Photobucket - What is going on?

[JJGraphics]

Just Googled  `changes to Photobucket` and  `we`re all doomed`  Any third party links to forums will be charged.

 

Photobucket account deleted forever.........

 

Have duplicated with:-

 

Google Drive.

 

FLIKR

 

Imgur.com

 

The trusty  ol`  Memory Stick.

 

 

Don't trust a memory stick! They are not reliable and can easily be corrupted.

 

"Cloud" services can also have serious problems or may just disappear (or become extortionists as we have seen). One of my former clients who would not listen to me about backups and though he was being "cool" by using the Cloud lost a vast amount of his data when a Cloud company went bust several years ago. His company subsequently failed because of this loss and he is still fighting with HMRC as all his accounts data went south at the same time.

 

Burn your photo collections to DVD (preferably two copies) and store them in different places or store the collections on duplicate removable drives and store them in two different places.

 

John

[pylonman]

Why not look into storing your photo's on a Personal Cloud device ?

 

I have a Western Digital Personal Cloud device coupled to my home network.  It is 3TB in capacity, and stores tens, possibly hundreds of thousands of photo's, plus my very extensive music collection, and all my personal documents, and my son and daughters University work.

 

And with all of that on board I haven't even started to make a dent in its' capacity.

 

Doing it this way leaves me totally in control of what is my property ; nobody can demand any money off me, I have no contracts, my property is available to me whenever I want.

 

If I add photo's or music to my computer, it is automatically backed up to the Personal Cloud.

 

The drive cost about £250 for the peace-of-mind that my digital info is safe, instead of paying what sounds like a very dubious outfit through the nose, for "protection" that you don't need because you can do it yourself.

[big jim]

Being a Photobucket member is a bit like being in death row and getting last minute reprieves!

 

My picture are still live

[martin_wynne]

Don't trust a memory stick! They are not reliable and can easily be corrupted.

 

Like most things -- with USB memory sticks you get what you pay for.

 

They are used reliably in industrial and medical equipment, see:

 

 https://www.amtron.com/USB_flash_disk.htm

 

but obviously they cost a lot more.

 

Martin.

[Ian J.]

Many years ago I had one or two flash drives have problems, but (touch wood) I've not had any issues with the 'many' that I have, and that's been the case for a number of years now.

 

You can currently get WD My Cloud drives of 6TB size for about £210 online (6TB is the 'sweet spot' for £/TB - there are 8TB ones but the price per TB goes up.). If you buy two (or more) of them, one can be used as a direct mirror copy of the other, allowing a basic back up for a 'live' My Cloud drive.

 

Edit: price to 210 from 200, on amazon.co.uk

Edited July 2, 2017 by Ian J.

[APOLLO]

 There are free programs available to those who care to look that will re-size images, quite apart from the facility that was available on (or through) RMWeb itself last time I looked.

 

I use IrfanView to resize my photos I directly post on here. Free to download & simple to use.

 

Brit15

[pylonman]

There is a risk involved when using any type of electronic storage for important or valuable data, e.g. photo's

 

I learnt the hard way, having "lost" 40 years worth of family photo's when the hard drive on my computer packed in.

 

Luckily, 6 months previously, I had backed up all my music, photo's etc. to a usb hard drive, and having sorted out the hard drive problem,

I was then able to transfer the lost files to the new hard drive.  As double protection, I also backed up the files to a usb pen drive.

 

The only lasting result of this hard drive failure was the loss of the photo's from one holiday.

 

I learnt the hard way and invested in a personal cloud device, which has served me well so far.

 

I take the point, previously made, that a home network could be prone to cyber attack if passwords are left at default settings, but then it is up to the user to make sure

that the passwords are not left at default, which will go a large part of the way to defeating a hacker.

 

As I said at the beginning, no method of electronic storage is 100% reliable and safe ; the only thing that can be done is to reduce the risks by multiple storage methods.

 

Handing over $100's of dollars to people who then have you "by the short and curleys" is not the answer.

[APOLLO]

Small firm I worked for had immense problems when the server / storage packed up - no backup - lots and lots of work by everyone turned the situation around - but it was touch & go. I learned a valuable lesson regarding my home computer that day - Backup everything at least twice. Terabyte USB hard drives are relatively cheap to buy and dead easy to use. I have one at the side of my computer, and one in the garage that I back up weekly.

 

Storage on the cloud / Photobucket / Flickr ? - no problem SO LONG as you have separate backup.

