Photobucket.

[LarryD]

I don't know how many of you use it but we have room over at Flickr for you refugees. That said it could cause problems here too.
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-40492668

[melek]

I think that what happened is that Photobucket felt that a large number of commercial resellers were using its service to host images, and the new pricing plans are aimed directly at them.

However, the new "Plus" plans really impact its users who only used the service to share photos. Only the $399.99/year plan allows linking to and embedding of images, which feels really outrageous.

So, in an effort to go after commercial resellers to try to get them to pay a fair amount, Photobucket has ensnared most of its casual users in the same net. And they aren't happy.

Plus, suspending/locking the free accounts of those who surpass the 2GB limit until they upgrade to a paid account is pretty much the "ransomware" approach.

This is rapidly turning into a big public relations nightmare for the company.

[Philip]

It is too bad about Photobucket. I have used it longer than Flickr (which I've used since 2005). But, for me, they serve different purposes. My Flickr account gets individual pictures, but my Photobucket one gets, or used to get, groups of pictures, like all the pictures on an experimental roll of 110, etc. It hasn't been easy to use for a while, and I miss it for that sort of stuff. I certainly would not pay for it though!

.

[PFMcFarland]

So, what happens to all the photos that people abandon on Photobucket because they won't pay that ridiculous fee? Will Photobucket claim them as their own then, and sell the images? Something to ponder.

PF

[Julio1fer]

FWIW, I have the cheapest paid account in Photobucket, which supposedly does not allow 3rd party hosting, only no ads. So far I have not been held for ransom, but I am quickly downloading all the pictures I got there and will switch as soon as I can, maybe even before.

What a stupid business move. They are going to be out of business in a few weeks unless they reverse course. Who is going to use this service if you cannot trust it?

[LarryD]

It is what they do. I just renewed my Yahoo Pro Let me see what happens. Maybe you hit the nail here. Just a little money is what they need but then again so many abusing the system that the 80's made free.

[melek]

I think what's happened is that a large number of Chinese sellers on Amazon and eBay were using Photobucket to store product photos. But it's not so much the storage of the photos as it is the bandwidth that is used to serve those photos. If you have maybe 50 merchants selling 50 products each on eBay and Amazon, you can see how the bandwidth of serving these photos could skyrocket quickly, merely because of the number of times that each of these pages were viewed.

If you ask me, Photobucket was really trying to make these sellers pay up, but they just applied a blanket policy across all of their users. Bad idea. It seems like a knee-jerk reaction.

[Julio1fer]

It would be more reasonable to limit the number of image downloads for their free accounts, and to set up a lower step to first-echelon paid membership. They have a huge opportunity to convert and they are blowing it.

[PFMcFarland]

It would be more reasonable to limit the number of image downloads for their free accounts, and to set up a lower step to first-echelon paid membership. They have a huge opportunity to convert and they are blowing it.

Apparently the board at Photobucket doesn't know how to be reasonable, or they wouldn't have gone for the Nuclear Option right away.

PF

[melek]

Photobucket already has reversed its policy of locking accounts until you pay when you exceed the 2GB limit. Maybe we'll see some more sanity soon.