Photobucket changes?

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kmw1954

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I just received an email from Photobucket about a change in use policy, has anyone else seen this?

It states that they will now allow free photo sharing starting Nov.1 but the pictures will have a Photobucket watermark on them. Interested in hearing from others about this. I never did delete my account, I just quit using it.

I never looked into a different app to use to post pictures to the forums so I just didn't do it. If PB becomes useable again I'll post pictures again.
 
Many of us quit using Photobucket when they effectively banned embedding photos for sharing. I guess that policy is hurting them and this is an attempt to keep some users without providing full sharing of photos. I have been using Imgur and have been satisfied with it.
 
I understand all the hullabaloo revolving around Photobucket and I understand many switched to different formats and hosting sites. For whatever it was or is at least for me it was easy to use.

There have been a few times since I came here that I would have liked to have posted a picture to illustrate an issue I was having or a solution that I had found but just wasn't equipped to do it because I didn't sign on to another hosting site.

Well I for one will wait to see what Nov. 1 brings.
 
kmw1954 said:
I understand all the hullabaloo revolving around Photobucket and I understand many switched to different formats and hosting sites. For whatever it was or is at least for me it was easy to use.

There have been a few times since I came here that I would have liked to have posted a picture to illustrate an issue I was having or a solution that I had found but just wasn't equipped to do it because I didn't sign on to another hosting site.

Well I for one will wait to see what Nov. 1 brings.
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If you haven't tried Imgur give it a shot, it's really not hard to use.

I for one, don't have an issue paying for my services. I actually prefer it for privacy and no advertising. Heck I already do so with my email server and domains. However what Photobucket was trying, was IMO akin to extortion, given the amounts they were asking for. They knew people had large libraries of previously uploaded material, and tried to take advantage of it. I doubt many people will be coming back.
 
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Photobucket effectively self-immolated. After their outrageous, extortionist demands for a huge price to do what had previously been free failed to generate any significant business, and instead resulted in many of their former customers/clients jumping ship, they have gone through an increasingly desperate series of lower -- but still too expensive -- pricing schemes that have failed to bring back any meaningful portion of their former client base. This is their last-ditch attempt at salvaging their business, and I doubt that it will work any better than the previous, ham-handed attempts.

Most people have either found other, free, sites to host their photos, or discovered that most forums today offer internal photo hosting by attachment so that external sites like Photobucket are now largely superfluous. The three forums I spend the most time on these days all allow me to post photos right on their sites -- I don't need Photobucket.

Also, Photobucket didn't count on the fact that there are clever people out there. It didn't take long after they introduced their "third party hosting" block for people to work out browser patches that by-passed the block and displayed the images anyway.

Photobucket is dead.
 
So all these comments of what Photobucket did in the past which is very clear to everyone, not trying to rehash all that. But the question is has anyone else seen what they are offering Today?

In my own defense I also belong to a boating forum that is heavy into boat restoration and have been there for many years. I have hundreds of photos posted there that were wiped out by photobuckets change in policy. Many of those posts are useless without the photos. So if this change will effect those posts and restore the pictures at least that's something.

I do not have a cell phone and also do not have tapatalk.
 
Many of those posts are useless without the photos. So if this change will effect those posts and restore the pictures at least that's something.
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I can certainly understand this. I tried editing some old posts on a couple of forums to link to the same images I moved to Imgur, but the forums did not allow editing of old posts. I don't recall if TFL does or not.
 
TFL allows editing posts for, I believe, 4 days.

If you have a specific post you want to edit to make photos available again, get in touch with one of the staff and we can help you make it happen.
 
kmw1954 said:
But the question is has anyone else seen what they are offering Today?
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Yes.

My attitude remains the same: Photobucket is dead. If they had played nice when they decided they needed to make more money, it might be different. At the time, they had well over a million subscribers. Think about it -- if they had charged ONE DOLLAR a month, they would have instantly boosted their income by $12 million per year. Instead, they went from FREE to $499 per year. That's $42 a month. And they did it with virtually no advance notice, obviously counting on the fact that people like you would have no choice other than to pay up.

They gambled, and they lost. Everything they've done since has been poorly-conceived attempts to salvage something from what had been their predominate position in the image hosting universe.

I've lost a lot of linked photos on automotive sites, too. Too bad, but the Jeep forum I'm on now allows me to host directly on that site, so I don't care. I left my photos on Photobucket just to use up space on their server. I haven't looked at my account there for well over a year.

"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."
 
Well that is an expression of opinion and you are certainly entitled to that. Not trying to change anyone mind just trying to find out the changes they have made. I now imagine most responses will be this same way.

Again I will wait until Nov 1 and see what it looks like seeing as it was free and I am out nothing other than an inconvenience. Guess I'm glad friends and family don't treat me this same way when I make mistakes.
 
What's that old saying about "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."
For everyone willing to forgive and forget, what are they going to pull on you next time ?
 
claydoctor that same sentiment can be applied to any business. Even employers pull BS on employees all the time so what are you supposed to do quit whenever they do?

Not going to argue over how completely stupid the decision was. I am sure they paid heavily for it. And not just their reputation.
 
kmw1954 said:
Well that is an expression of opinion and you are certainly entitled to that. Not trying to change anyone mind just trying to find out the changes they have made.
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I'm not trying to change anyone's mind, either. You asked a question, I answered it.

kmw1954 said:
Interested in hearing from others about this.
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The change is that they're going to impose a watermark over your photos. How big and how ugly the watermark will be won't be known until photos start showing up that have it.
 
So out of curiosity I checked out their plans, and all are now reasonably priced. I wish they had done this from the beginning, as there are now lots of broken links on forums.

If they restore these with the watermark, it would be a good thing.

KMW1954, since you never moved on, and had no desire to do so, I'd consider their lowest tier plan.
 
I get it that many feel completely burned by Photobucket and many will be forever miffed, not my intention to try and change that nor does it impact my thought process. The service was absolutely free at the time so I don't understand how everyone got in a bunch because they decided to charge for it. Granted the Fee was next to extortion and yes I felt the same way. If they would have done this with the fees they are charging today I believe many would have stayed and paid.

It also use to be that I could go to my local CABELA'S and buy primers off the shelf. Well since the buyout by BPS they haven't had primers in the store since February. So thing change!
 
It appears kmw1954 isn't going to get his bottom line question answered. Namely, what is the opinion of others on the watermark addition to existing images.

Since the answers so far have to do solely with the actions and overall opinions of another, relatively non-firearm related, website, we'll close this one for now.

As Mike said above, the Staff of TFL is willing to work with any member to edit some old posts with image link corrections. The key word in that sentence is "some", we are not going to edit a long list of posts, but if anyone has some images that need correcting in an informational post, let us know. Images of your favorite pistol, etc., don't fall into that category.
 
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