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Post by Richard Kimble on Jul 3, 2017 18:38:17 GMT
petapixel.com/2017/07/01/photobucket-just-broke-billions-photos-embedded-web/Since 2003, the popular photo hosting service Photobucket has been letting users upload and host images for free on their servers. They have over 10 billion images stored by 100 million registered users. But now they’re going to start charging, and that means billions of images around the Web are now broken. Hotlinking (AKA inline linking) is when someone takes an image file hosted on a server and embeds it on a different webpage elsewhere. Since the new webpage continuously requests the file from the original source server, it saps the server owner’s bandwidth (and storage space). Photobucket allowed hotlinking photos uploaded to and stored on its servers for a long time. This was their business model, and they made money from ads on their own site, which users would be exposed to when they went to upload content. Unfortunately for Photobucket users, things are about to change in a big way as of June 26th. Now the service is rolling out a $399 per year subscription fee for those who want to hotlink images from Photobucket’s servers to display elsewhere. That means that billions of images across the Web now display an error message instead of the image in question.  It’s not a huge surprise to see a decision like this. Advertising revenues are declining for publishers, and the costs of servers to host 10 billion images are surely incredibly high (especially when requests are made for them from all over the Web). While other free services remain, it seems fairly likely that others will follow suit and start charging for hosting files too.
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Post by OmegaWolf747 on Jul 3, 2017 19:27:49 GMT
Then Photobucket can go Photo[Beep!]It! There are other sites, like Imgur, that do the exact same thing, for free. Photobucket's been too slow and clunky to use for years now anyway. They've dug their grave, now let them lie in it!
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Post by NewtJorden on Jul 3, 2017 19:49:48 GMT
Photobucket can die then.
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Post by sagenesse on Jul 4, 2017 22:47:18 GMT
That's crazy! It's way cheaper to get your own site and host them yourself.
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Post by MCDemuth on Jul 4, 2017 23:09:55 GMT
June 26th?
It was working for me for free yesterday... I wonder why that is?
Well... POOP!
I'll have to find another place...
I am not going to pay $399.00. They are crazy if they think anyone is going to pay that rediculous amount.
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Post by MCDemuth on Jul 5, 2017 0:22:59 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Jul 5, 2017 0:35:26 GMT
That's what, 33 dollars a month? That's almost three times what Netflix charges for a premium account to stream video.
They're out of their fucking minds. Nobody is ever going to go for that.
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Post by napanzee on Jul 5, 2017 3:36:04 GMT
From the site as of 7/4/17:
Free account : Each individual Member gets one free account that provides 2 GB of free storage or space available for your original photo files, or videos under 10min. The free account does not allow any image linking or 3rd party image hosting. If a free account Member exceeds their Content Limit, their account will be immediately suspended and they will need to become a “Paying Member” (defined below) in order to continue accessing their account. You can upgrade to a Plus account at any time.
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Post by nausea on Jul 5, 2017 17:11:40 GMT
100 percent anal all the time.
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Post by napanzee on Jul 5, 2017 23:22:37 GMT
100 percent anal all the time. You should work on that
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Post by Utpe on Jul 6, 2017 22:47:22 GMT
I sell stuff on eBay from time to time. I'm sure they host their own images. But, yeah, I'm not going to be paying $400/year for a subscription. That's unreasonable. At the most, it should be a monthly charge. What if I don't want it for an entire year? Maybe I need it for a few months, then that's it. Stupid. Imgur and the like is still free, so whatever. When everybody goes elsewhere, they're going to feel it. I don't think this yearly subscription shtick is going to be around for that long.
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Post by Sir_Farty_Fartsalot on Jul 6, 2017 23:33:26 GMT
Do you people still use Photobucket? It seems so 2005.
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Post by poelzig on Jul 7, 2017 1:22:30 GMT
They must be adopting the IMDb "we hate our users so never come back" business model.
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Post by sagenesse on Jul 7, 2017 5:41:58 GMT
Do you people still use Photobucket? It seems so 2005. I thought the same thing. Most people I know use social media for hosting like Facebook or Instagram. Even eBay hosts your photos for you or some like myself use Inkfrog for image hosting and listing management.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 7, 2017 5:48:28 GMT
$399 a year just to post pictures on forums? Are they crazy? People are just going to move over to other free image hosting websites. You can have your own website and forum for a lot less money that. I used to use Photo Bucket when I was a moderator on a music forum but now I use Post Image for all my photos and emoticons like this. 
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Post by MCDemuth on Jul 7, 2017 17:00:59 GMT
Everything IS quickly becoming a service, or a subscription, or "pay to access". Soon there won't be any place on the internet that isn't FREE. I can honestly believe that Facebook and Twitter could eventually start charging people to access their social media...
Money doesn't grow on trees. And people salaries usually don't increase every month. So, sooner or later EVERYONE is going to have to pick and choose what they want to be a part of... And when that happens the internet will fracture into millions of pieces.
At the rate we are going with having to pay for every little thing just to access the internet... Sooner or later, the Great Internet Collapse will come...
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Post by nicermog on Jul 7, 2017 23:50:00 GMT
The $399 certainly seems to be a ransom sort of thing. LinkedIn does a similar thing where they charge you for an annual subscription without additional prompt after hooking you in through the monthly trial. I guess maybe one out of 10 people would probably not beg for a refund and yay, more revenue.
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