Photobucket

[Ace-Garageguy]

I have always contended that high technology so-called is in fact crude, complex, unwieldy and expensive. It has been facilitated by an ever-declining interest rate trend which has cheapened capital and facilitated promises made to consumers that these companies eventually cannot keep. Technology is "front loaded" with huge capital costs just to get in and play. Then, as it turns out, many of the underlying structures are complicated and unreliable and require enormous staffs of skilled coders just to keep things from blowing up. So even from an operational point of view, many of these companies are inefficient and expensive to run. Because of access to cheap capital there aren't currently even any barriers to entry in terms of infrastructure. So vicious "me-too" competition drives these "network effect" models where the whole goal is to promise users the moon in the hopes of getting enough of them to use your service to justify the huge capital and operational costs. What we may be seeing here is the "network effect" in reverse....

EXACTLY.

And...I've been a paid PB user for several years. I haven't had the e-mail yet, and my photos still post normally. 

If / when I get the message, I WILL begin to look into filing a class action suit. One of my clients is an attorney who's made millions going after retarded stuff that does harm to lots of people.To come out of the blue like this and freeze access to countless forum users is beyond belief...still assuming it's not a hack.

Hacking IS very sophisticated, and there have been countless spoof emails floated from Ebay, PayPal and others for years. Somebody with access to the PB code could EASILY change what appears on the site, and lock the real admins out, so I'll suspend judgement for a while.

If the PB management actually thinks they have any future as a photo-hosting site that forbids linking to forums, they must be smoking something really outrageous. The one-year subscription fee for the non-linking plans could buy you all the home storage you could ever use, so they have no hope of making a viable business case as a storage-only venue. They will die as a viable business entity.

And if this IS a legit total brain fart on the part of the PB management, whoever stays in the photo-hosting game for a reasonable amount of money-per-year is going to see their business grow fantastically.

[crazyjim]

Very strange because I can see the pics when I go to my post.  Trying to figure out Flickr.

[PatW]

Yes they've hit me this week, the same as above! I have a pop up on Photobucket that tells me they want $9.99 per month, I'm in the UK so how much is that in real money! Fotki want the same so it looks like I'm about to close down on all the websites I send to (7) !!! I'm a pensioner so that's killed my modelling!  And showing it on all websites! 

[crazyjim]

Need some assistance with Flickr.  I uploaded some pics and made an album.  What do I do to put the pics into a post here?

[Ace-Garageguy]

Here's what PC MAG has to say today...be sure to read the comments.

https://www.pcmag.com/news/354711/photobucket-breaks-image-links-across-the-internet

This seems to be the internet-wide response to the issue at hand...(from the comments under the pcmag article referenced above):

"If you have used Photobucket (and I do), then you know their technical prowess is very weak. Their website fails a lot, there is no usable tech support whatsoever, and they have steadily made their site less and less efficient over the years by overburdening it with a fancier and fancier, more animated user interface that is far more cumbersome and much less useful than it was 5 or 10 years ago.

So don't expect them to have the brains to realize how stupid this move was. They will go out of business. Their "new customers per month" number just went to zero, for starters. Anyone who goes to Photobucket today and realizes they can't post links to their photos elsewhere on the internet is going to move on to some other service. And every single one of their existing customers is scrambling to download all their stuff even as I type this so they can move it to another service.

Even if they revise their policy, they are probably doomed. Would YOU stay there, once they did this? I would probably keep my existing photos on their for a while, but I would start hosting everything new at another service. And that means that over time, their customer base will trickle down to zero."

Edited June 30, 2017 by Ace-Garageguy

[gotnitro?]

test..

https://www.flickr.com/photos/156194756@N07/shares/8rV8P7

Edited June 30, 2017 by gotnitro?

[gotnitro?]

fail no pic must be missing something..

[Joe Handley]

I'll say this guy is right on the money here.....................

iffydiffy

• 5 hours ago

If you have used Photobucket (and I do), then you know their technical prowess is very weak. Their website fails a lot, there is no usable tech support whatsoever, and they have steadily made their site less and less efficient over the years by overburdening it with a fancier and fancier, more animated user interface that is far more cumbersome and much less useful than it was 5 or 10 years ago.

So don't expect them to have the brains to realize how stupid this move was. They will go out of business. Their "new customers per month" number just went to zero, for starters. Anyone who goes to Photobucket today and realizes they can't post links to their photos elsewhere on the internet is going to move on to some other service. And every single one of their existing customers is scrambling to download all their stuff even as I type this so they can move it to another service.

Even if they revise their policy, they are probably doomed. Would YOU stay there, once they did this? I would probably keep my existing photos on their for a while, but I would start hosting everything new at another service. And that means that over time, their customer base will trickle down to zero.

[ChrisBcritter]

I received a PM asking me about using Flickr to post images; I posted a little tutorial in another thread a while back:

Hope this helps - it's on Page 3 of the thread. It's pretty easy once you get the hang of it.

