As I browsed the Internet today, I saw a TON of photos replaced by an image that says to contact Photobucket to sign up for 3rd party service.
I first noticed it on the Medieval Sims site, then I saw a few photo replacements on this site. I did a quick Google search and it appears that a lot of pics are disappearing from the Internet.

I took a look and it appears that 3rd-party hosting on Photobucket will cost $399 a year. http://support.photobucket.com/hc/e...on-Pricing-Info

I personally do not use Photobucket. But I do wonder how this will affect Sims CC upload pics and many other sharing of photos on the Internet, especially if other "free" photo storage sites follow suit.

Why people still use Photobucket baffles me. Imgur is far better.

We are hoping it's just having a moment, because I am one of them and all my old uploads using photobucket images in the description text have the clock face.

Everyone you do know you can upload directly to MTS and bypass photobucket.

I used to use photobucket until they annoyed the crap out of me earlier this year. Photobucket-linked pics on my blogs are ok so I hope that doesn't get affected. Way to lose even more customers.

Yup, all of my pictures have been replaced with "Pay to display" image, with the notice spanning all over my posts. I've got 300+ images on photobucket, and it was, well, quite a let-down when I read the pay us pls email in the morning. I downloaded all the pictures and deleted my account on there. (It was quite a run! I've had an account there ever since 2011.)

I'll be uploading them somewhere else, be it Imgur or MTS, but only after my exams are through. But still, it's going to be a pain in the ass to figure out what post had which picture attached!

Imgur is a good choice, I like it, however recently they’ve done something that made me move from tinypic years ago – if the direct link hasn’t been visited, it always redirects to a regular imgur page with the picture instead of showing the raw picture like it used to do. Example ← copy the URL of this (right click on the link and copy link address), then click on the link. It will redirect you to an imgur page. Then, paste the URL you copied into your browser and visit it. And, ultimately, click on that link in my post again. The second time it will show you the raw image. I really don’t like that behaviour, because I’m linking a raw image to have people view a raw image, not an imgur page. If I wanted it I’d link to it instead. They broke albums at some point too, but I can live with browsing images via the images page instead of albums.

I still keep my account on tinypic, I have 4424 images there and sometimes I need one. I also have 6726 images on imgur; I don’t want a third account somewhere else (not even sure where though), so I need to live with broken direct links.

Not a good choice, photobucket. Not a good choice.
*sigh* It's going to be a hell of a job to reupload and replace all those photos...

I've had a similar issue with Tinypic lately. Pictures will randomly get replaced with random pictures, as if the code is being reused. The pics are back a short while later, but it's still extremely annoying.

I've tried Imgur, but I must say I wasn't that fond of how the links were handled. I prefer if the pictures keep their original name. I've lately used http://postimage.io/ for that reason (it's got albums, bulk upload, no bandwidth issues, keeps original picture names but with an extra random code, and linking to the URL gives you the picture and not the website if you use the "direct link" option. It's a little to easy to get thumbs and regular pictures confused, but I've solved it with using the "direct link" option, and wrapping IMG tags around, since the regular IMG links have the webpage squeezed in and I hate having to remove those. Best of all, it's not a "pay to upgrade" site).

I know I can upload to MTS, but I also post pictures elsewhere, and that didn't seem too popular with the MTS hosting service...

Oh yes http://postimage.io/ is the best so far!
Good I hate photobucket.. everytime I wan't to see a picture and it leads to photobucket I just exit.. can't handle it.

I haven't had pay to display but rather "Please update your account to allow third party hosting" and another one saying I was "hotlinking"
You can see it here http://modthesims.info/download.php?t=574466 My newer downloads I have all hosted here but if I have to redo all my old ones I am going to be up the creek since a good number are only stored on PB. I also have literally hundreds of smilies that I have collected since 2007 on there. Not Happy Jan! (Aussie saying)

I've recently had trouble with viewing photos linked to the Photobucket webpage. I'll get endless loading and can't view it. The only ones I can view are the ones that links to the picture. I could right-click and download, but that's been the only way to view them.

I stopped using photobucket after I had a ton of bandwidth issues, but I still have a lot of pics up there. Trying to download the albums now, so I don't have to hunt down all the pics. Some of them are probably on my long-dead laptop, and I don't have the means to zombiefy that thing just yet... The oly feature of Photobucket I like right now is the "download album" - because that's come in real handy.

So if anyone wonders why I hate paysites ("free" sites with paid upgrades) so much, this is why. They always go and do something stupid like this. I can imagine they're getting a storm of complaints just about now...

