PhotoBucket news

[Carol the Dabbler]

Can't say right now, I'm on my phone.  All I've noticed is the message that appears within the edit/reply box.

Been meaning to say, it's nice to have some function buttons on the mobile version of the editor.  Not as many as with the full version, but a good basic set.

[Carol the Dabbler]

On 2/17/2018 at 11:54 PM, Carol the Dabbler said:

The saga continues to unfold.

I just got an email from PhotoBucket, saying this:

Quote

We have exciting changes on the horizon including a new plan for 2018. As a sneak peak, we are offering a preview of our latest plan that has increased benefits at a much lower price.

Check Out Our New Plans

You asked and we listened: Photobucket is launching a brand new website from the ground up with increased features, ease of use, and unrivaled performance.

Sounds like they may have noticed that their customers are pissed off, and that not many of them have signed up to pay $400/year for what they'd been getting for free.  That part about "increased benefits at a much lower price" got my attention.  We'll see how this pans out.

Added: See their actual offer here.  It's basically $100/year for what used to be free, but then jumped to $400/year.  Still not great, but I'm at least considering it.  It's "only" about twice what other sites are charging, and they've got my pictures.  On the other hand, there's the principle of the thing.  Maybe sign up for one year, during which I could gradually port my pictures over to another site?

 

Got another email from them today, with the subject line "We've created a new plan for users just like you."  Following the link to their website, it turns out to be the same $99.99 / year offer that I mentioned above.  But the page ends with this "user endorsement":

 

Have you seen this image on the internet?

 

 

Photobucket is the premier destination for 3rd Party Hosting.

 

Unless I'm seriously misreading that, the unmitigated bastards are actually using everybody's blocked images as advertising!  Any suspicions that they had finally seen the error of their way just got sucked down the ol' drain!

 

[Arcadia]

What do you want to bet you wouldn't get your photos back for that amount, either?

[Carol the Dabbler]

I'd like to bet that for that price, they'd damn well better make 'em work again! 

[Arcadia]

Sorry, they just sound like rip-off artists to me. I hope somebody successfully sues the pants off them. I hate companies that jerk people around just because they can.

[J.P.]

You still have an access to your photos. What you can't do though, is to download them in any other way than one by one, so if it's the only place you've stored them - you'll have a bit of work do do.

[Carol the Dabbler]

At the moment, that's exactly my situation, and it's free.   

But if I choose to pay $100/year, my account will once again work the way it used to.  I may decide to do that, at least for one year.  Thinking about it.

[Undead Medic]

If you navigate to that link for the "New" paid plans, then attempt to close the tab, a survey pops up asking why you aren't ready to purchase the plan...

Not that I'm suggesting that anyone should tell them exactly why, just pointing it out...

[Carol the Dabbler]

I notice that you still haven't gotten your signature banner back, Tim. 

[Carol the Dabbler]

After spending nearly a year smokin' somethin', Photobucket has finally rejoined the real world!  This showed up in my Inbox recently (and I finally got curious enough to actually read it today):

 

Hope they don't mind that I hotlinked to that! 

[Carol the Dabbler]

Yes, my photos are once more visible!  (For example, see my N. Gower St. filming thread.)

Apparently last year's new CEO is out on his ear (or back in the asylum).

Hell, yes, I will pay $19.99 for a year!  If they'd made that offer in the first place (and not locked my photos without warning), I'd have been happy to pay back then.  I'm wondering exactly what they mean by "for a limited time," but whatever it is, I can deal with it next year.  Added May 2021:  It apparently meant "for three years."

[J.P.]

Well, TOO LATE!

[Arcadia]

My feeling exactly. Stuff 'em and find someone else.  

I would like to know the behind the scenes story on this one, though.

[Carol the Dabbler]

Trouble is, Photobucket finally has what I've been looking for, and I'm not aware of any other image-hosting site that does.  I do wish they hadn't been such buttheads for the past year, but they've apparently replaced the actual buttheads with sensible people.  Plus they already have my pictures -- and have turned them back on without waiting for me to pay anything.  That strikes me as a good-faith gesture.  So I'm willing to give 'em another go.  I think/hope they're too smart to try any more funny business.

