Can Someone Explain the "Photobucket" Issue

[drusba]

For quite a while now, when I go back to prior threads on these sites that had photos or charts in them, the photos or charts are blurred out and a box with a camera that says "photobucket" is across the photo. Can someone explain what has happened? And is any fix in the works?

 

[Micca]

I think Photobucket was a free service that started to charge a fee several years ago. Many people didn't want to pay, their photos were wiped from the service.

 

[marcyleecorgan]

Photobucket decided about 2 years ago to end their free photo hosting and only host if you paid a storage subscription. After massive protest, they reversed the decision but many people either deleted their files or signed up for the very small amount of free hosting/bandwidth. Since message boards can be a heavy draw on people's images, they run through their allotted free bandwidth quickly. Photobucket blurs or blocks images from showing if the user has exceeded their allotment.

 

[Toolulu22]

Photobucket changed from an entirely free photo hosting site to a paid site, if you want to post to third party sites and have more than a certain number of pictures. I received an email from them before it happened and moved my photos to shutterfly. Maybe those photos with the banners across them go to people’s accounts who never paid for a Photobucket membership.

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

They actually went from a free site to an enormous charge. I think I got an email of what a bargain I would be getting for $299/year or some other equally ridiculous amount. And if you didn't pay they were going to remove your photos by xxx date. It bordered on extortion. They backed down for a bit but then went at it again for a more reasonable amount and this time I believe weren't going to delete your photos if you didn't pay but would not allow linking to websites if you did not pay. I had such a bad taste from the original extortion attempt that there was little chance I'd pay them anything. So what you see are photos that are still on their servers but the owner hasn't paid them.

At least I had never used them for my main hosting - just for quick and easy hosting and uploads from my phone.

 

[Best Aunt]

There was a time when you had to use a web hosting service like Photobucket to post a photo to the Dis. The “attach files” button did not exist on the Dis.

 

[DisLiss]

They actually went from a free site to an enormous charge. I think I got an email of what a bargain I would be getting for $299/year or some other equally ridiculous amount.

Exactly. It was just the craziest choice for a business to make because the amount was so high that it drove people off to find alternative sites pretty much immediately. And then by the time Photobucket realized what a poor decision it had been and backtracked, many people had already found a different solution and wouldn't come back to pay even the reduced amount.

 

[Melissa55]

They did allow people to continue with free accounts, as long as you stay under 25MB bandwidth. But the last time I tried to log on to delete my excess photos, I got so spammed with pop-up ads and crap that I just gave up.