[crazyjim]

Looks like we have the same problem, Jeff.  I'm new at Flickr.

[Joe Handley]

test..

https://www.flickr.com/photos/156194756@N07/shares/8rV8P7

 

fail no pic must be missing something..

Use surround that with [ img ] [ / img ] without the spaces and it'll be fine, I usually type that and past the address into the  middle between what I typed.

Edited June 30, 2017 by Joe Handley

[crazyjim]

I received a PM asking me about using Flickr to post images; I posted a little tutorial in another thread a while back:

Hope this helps - it's on Page 3 of the thread. It's pretty easy once you get the hang of it.

I followed the directions but was only able to do 2 pics.  After that the "copy image location" did nothing.  Maybe Flickr has issues too?

[gotnitro?]

 

Use surround that with [ img ] [ / img ] without the spaces and it'll be fine, I usually type that and past the address into the  middle between what I typed.

thanks joe..so since I'm barely computer literate, if I type the img before and at the end ofpasting the image from Flickr everything should work?  I thought before using fotki there was a different icon we used to attach the pics. Hoped this was similar. 

[Ace-Garageguy]

I have been doing extensive reading all over the web on this idiotic mess, and MANY PB USERS ARE SAYING THEY CAN'T EVEN GET IN TO DOWNLOAD THEIR OWN PHOTOS.

Here's one...

http://www.laurenwayne.com/2017/06/photobucket-phail-how-to-ruin-host-site.html

[Nacho Z]

I am an Admin. on a small model forum.  I just went and looked through a number of threads and sure enough, many, many missing pictures.  I get the whole "they are a business thing", I really do.  I am just baffled over how they go about their business "plan".  As with so many things in this world, I'm sure they will get what they deserve, (and that can be taken any way you'd like).

[ChrisBcritter]

I followed the directions but was only able to do 2 pics.  After that the "copy image location" did nothing.  Maybe Flickr has issues too?

Once in a while it gets slow for me, but that could be my computer. It does sometimes have issues uploading GIFs.

[Can-Con]

I have one thing to say ,, "Those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it". 

[Olskoolrodder]

I'll say this guy is right on the money here.....................

I second that (and I did indeed spend a few hours today saving my Pee-Bucket pics onto the hard drive while I look into other options,deleted 3 of 6 Pee-Bucket accts we have between the wife,2 kids and myself---one of them took me over 30 minutes just to login due to the site being so scewed up,smh)

Edited July 1, 2017 by Olskoolrodder

[Silver Foxx]

I also received an email from Photo Buck stating something about signing up to an account to get my pics restored , they also stated excess usage ( about 3 posts in a month ) , so please understand if you do not see me here for a while because I do not like to be treated this way by Photo Buck , as soon as I work out another way I will be back . Cheers .

[highway]

I just created an Imgur account, only one pic uploaded to it and it's already much better (and easier) than Idiotbucket!! 

[Ace-Garageguy]

P-bucket has shot itself in the head. These responses are typical (click the link below) and everyone who has half a brain (and who has their photos backed up on their own drives) is leaving.

I'm still wondering if this isn't an elaborate hack though. It's hard to imagine any business management team being SO unbelievably stupid as to think that this could possibly work for them. But then again, welcome to the Idiocracy.

http://blog.photobucket.com/status/comment-page-2/

Edited July 1, 2017 by Ace-Garageguy

[Jordan White]

I'm still wondering if this isn't an elaborate hack though. It's hard to imagine any business management team being SO unbelievably stupid as to think that this could possibly work for them. But then again, welcome to the Idiocracy.

Well unless the hackers went in and changed their terms of service on the website, I'm guessing it's legit stupidity.

Edited July 1, 2017 by Jordan White

[Ace-Garageguy]

Well unless the hackers went in and changed their terms of service on the website, I'm guessing it's legit stupidity.

Anybody who has access to the PB code, or has had recently, or has been able to crack the passwords necessary to get in to modify the site code, can easily change the "terms of service" on the site, or anything else, and lock the legit admins out of the system completely.

A few tears back, a PB employee was arrested and convicted of stealing "secure" user info from PB to exploit for financial gain.

[Xingu]

My gut says it is legit. I guess it will not affect me until my plan renews in March 2018, I checked and I have the old 20 Plus account. I used to have an Unlimited account which might explain why I have about 15GB in a 20GB account and it says I am only using 0.10% of my storage space. Those guys are clearly not the sharpest knives in the drawer.

[mr68gts]

I don't know. I just went there right now and the website is having some serious issues! I did manage to read the TOS though and the 2 top tier plans allow unlimited linking. I have to keep refreshing the page to get my pics to load so the servers must be busy with the mass exodus of people jumping ship and pulling their photos lol. I've started the process of downloading my albums. I don't mind paying for service but what they are asking is ridiculous!