Probably the worst that could happen is that they waited too long to shape up and most of their customers have already gone elsewhere, so they go out of business.  But meanwhile I can download the photos that I've used here into meaningful folders, e.g., the photos from the N. Gower thread.

[Arcadia]

Found an article about it; didn't have the lowdown on the CEOs I was looking for, but I did notice this:

Quote

The new prices start at $1.99 per month for 10 gigabytes of images stored and rise to $3.99 monthly for 20 gigabytes and $8.99 for two terabytes of storage. All the plans enable third-party hosting for a $2.49 monthly add-on price.

Emphasis mine. 

I guess if this works all the other image hosting sites will follow suit. Phooey.

[J.P.]

If "Third party hosting" means hotlinking, the fee is high. Will the other sites follow? It depends of the customers' reactions.
I did delete my account.

[Carol the Dabbler]

That's from some business news site?  Yeah, I saw that.  The special offer I signed up for includes third-party hosting at $19.99/year, which i consider reasonable.  They should be posting their regular rates on their website fairly soon (right now it still shows last year's asinine rates), and then I'll decide whether I want to renew next year.  If that article is accurate, I doubt that I will.

What puzzles me is, why isn't this all over the internet by now?  All I could find last night was that one article and one tweet from someone who's delighted that her pictures suddenly reappeared.

[J.P.]

Maybe because you are the only user who actually didn't left

[Carol the Dabbler]

That's possible! 

If I hadn't been so busy this past year, I would probably have found another hosting site by now.  So the only people left are the ones who haven't wanted/needed to get at their pictures -- and how many of that sort will be willing to pay?  I hope for my own sake that there are enough of us that they can stay in business.

[Arcadia]

You are more generous than I. After that stunt, I'd be happy to see them go out of business as a warning to others. I'm not anti-business, but I am anti arrogant business practices.

[Carol the Dabbler]

Assuming that they really have booted out the buttheads, wouldn't that be a bit like blaming you for what the previous owners of your house did?

Of course, if they'd like to go out of business, that's up to them -- though I do hope they'd wait till I get my photos sorted and downloaded.

 

[Arcadia]

Not sure, think it might depend on what the previous owner did. 

I guess I just don't think their "apology" is abject enough.

[Carol the Dabbler]

Hang on, what exactly did they say?  Lemme go check....

"Photobucket has a new management team that wants to do the right thing."  That sounds to me like an acknowledgement that the old management team did the wrong thing.

"We are committed to earning back your trust."  Sounds like they're acknowledging that the aforementioned wrong thing lost them their customers' trust.

And they turned everybody's pictures back on without waiting for any payment.  Seems to me like they're trying to make amends.

If they out-and-out said "Our former CEO was lowlife scum who violated everyone's trust and tried to milk them for every dollar possible by holding their photographs for ransom," they might be asking for a lawsuit.  But they came close enough to satisfy me.

[Artemis]

Too late, they already lost me.  I was unable to either download or delete my photos after the change, so I just left them there, and resigned myself to giving them up.  Having long since adjusted to the disappointment, this news does not excite me, and I'm entirely apathetic to their apology.

 

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

3 hours ago, Artemis said:

Too late, they already lost me.  I was unable to either download or delete my photos after the change, so I just left them there, and resigned myself to giving them up.  Having long since adjusted to the disappointment, this news does not excite me, and I'm entirely apathetic to their apology.

I suspect that Photobucket may be unpleasantly surprised to learn how many of their "members" share that opinion.

What I'm trying to figure out is why they offer so much storage with their basic membership.  What would I do with ten gig?  I have absolutely no intention of storing all my photos online, not with one-gig flash drives so cheap.  What I need is bandwidth for hotlinking.  I have no idea how much of that I need -- probably more than I'd think, considering how many lurkers this forum has, but still not a lot.  As for storage capacity, here are my typical photo sizes:

1. From our digital camera:  110 Kbytes

2. From my cell phone:  240 Kbytes

3.  Regular screencap:  80 Kbytes

4.  Hi-def screencap:  290 Kbytes

So let's imagine that I somehow acquire 1,000 of each type, meaning that the Kbytes turn into megabytes.  That totals 720 meg, or  .72 gig.  What am I supposed to do with the other 9.28 gig?