For users of Photobucket

[nab]

I wonder who their target market is. Most of us on here use their site for free to upload images to show others. Surely the money from ads isn't enough to sustain their costs? Are commercial users using these types of sites or do they just invest in their own storage?

[Bird]

I wonder who their target market is. Most of us on here use their site for free to upload images to show others. Surely the money from ads isn't enough to sustain their costs? Are commercial users using these types of sites or do they just invest in their own storage?

I've been trying to figure out the target market too...
even your local fruit shop/dentists' website would have their own space, not using some Shithole like this!

But remember 23 million unique users per month x 10 ads/videos per every click =...

[Chris.]

I think you're naive to think that PB haven't countered on this upheaval from its users. A company as big as PB would have expected as much, whatever decision was made had a lot of thought put into it & they would be well aware of what they're doing & what their long term plan is.

[D4D]

http://www.news.com.au/finance/business/technology/amazon-ebay-images-held-to-ransom-by-photobucket/news-story/f5b3efdaa1dfd7cb5c9a62e6ec2520c6

[xcvator]

Do the math on this and you'll see what they're up to
registered users       400,000,000 
If they lose 90%       360,000,000
balance                      40,000,000  @ $400-00 pa =  $1600,000,000

or

registered users        400,000,000
if they lose 99%         396,000,000
balance                          4,000,000  @ $400 pa  =   $160,000,000

Do you really think they'll give a stuff about all the complaints, I don't think so, unless there is some form of legal class action/challenge mounted by some of the "big boys" they are affecting

[achjimmy]

Been a Totally Shit service for years more so if your on an average connection I gave up PB years ago

[Bird]

Do the math on this and you'll see what they're up to
registered users       400,000,000 
If they lose 90%       360,000,000
balance                      40,000,000  @ $400-00 pa =  $1600,000,000

or

registered users        400,000,000
if they lose 99%         396,000,000
balance                          4,000,000  @ $400 pa  =   $160,000,000

Do you really think they'll give a stuff about all the complaints, I don't think so, unless there is some form of legal class action/challenge mounted by some of the "big boys" they are affecting

If they handled it better, and made it $40 insteafd of $400 a year they would have x20 their money and revenue from the 203948032948 ads per page.

this is pretty much nail on the head
On Reddit, one user wrote that while Photobucket was “absolutely entitled to change their business model whenever they feel like it”, the way the company handled it would “go down as one of the great customer-service f***-ups in internet history”

[tryagain]

Do the math on this and you'll see what they're up to
registered users       400,000,000 
If they lose 90%       360,000,000
balance                      40,000,000  @ $400-00 pa =  $1600,000,000

or

registered users        400,000,000
if they lose 99%         396,000,000
balance                          4,000,000  @ $400 pa  =   $160,000,000

Do you really think they'll give a stuff about all the complaints, I don't think so, unless there is some form of legal class action/challenge mounted by some of the "big boys" they are affecting

I would be very surprised if they even got close to a 1% conversion rate at $400pa, and then most of those would only be so they could get access to move their existing photos to a different host. IF I were going to pay decent coin to a website to host photo's it certainly wouldn't be to a company that now has a record of holding pictures to ransom. I have read a fair bit of speculation that there will be a back down but I guess only time will tell.

[rotare]

Take the emotion out of it and this probably goes to the heart of the problem:

But one expert said the public needed to be aware of the risks of relying on any free image service.

"There's a lot of websites out there looking for advertising, and there's a finite amount of advertising spending to go round," said Nigel Atherton, editor of Amateur Photographer magazine.

"And any photo gallery and storage site like this that relies on ads to offer a free service can only continue to do so if they have enough money coming in.

"So, if you put all your photos into any site or app like this where it's not clear how they are going to continue financing their business, then it could come back and bite you at some point in the future."

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-40492668

[achjimmy]

Maybe it depends on how much you have stored ? I only used it for a short while but my threads with links are still show hosted pictures?

[Rumpig]

Maybe it depends on how much you have stored ? I only used it for a short while but my threads with links are still show hosted pictures?

i only used it in a similar way, resized pics I wanted in trip reports I did then hosted them through their site. No way in the world will I pay for those pics, it's a shame the reports on forums probably look like rubbish now, but I won't be paying to fix that issue.

[prodigyrf]

Noticed a few ebayers have been caught with their Photobucket pics when you scroll down their listing 

[Rumpig]

Just noticed the pic I used to have in my signature line is blocked and displaying the message from PB, so had to edit that out now

[Jeepers Creepers]

i only used it in a similar way, resized pics I wanted in trip reports I did then hosted them through their site. No way in the world will I pay for those pics, it's a shame the reports on forums probably look like rubbish now, but I won't be paying to fix that issue.

Same here, we're putting all our pics in a separate file and closing the Photobucket site.

PB can take f*^#in flying leap at a rolling donut in a week or so.

