It looks like many thousands of forum threads across the planet will soon be without photos, as Photobucket in their infinite wisdom have decided to prevent third-party hosting of images, unless the account owner subscribes to a $40 per month account.

This forum will be hit particularly badly (compared with say Pistonheads) as all of the images here are hosted elsewhere.

Photobucket is obviously within its rights, but the PR will be disastrous.

Regardless, I think the forum techies should spend a little time looking at the alternatives and making a recommendation to the members for a free image hosting site.

Personally, I use Flickr for my good stuff and Photobucket for my snaps of car parts etc. I don't really want to clutter up my Flickr account with photos I'm not proud of.

This really is an unbelievable PR disaster for PhotoBucket, have you read the thousands of posts on their Facebook page?

I personally have over 10 years of pictures stored on there, most of them are linked to various forums and all of them now completely useless.

It's the way PhotoBucket did this, no warning, just shut off all the images overnight with an image that tells you to upgrade, an upgrade that will cost you $400.

I'm not sure if this was greed or stupidity driven, either way, the outcome probably won't be what PB desired.

I've effectively lost a load of stuff too. There have been endless complaints from users over recent months (if not years), so maybe there's something going on behind the scenes.

This has taken a massive chunk out of our how-to's I've used Photobucket for 14 years and have hundreds if pics on there. I think it's a desperate last throw of the die attempt to make a quick buck. Maybe 2% of users will pay up or something. It's a very cynical move by the company.

I expect to see this kind of thing happening more and more as people get really peeved with adverts and block them.

The financial models whereby advertising pays the bills aren't working any more, and the companies are getting desperate. In the past, the cost of storage, processing, and networking connection has decreased pretty much on par with increased usage, but that's pretty much bottomed out.

However, I don't believe that ten dollars a month is in any way representative of their current costs. For example, Facebook's income divided by their number of users comes out at around twenty bucks a year. I don't have numbers for image hosting, but it can't be twenty times that. This is taking the mickey.

Just a word of warning about imgur...



So this means that if someone using Imgur to host photos, some of which are linked to threads on this forum, and said person annoys Imgur, they could turn off ALL image links to FCCUK. We would be even worse off than we are now - at least at the moment, some of the Photobucket images still work (presumably because the image poster has a paid-for account, or maybe because PB haven't got round to killing the account off yet - they appear to be doing it gradually)

I would urge the forum Admins to consider using a paid for image hosting facility for images that are held in important threads such as 'How-To's

<cough> That's an imgur image in your sig, Nigel... </cough>

The admins are considering options. This is a long-term issue which has just been brought to a head by PB's actions.

Neil - yes, I know - I signed up for Imgur as soon as the PB news hit.

It looks like a good solution for now, but there's no telling whether Imgur will also pull the plug on excessive third-party links at some point in the future (especially as they'll get flooded with new accounts in the wake of the PB fiasco)

Good to know it is being discussed - I'm sure you'll consider the wider picture

It's the end times for free internet services, I think, Nigel.

Well - there goes all the old how to stuff I wrote!

I don't think its quite that bad, but I think there will be a significant differential between free and paid-for.

The business model of free services to the masses in order to encourage a subscription service for a few that want a better service / more space / no ads etc is failing. The only way to make it work is to come up with a service that people want at a price they are more than happy to pay.

If Photobucket had said "give us $10 a year", I reckon the vast majority would have had a little whinge at the realisation of the inevitable, then input their credit card details. However, at $400 pa, its difficult NOT to come to the conclusion that PB wanted people to close their accounts

I'm worried enough that Flickr will eventually do the same that I've now signed up for Flickr Pro - its only $50 pa ($35 with a current promo code), so a small price to pay for a terrabyte of storage, decent speed and a really nice UI

But if you wrote it, you still have access to your PB account so it's just a matter of downloading them and uploading them somewhere else like Flickr, Imgur, whatever? (but may be a lot of effort)

Nello's way of doing it seems quite simple Only downside for some forum fossils is that you need a facebook account but hey everyone has one right



Nice pictures too Nello

Works fine for ephemeral images but less well for things you want to last as long as the forum (bearing in mind that many people may have a coupe for a year or two and provide many useful how-to images in that time, but then sell up and potentially erase the lot.)

You are of course right Barnacle. I was just thinking of the immediate problem as usual We definitely need a hosting solution for how toos and any other archival stuff

I found this thread after looking out for how to get past the incredible PB issue?

It seems (like others) I have to all intents and purposes, lost a host of images telling the story of my Coupe journey (such as Porto to do list)?

Has the forum put together any sort of action plan or recommendation to people on;

a) How to recover photos "stored" on PB and
b) How we might continue to post photos?

As a "third party" host, can the forum itself subscribe to PB, perhaps via an increase in annual membership, rather than people registering individually?

To whom do the actual images belong?
Presuambly the individual account holder?

If the Admins would like to get in touch, I may be able to supply an answer to this problem, or at least a home for the 'How To' information and images.

Possibility of a dedicated location - depends on the amount of data / bandwidth, but I would think possible.

It would be a managed location.

Paul

Sounds good Paul. Have you put you're idea to the admins on here?

So what am I missing as I've thousands of pictures on PB but can still link working pictures.

Brooklands 2009



FCSS 10th anniversary 2017

You must have more than the basic freebie account given the number of albums/photos you have, maybe a low cost subscription in the past that has entitled you to host pictures in the way that most of us can't?

Having a look tonight I have a Plus 20 plan whatever that means.

Just today I have lost my avatar photo,so that means(I think) that all my previous posts here or anywhere else with pb photos now have thier 3rd party non sharing logo.

I hated the rigmarole of posting pics on here when I had to use pb and the codes. So other than that it's no real loss I suppose.

It's just that my adventures with my coupe go unrecorded on here. I do realize that may be a good thing in parts.

Does anyone know how to get all their photos off Photobucket easily?

I tried the other day and they said they'd send me an email when ready. Email arrived, clicked on it and it said nothing was available to download ffs

I already have Google photos, so would like to try and get everything onto that, but just an easy download of all Photobucket photos to the computer would be good to know for now.

I got an email from them today. Shysters the bloody lot of them.

I think you have to download your own photos one at a time.

Yes, it seems so

You're supposed to be able to download complete albums, but lots of people are having issues, presumably because Photobucket is inundated with people doing the same thing

Has the Admin team come up with a solution to ensure 'important' photos are safeguarded? (E.g. How-to threads etc)

I'm sure somewhere I downloaded many how to guides and PDF'd them saving the pics with them. I will have a dig out and send onto admin this weekend if I can find them.

Yes we are working on a solution.

In the meantime please would anyone who has their own images which are linked to a How To, please save them to their own PC to keep them available to rebuild the guides in the near future.

Thanks.

Thanks Reuben, If you can find them could you send them to spaitalia@fiatcoupeclub.org where I can pick them up please?

Ive sent the pdfs i have over. I will go through all the how to guides and see if i can get to the pictures and make the pdf's up of the guides if you want?

If not i will see if i can get hold of the author and the images.

Thanks Reuben, that's brilliant.

The PDFs came through fine.