 

Brit15

[martin_wynne]

One oddity is that the replacement image they are serving is still 170KB. That's enough to display a reasonable-quality photo from the link, so they are not saving anything on bandwidth costs.

 

I converted it to 8-bit indexed PNG format, and got it down to 30KB:

Starting from scratch without a fuzzy image, it could be done in 5KB.

 

Do they know what they are doing?

 

Martin.

 

 

[chaz]

It's a shame that there is an outbreak of vitriol in this topic. People are entitled to express their opinions (even when they are wrong), as other people are allowed to express a contrary point of view, of course. If that wasn't the case there would little point in a forum BUT can we all remain polite and considerate please? There is certainly no need for personal abuse - it's a real turn off for those of us who are trying to share opinions or get advice.  I'll shut up now.

 

Chaz

[eastwestdivide]

I suspect a lot of the vitriol could have been avoided: 

a. if PB had given any advance notice to users of the change to their T+Cs

and

b. if they had used a clearer message on the replacement image, such as "the owner of this photo needs to upgrade". 

 

As it appears,

a. they just flicked a switch, and the first thing users know is their embedded photos have been replaced by a request to update.

and

b. I've seen users on other forums erroneously thinking they need to upgrade somehow, just to view the forum on which other people's photos are posted.

[chaz]

I suspect a lot of the vitriol could have been avoided: 

a. if PB had given any advance notice to users of the change to their T+Cs

and

b. if they had used a clearer message on the replacement image, such as "the owner of this photo needs to upgrade". 

 

As it appears,

a. they just flicked a switch, and the first thing users know is their embedded photos have been replaced by a request to update.

and

b. I've seen users on other forums erroneously thinking they need to upgrade somehow, just to view the forum on which other people's photos are posted.

 

 

You may well be right - I felt pretty cross myself when I realized the full implication of PB's sharp practice. But I still think that we can be polite and considerate to each other. 

 

Incidentally I am firmly of the opinion that the best way to register our contempt for PB is to delete all our photo's and close our accounts, as I see from reading earlier posts in this topic many have done. When I closed my account I was "required" to give a reason. Rest assured that I left them in no doubt why I was doing so - but I didn't swear at them (tempted though I was)  - I had no intention of putting myself in the wrong.

 

Chaz

[Ruston]

To everyone who is deleting all their photos and then closing their accounts - if you, as I haven't, don't already have copies then you can download your albums. Despite what I posted, yesterday, I have had another go and have succesfully downloaded one of my largest albums.

 

Once I have retrieved all of my photos I will be sticking two fingers up to Photobucket and will delete and close my account.

[PaulRhB]

Well that's odd, in the Heljan topic 2 out of 4 images have reappeared but leaving two clocks!

So I'm over the limit for some images in one post but not others?

[martin_wynne]

Well that's odd, in the Heljan topic 2 out of 4 images have reappeared but leaving two clocks!

So I'm over the limit for some images in one post but not others?

 

That's feasible if the bandwidth limit is applied per image. Presumably you have posted the missing images elsewhere? And they have been clicked or displayed too many times.

 

Martin.

[PaulRhB]

That's feasible if the bandwidth limit is applied per image. Presumably you have posted the missing images elsewhere? And they have been clicked or displayed too many times.

 

Martin.

The theory is fine up to they were over bandwidth yesterday and are missing in the other topic I used them in on NGRM!

Something screwy going on.

[Oldddudders]

 

Do they know what they are doing?

 

Martin.

  

Well that's odd, in the Heljan topic 2 out of 4 images have reappeared but leaving two clocks!

So I'm over the limit for some images in one post but not others?

 

I think Martin's case rests!

[chaz]

Does it really matter if PB's service is chaotic, illogical, silly etc? The damage is done. I do feel sorry for those people who might have trusted this outfit as the only repository of their photos if they can't get them back, but the lesson is clear. If they can't be trusted, don't do it.

 

Chaz

[2mmMark]

Posted on the NG forum but bears repeating here.

 

I would strongly advise people not to pay any money to Photobucket.  Their current move may put them out of business, or so damage them reputationally that they will eventually fold.

 

Like many, I'm really struggling to understand the logic of their sudden decision. Normally there's some notice of this, assuming the company is functional. Ok, if they'd given some notice, there would have been a period where users unwilling to pay would have left but as has been said, making a reasonable charge comparable with other hosting providers would have tempted people to remain.

