Hostage of Photobucket

[BakerBoy]

Doing a quick search on this topic, I found the following couple articles with some interesting insight and some slant:

July 6: https://www.denverpost.com/2017/07/06/photobucket-complaints-over-charging/

July 16: https://www.denverpost.com/2017/07/16/photobucket-fee-hike/

I don't agree with PB's approach, but it appears to be paying off (revenues have doubled, per the July 16 article).

 

[Bill Lumberg]

I may or may not use a photo hosting service moving forward. But it definitely won't be photobucket.

 

[Fred W]

Doing a quick search on this topic, I found the following couple articles with some interesting insight and some slant:
July 6: https://www.denverpost.com/2017/07/06/photobucket-complaints-over-charging/

July 16: https://www.denverpost.com/2017/07/16/photobucket-fee-hike/

I don't agree with PB's approach, but it appears to be paying off (revenues have doubled, per the July 16 article).

Those articles say essentially what I have been saying: Giving away photo hosting is no way to make money. The problem is they went too far with the pricing. In the second article they surmise that the only ones that will pay the exorbitant subscription rate will be businesses, which I tend to agree with. They claim their revenue has doubled, but I'm a bit skeptical of that claim in such a short time. I suspect that any added revenue stream will be short lived as those businesses that were ransomed will find cheaper alternatives for their image hosting.

That said, I created a Flickr account and played around with it. You may be able to share images but I do not see how to 3rd Party host those images. Same is true in Google Images.

About the only decent option right now seems to be Smugmug, which is a subscription service, albeit at a reasonable rate. But, what is to keep them from raising their rates in the future? Now that the "free service" is gone, will there be an escalating price war among those providing the service. Photobucket's move has certainly created an instant market for paid photo hosting services.

 

[RossKean]

That said, I created a Flickr account and played around with it. You may be able to share images but I do not see how to 3rd Party host those images. Same is true in Google Images.

No problem with Flickr...

Look at the image you want. In the desktop app, there is a right-facing arrow at the bottom for sharing. Click it, select BBCode and the image size you want. Copy the string and simply paste into your post. Remove all of the stuff on either side of the two img tags. No need to use any of the forum posting tools.

 

[rbentnail]

I signed up with flickr but can't figure out how to sign in

. It just keeps sending me to the Yahoo! email sign in page and when I sign in to my Yahoo! email an error page pops up.

 

[eflyguy]

Has anyone here set up Amazon Prime Photo Storage?

I'm wondering if you can embed from that...

 

[08FJR4ME]

I am now using Imgur. Seems fairly easy to use and it's free.

Dave

 

[russperry]

I am now using Imgur. Seems fairly easy to use and it's free (for now)

updated....

 

[rbentnail]

I am now using Imgur. Seems fairly easy to use and it's free.
Dave

I looked at imgur. Attempted about half a dozen times to create and name an album, never got it to work. Their help was no help. Got frustrated by my stupidity and deleted my account.

 

[Fred W]

I thought that I had posted this before, but if you read imgur's terms of service it explicitly forbids 3rd party hosting. That is grounds for termination of your account. I wouldn't want to spend too much time migrating there for that reason.

 

[Knifemaker]

Been using Postimage without any issues.

https://postimages.org

They tell you up front they "are not responsible for your images" and by uploading them you relinquish ownership of them. Which is fine with me...as they do allow 3rd party hosting.

 

[08FJR4ME]

I thought that I had posted this before, but if you read imgur's terms of service it explicitly forbids 3rd party hosting. That is grounds for termination of your account. I wouldn't want to spend too much time migrating there for that reason.

Must have missed that. I will check it out but they didn't seem to have much info on how there site works. Not even shore how they make money.

Dave

 

[Northwoods Snowman]

Odd, I looked at one of my old trailer build threads and the pictures work on the computer. When I view it on the phone I get PB's ransom picture.

 

[bigjohnsd]

Smugmug for me, paid $70 for the first year

 

[puppychow]

I think I am going the Google Drive route.

I looked into setting up my own server etc etc, money wasn't the issue, but it came down to time. I don't really have the time to set it up and upkeep and maintenance.

 

[Fred W]

Tried Google Drive and Google Images. In both cases the links they create to share the images are not in a format that the forums I participate in allow for inline image posting. In other words, you can post the link to the images, but cannot insert the images into your posts.

Still looking for the best solution. Will play with Flickr some more.

edit - Just signed up for a PostImage.org account. That seems to work fine. Went in and edited a ride report I had done last month over on ADVriders and I have to say that was pretty painful. I'll probably just start using PostImage (for free) and let my Photobucket account languish as it is.

 

[eflyguy]

Google-hosted images are often only available to those with google accounts - at least that's been my experience.

Odd, I looked at one of my old trailer build threads and the pictures work on the computer. When I view it on the phone I get PB's ransom picture.

You're probably logged into your account on your computer, but not on your phone. YOU can see your images, but nobody else can.

 

[RossKean]

Tried Google Drive and Google Images. In both cases the links they create to share the images are not in a format that the forums I participate in allow for inline image posting. In other words, you can post the link to the images, but cannot insert the images into your posts.
Still looking for the best solution. Will play with Flickr some more.

Flickr has (so far) worked seamlessly for me (as per my post, above). I am not counting on it working forever as I expect that other hosting services with take a lesson from Photobucket. I like the way it works and the ability to change the posted image size. You have to edit the BBCode string to get it to post without extraneous text and to keep clicking the photo from direct linking to your Flickr site. As I mentioned, paste the string into your post and delete everything to the left of the first img tag and everything to the right of the second img tag.

Perhaps some of these service-providers will get some smarts and offer a low cost service for people like me who are interested in low volume (space) and low bandwidth in order to post a few photos on internet forums.

 

[eflyguy]

Flickr was the best one I used. The site is easy to use, there are plugins for my photo apps on my laptop that allow easy management of the online content, and the apps on the phone work well.

 

[Northwoods Snowman]

Google-hosted images are often only available to those with google accounts - at least that's been my experience.

Odd, I looked at one of my old trailer build threads and the pictures work on the computer. When I view it on the phone I get PB's ransom picture.

You're probably logged into your account on your computer, but not on your phone. YOU can see your images, but nobody else can.

That's messed up.