[Pete79]

I downloaded and deleted everything from Photobucket on Monday, I couldn't believe it when they insisted I tell them why I was closing my account.
I kept my reasons for leaving short and sweet, straight to the point and only used 4 or 5 swear words. 

Then today I get an email welcoming me to Photobucket and inviting me to share all of my photos with them.
I thought perfect, I can tell them where to shove their ransom again.  But it appears I can't.

They have marked my account to be deleted on the day I closed it, but it is still open.
I can still do anything I like in my 'deleted' account (upload photos, edit, etc), the only thing I can't do is make that 'deleted' account actually disappear from the internet.

I guess they figure they can keep spruking about however many million users they have if they never actually delete accounts when people close them....

[Chris.]

They have marked my account to be deleted on the day I closed it, but it is still open.
I can still do anything I like in my 'deleted' account (upload photos, edit, etc), the only thing I can't do is make that 'deleted' account actually disappear from the internet.

I guess they figure they can keep spruking about however many million users they have if they never actually delete accounts when people close them....

I never really used my account but like you I deleted it about 10 days ago... yet its still there.

[100%JOE]

Well all my posts are now stuffed.... Thanks PhotoBucket. I even spent ages just then downloading all my albums but I cannot extract them due to
this error: The archive is either in unknown format or damaged. God damn it.

It will take forever to fix this mess.

[sharkcaver]

I was getting some errors myself Joe when I spent 3 nights downloading all my Shit - thanks be to PB - with my issue it  seemed to be the larger folders giving me grief. So I used a download manager. That solves most my problems, but a couple still gave me grief. In the end I split those folders into sub folders and moved those pictures to the subs. By downloading in smaller chunks, I was able to retrieve them all. What a right royal PITA that saga turned out to be. I hope the above helps you.

I've since moved all those pictures to albums on google pics. That allows me forum embedding and hosting to my blog. But I have 7 years worth of blog entries to now fix ..... I have to many pictures on various forums to fix, if I could ever find those posts again anyway. So my embedded forum pics are fubar, but I am looking forward to the future....If only google doesn't go down that path, I will be sorted eventually.

[xcvator]

I was getting some errors myself Joe when I spent 3 nights downloading all my Shit - thanks be to PB - with my issue it  seemed to be the larger folders giving me grief. So I used a download manager. That solves most my problems, but a couple still gave me grief. In the end I split those folders into sub folders and moved those pictures to the subs. By downloading in smaller chunks, I was able to retrieve them all. What a right royal PITA that saga turned out to be. I hope the above helps you.

I've since moved all those pictures to albums on google pics. That allows me forum embedding and hosting to my blog. But I have 7 years worth of blog entries to now fix ..... I have to many pictures on various forums to fix, if I could ever find those posts again anyway. So my embedded forum pics are fubar, but I am looking forward to the future....If only google doesn't go down that path, I will be sorted eventually.

Can you tell me how you can embed your photos in a forum post from "Google Pictures" coz I'm darned if I can work that out
cheers Keith

[austastar]

Can you tell me how you can embed your photos in a forum post from "Google Pictures" coz I'm darned if I can work that out
cheers Keith

Hi,
   Me too.  Google was beaut, but they changed the linking option, causing many headaches because of permission problems and others could not see my pics.
I ended up using imgur.com which is fairly simple. So far, all my old Google linked images are still working.
Cheers

Sent from my GT-N5110 using Tapatalk

[sharkcaver]

xcavator, austastar.....

have a look at my post #42 on page 2 of this thread 

[RichardW]

I've always used my ISP:iinet for hosting, now for almost 15 years.
I only upload photos resized to around 200k so they are not much use for commercial purposes.
Never had any issues with around 2700 photos and just over 550mb stored on there.

[prodigyrf]

Apparently PB like many freebie sites is facing the hard commercial reality of dramatically shrinking ad revenue and had to bite the bullet of charging fee for service or most likely go under-
https://torrentfreak.com/chromes-default-ad-blocker-is-bad-news-for-torrent-sites-170705/
It's a result of ad revenue increasingly being captured by the big players so the minnows have to charge to survive and in that respect you need to be wary of following the pack to other freebies and copping the same dramas again with them in the near future.

You may be miffed at PB but how much more so if they continued to ignore market reality bleeding cash and closed up shop altogether? Food for thought as they lead the market with their take it or leave it offer and the end of the era of the free lunch cloud is upon us all folks.

[xcvator]

It's not "What" that is the problem, it's the "How"
Suddenly locking up accounts/photos with virtually NO WARNING and demanding us$400-00 p/a "ransom" is not a good way to do business in anybodies language, except PB's. I have no problem with user pays and PB's action will have no more than a slight nuisance value to me. They could have gone about this whole exercise in a much more customer friendly manner

[sharkcaver]

xcavator, austastar.....

have a look at my post #42 on page 2 of this thread 

http://www.myswag.org/index.php?topic=52587.msg910112#msg910112