 

A few years back, the UK site Fotopic abruptly folded, taking many thousands of photos with it.  It was some time before the site was opened up to allow people to retrieve their images.  I recall a hosting dispute was behind that situation.

 

This does again illustrate the fragility of digital information. The only person I trust with my data is me and even then I have my doubts!

 

Mark

[Talltim]

I've found the easiest way to reduce image sizes on my phone is to open the image in the image viewer and screenshot it and then crop the phone Ui off the resulting image.

It doesn't give you any control of resolution/size but the resulting images seem OK when viewed on a monitor and they were small enough to fit RMWeb's previous image size limit although that isn't really an issue (for users) any more

Example

Edited July 3, 2017 by Talltim

[pylonman]

Hooray for Talltim.

 

A photograph everyone can see !!

[chaz]

Posted on the NG forum but bears repeating here.

 

I would strongly advise people not to pay any money to Photobucket.  Their current move may put them out of business, or so damage them reputationally that they will eventually fold.

 

Like many, I'm really struggling to understand the logic of their sudden decision. Normally there's some notice of this, assuming the company is functional. Ok, if they'd given some notice, there would have been a period where users unwilling to pay would have left but as has been said, making a reasonable charge comparable with other hosting providers would have tempted people to remain.

 

A few years back, the UK site Fotopic abruptly folded, taking many thousands of photos with it.  It was some time before the site was opened up to allow people to retrieve their images.  I recall a hosting dispute was behind that situation.

 

This does again illustrate the fragility of digital information. The only person I trust with my data is me and even then I have my doubts!

 

Mark

 

 

I agree with you. I would suggest that the motive they had for the change in T & Cs was that they thought they had a captive client base that wouldn't want to lose the 3rd party hosting facility and would therefore pay up.  No Sir!

 

I don't look on it it as cutting my noise off to spite my face - it's not giving in to blackmail. If you are right in your suggestion that PB will eventually go under there will be no tears shed from us.

 

Chaz

Edited July 3, 2017 by chaz

[PaulRhB]

I've found the easiest way to reduce image sizes on my phone is to open the image in the image viewer and screenshot it and then crop the phone Ui off the resulting image.

It doesn't give you any control of resolution/size but the resulting images seem OK when viewed on a monitor and they were small enough to fit RMWeb's previous image size limit although that isn't really an issue (for users) any more

Example

IMG_1306.PNG

Or just email them to yourself on an iPhone and choose large rather than actual size and you can reduce them faster for batches.

 

Select pics

 

Select mail

 

Choose large, download pics from the email and all are resized in one go

 

Edited July 3, 2017 by PaulRhB

[Torper]

I assume that this is a business decision that Photobucket have reached because they're not making any money.  I imagine that when Photobucket was set up they anticipated making their money from advertisers - customers would link their photos to Photobucket, and when people followed that link to view the photos they'd also see an advert on the PB site.  Everyone, PB thought, would be happy, including most importantly their source of revenue, their advertisers.  They probably didn't anticipate the number of people who, rather than linking, instead embeded their photos in third party sites which meant that PB's bandwidth and storage was being used but no-one was going to PB's own site to see the adverts.  Moreover, many of those who did go to PB's site have adblockers so weren't seeing the ads.  As a result, advertisers aren't happy and advertising revenue slumps to such an extent that PB is not making any (or enough) profit and instead sees people taking unfair advantage of its services.

 

But why such a heavy price as $399?  That seems daft initially, and I can only think that PB wants to revert to its original model, even if it means losing millions of customers who aren't contributing to its revenue stream in any way whatever and indeed could be said to be actually harming it.  And we don't know what their bankers may have said to them.  Or we may see a complete change of direction by PB.  I suppose if a free service is exploited in such a way that it is no longer viable, then the outcome is pretty inevitable.

 

DT

Edited July 3, 2017 by Torper

[PaulRhB]

Turns out I did get a message that they had done it at 05:20 this morning!

IMG_8587.PNG

So I said bye bye

Well it would have been nice to warn people you were going to introduce fees to show their existing linked photos.

As there was no warning and it is effectively blackmail to even access your own images on the site I am not going to pay a company that treats its users this way. If I'd been given an option in advance then I probably would have subscribed to keep numerous forum topics going but as you've been so crass in dropping this without even an email message I'll move elsewhere.

I hope your new move is a resounding failure.

Good day!

And photof*****'s response?