article goes on to say, this will weed out a lot of the free users. While this isn't good news for those using it as a free hosting service, it will allow the company to squeeze into a niche market of businesses that are willing to pay the fee for professional image hosting. And considering that their previous business model was likely losing a lot of money, this new model seems like a genuinely viable method of keeping the company in business.
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Chris Tate
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Posted: 20th Jul 2017 22:15
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Quote: "
EDIT I was skimming through another article, and they have some pretty good points about why this might actually be a decent business move. Even if just 1 percent of the service's users decide to pay the fee, the company will bring in an extra $400 million per year in revenue that they otherwise would not have. As the article goes on to say, this will weed out a lot of the free users."


Quote: "And considering that their previous business model was likely losing a lot of money, this new model seems like a genuinely viable method of keeping the company in business."


I think that might be the best case scenario.

The worst case scenario is that the outrage may overshadow the benefits, and 99.99% of people who are willing to pay for storage might just pay for standard hosting for a couple bucks per month from companies like Go Daddy and Amazon, who are going to have a field day on capitalizing on this backlash.

I never used them, and have never needed to; but I'd be pretty upset to have been given the impression that the service is free for use, to then have to find out I have to fork out $399 per annum.
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Kevin Picone
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Posted: 21st Jul 2017 04:30
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Strange they didn't opt for some type of ad model on all the externally linked content.


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Phaelax
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Posted: 26th Jul 2017 17:25
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Quote: "queeze into a niche market of businesses that are willing to pay the fee for professional image hosting."


They better offer some additional services before I would call them a professional image host. If all you want to do is host image, it'd be cheaper to use AWS. For the price they're asking, I expect some dynamic imaging features like you get with Scene7.

"I like offending people, because I think people who get offended should be offended." - Linus Torvalds
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Antidote
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Location: San Francisco, CA
Posted: 18th Aug 2017 19:41 Edited at: 18th Aug 2017 19:41
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I wonder if this is an issue for me as well. This account is old as dirt.

Edit: it is not I still have my ancient icon
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Mage
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Joined: 3rd Feb 2007
Location: Canada
Posted: 4th Nov 2017 10:05
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I've been using IMGUR lately. Not sure how long they keep images but seems like never delete stuff so far. I have a minecraft image from 2014 still up.
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