July 16, 2017 - 4:30pm
Photobucket woes
Photobucket's recent move to monetize "third-party hosting" is along the lines of a congressional pay raise: quietly implemented and then the bill comes due. It means that nearly all of the photos that I have posted here on TFL have been replaced with an ugly notice. So, I shall be moving to a different host that doesn't require me to pay $399 (U.S.) each year just to show you my successes and flops. Grrr!
It will probably take some time but I hope that I can restore all of the photos here.
I hope that none of you are in the same boat.
Paul
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as you found out. I thought I had it beat by linking my posts to my pictures on Facebook but I discovered that after a while, the picture no longer shows up on TFL even though it is still on Facebook. So now, I try to just have a picture at the top that is directly uploaded and limit the rest.
Hi, Paul:
Sorry to hear about the inconvenience you've encountered. I've always thought these "free" photo hosting services are iffy. I initially used Flickr to share pictures with TFL but wasn't happy with it. Then I switched to Blogger and have used it as an album to store my shared pictures. So far it has worked out well. Feeling smart for having the upper hand!
Yippee
and it's going to happen more and more. The simple fact is that "cloud" means nothing more than "someone elses computer" and that someone else has to pay for that computer, so most systems like this offset that cost with advertising ... which is bypassed when you link just to the photo from elsewhere.
I do think Photobucket missed an opportunity though - a much lower tier (probably under $50 a year) would have kept a far bigger portion of their customer base, but there you are.
There are plenty other sites, but my suspicion is that most will eventually go this way (subscription fees), or just block off-site linking.
FWIW: I've been involved using and running an ISP/sysadmin/hosting/"Internet Stuff" for over 25 years now, as well as making & selling bread, and I'm not sure what I'd suggest. I think TFL allows uploading images here, but then space here will be limited and the sites cost is supplemented by advertising. Images that I post here come off my own servers (previously owned by me, but now rented by me, so no issues with them closing, or forcing advertising) but I appreciate that not everyone can do that. A VPS/Cloud Server is relatively cheap these days, but the knowledge to use it may be somewhat expensive in terms of time to learn how to do it.
-Gordon