HA! well there goes all my IMVU product pages, as they were stored on there. Granted I think product pages are obsolete now on IMVU since the client catalog (It's been awhile since i've been on there) Kinda makes you wonder though what's gonna happen to the picture threads here though, as I know sometimes I'll go back to the very beginning of a thread and just view, wasting time and finding inspiration.

Not to mention all the tutorials that just got wiped out

I went to that page in the picture, and... .... they seriously want 399$ yearly just for being able to use them as a picture hosts, when that used to be free?????

Heck, no!

They'll probably lose a whole lot of people on that terrible decision...

(alright, there were some more carrots in there, but being able to post on 3rd party sites is the only thing I'm interested in, and that's been free since long before I started simming, probably more than 10 years)

Anyone got a link I can't seem to find any page with $399, I did find a forum saying $40 per month Must be out of their tiny picking minds. I would consider a few dollars per month but not $40. Guess I will have to download most of my albums then, that's going to take a heap of time.

http://photobucket.com/p500/ - Click the "upgrade now" button, and see for yourself. It's possible you have to be logged in, because it goes to the pay checkout. It's called the "Yearly Essentials" plan, which sounds like a stupid joke. I almost wish it was April 1st today...

$40 a month would be $480 a year, so the yearly is the "cheapest" plan.

Here's another page with pricing: http://photobucket.com/pricing, or just click the spoiler.



This ain't the way to gain customers, Photobucket...

Oof, this is one thing I miss about having my own paid hosting. I still use Photobucket simply because that's where I made my account many ages ago. I don't actually host a lot of images there, since the two places I do most of my picture posting handle their own image hosting. It's a sucky thing, though I wouldn't be surprised if Photobucket has been losing too much money to sustain being a free third party service. Kinda surprised they lasted this long!

I gave up on PB a long time ago when I found out I could upload my Sims pics here at MTS. (I only take Sims pics anyway.)

I hate them...

It seems like there has been a lot blows for our community recently, first Dropbox, now this

Have had the Plus 20 (sort of the basic one) Photobucket membership for years, and thus far have not received the new warning, but not holding my breath and won't be renewing my membership at the end of the year. Also use Imgur, but not really a fan of it enough to use it exclusively.

Was reading a thread on a tech blog this morning, and several users mentioned using https://en.zenfolio.com/ for their site hosting needs (professional and hobby related). Will be trying this out to see if I like it.

In that example the pictures that you have to click on and pop up all work. The ones you upload when you make the upload. You can make those pictures show up in the post. There's an option on the description page to show them in the post as thumbnails or full pics.

That's what I used to do. I originally was going to do a family website, back in the days when that was fashionable (I know ... I'm dating myself), and I used this website service that also allowed you to hotlink for a very low amount each year. Nowhere near the money Photo-bucket is charging! (I see it's linking from here. I don't even want to link to Photo-bucket right now, so I stuck in the hyphen.)

The disadvantage to that, though, obviously, is that if you stop paying the pictures stop showing up. I found that out the hard way the other day. But I may start up that website again as a backup to store the pics. If you see me posting test pictures, that's the old site. Do NOT visit it. I guarantee you will be heartily disappointed. No personal stuff on there at all.

What irks me is this is about the seventh or eighth website/photo service that has done this to me since I first started posting pictures (late 90s). Granted, over the last 20 years, that probably doesn't sound too bad. But as others wrote, you have your pics nicely showing up on all different types of websites and forums then BAM! They're gone. And in many cases, it can be hard to find the pictures again. And no, I do not believe this is a temporary burp with Photobucket. It certainly wasn't with the other services.

My concern is that other photo services will follow suit. Granted, new ones will probably spring up, as they have over the years. But I already know from experience that it can be tiring to hopscotch from one service to the other. And at least if I have to cough up pictures, I have an easy place to put them and get any pics I need to replace the ones the service dropped. Keeping them in a special file on my computer and backing that up away from the machine is good as well. I admit to being a little disorganized! What do we say about backing up again ....?

Thanks for the heads-up about the other service. I really am thinking you should have multiple backups, just like people like multiple backups for Mediafire if someone decides they don't like what you've uploaded and tells Mediafire to delete your files.

And yes, MTS ... please consider a "You gotta be kidding!" or a "WTF" button in the future.

I went off Photofukkit when I found out it automatically resized my pictures for me. Trouble is, I have a lot of stuff there. I use mod your panties for the most part now. At least for sims stuff.

I've been using photobucket for years with no problems and no prompts to pay. I used it just a few days ago and nothing different popped up . . . so far. (:

It's a pure money grab. I'm not surprised. Recently they began nagging me to disable my adblocker to view images.

It's isn't going to survive this. Even if a few people upgrade, they've pissed off too many people.