Yep!

Here are some thoughts from the forum: http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/30454
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Fortunately, with this forum, we do have the option to upload our images directly to the forum. The benefit of that, is if a hosting site goes belly up, or tries to ransom us, our images are still here! (plus, if MRH uses your images for commercial purposes, they are going to ask you first, and they will offer to compensate you for it)

Naivete on display

I find it hard to understand the outrage, but maybe I'm missing something. They offer a service that has costs, probably ever-increasing costs. If too few convert to paying customers, they cannot cover their costs. With third party hosting, as the internet has exploded, they are probably serving your images to third party sites millions of more times than they expected. Too few of these users, who are driving millions of retrieval operations, have converted to paying customers at a sufficient level. Therefore that aspect of their business has become unsustainable on a free basis. They are simply reacting to evolution of the market. If they misjudged the price, likely they will lower it - go ahead and tell them what lower amount you'll pay. But I find it hard to characterize it as greed. They're trying to run a sustainable system - as MRH does with fee-based products.

People can always set up their own servers to do the same thing at their cost - but no, in the internet millenium, we want someone else to pay for all our services. Not every service can be ad-supported at a level that sustains the business.

It's not the change itself, it's how they implemented it

It's not the change itself, it's how Photobucket rolled it out. No warning, no heads up with options, just a $399 ransom with no grace period.

Terrible way to do business - borders on unethical. It's also a great way to kill ALL your goodwill. It also has broken millions of web pages, thanks to the fact they did it without any advanced warning. It may even result in legal proceedings, a government investigation, and/or new legislation on how a widely used free internet service must have adequate advanced warnings provided before they start charging or close it down.

IMO, Photobucket could have done a much better job of rolling this out by announcing it was coming with a reasonable lead time, and providing options such as monthly pay plan instead of just the annual $399 ransom.

I predict this will go down in history as an example of the worst way to implement a business model change on something widely used on the web that was previously free. It will be used in textbooks and college business courses as one of the worst internet business blunders of all time.

The outrage is 3-fold. First

What Joe just said...The outrage is 3-fold. First let me say that most people posting on the various forums, news sites and social media etc., don't have a problem with the idea of Photobucket switching from a free or minimal cost site to one that requires a fee for third-party hosting.  The outrage is the way the whole thing was implemented. 1) no warning of what Photobucket was planning 2) the $400 cost is pretty outrageous in comparison to other pay sites 3) the fact that Photobucket, has, by the unethical way they have actually implemented the process, have virtually destroyed years and years of work by thousands of people. The whole process and implementation by Photobucket over the past week smacks of blackmail and hostage-taking in an attempt to price-gouge users. It's bound to fail and will generate huge negative backlash towards Photobucket.

All that and...

Even if I thought it was worth it, I might be very leery of giving them $400 now because of concerns that they will be belly up very quickly....

Guy

"Free" Service?

I had forgotten I even had a Photobucket account until the posts about their business model changing hit this forum.  A few days ago I logged onto their website to see exactly what was going on.  I was astonished by the number of ads surrounded my space while there.  It's hard to believe they weren't making money based on the number of ads they were serving up.  And don't forget, they offer an ad-free service for those willing to pay for it.

I had used the account to post photos to a motorcycling website that I used to frequent years ago.  Over time the forum became "stale" so I eventually quit visiting it.  While on Photobucket's site, I decided to just delete my photos and close my account since there's no way I'm going to pay $400 just to keep a few photos visible on a website from years ago.  It took forever it seems to get my photos deleted, thanks in large part to the advertising blitz that Photobucket was throwing at me.  Large ads kept popping up over my work.  You had to close each one of them to continuing working.  I think I spent more time closing ads than I did deleting my photos.  Then it took about 20 more minutes to navigate my account page to finally get my "close request" entered (all the time, constantly fighting the ads popping up).  The last screen I got informed me that it would take a couple days before my account would close out.

What a way to end a business relationship!

Legal claims, really?

I doubt it. Before and after the change, their Terms of Use have provided that they can change the limits and terms of free or paid accounts at any time, so all users have accepted and been on notice that this kind of change can occur--for years. But people don't read the ToU and/or don't believe they will actually be used in a manner as harsh as their literal terms permit. Yet I seriously doubt any court would award anything to a user of a free service who has been on notice that what they are getting for free can be changed at any time, and in any case, few users will be able to prove any genuine economic damages. Basically, with a free service that is provided subject to change, you get what you get, and any investment you make in using it is completely at risk. If they have told you in advance that they can yank your service at any time, and never led you to believe otherwise, is it really unethical if they actually do it?

I agree that the change is a case study in how not to run a business, will cost goodwill, involved insufficient notice and so forth. I don't agree that it's unethical, or constitutes ransom, blackmail or price-gouging. Those accusations are an understandable emotional response to the sense of entitlement that develops when people get something for free for years, and could have been addressed with proper implementation (and hopefully will be in the next few days or weeks), but aren't rationally justified under the Terms of Use. Perhaps this will be a wake-up call to all users of free file storage or service of any kind; the Terms of Use mean what they say so you may be disappointed if you get dependent on or emotionally involved with the service, so steel yourself.

...

It seems after a decade everybody forgets how Photobucket came to exist in the first place.

Back in the early 2000s there was a company called PhotoPoint.  Everybody used PhotoPoint, and some people even used PhotoPoint's services for their end level graphics work.

PhotoPoint caught on that people were using thier services to generate big bucks and they got angry that people were making money off their backs.  They implemented a monthly subscription fee, something like $15.99 a month or $27.99 for two months or $39.99 per month or per three months to use their site.

In short, they priced themselves right out of the internet picture market and even though they had a user base numbering in the millions, millions left Photopoint.  http://www.photopoint.com is now a defunct page in the internet graveyard of dead superpages.

Call it Internet Consumer Naivete if you wish, but the harsh reality is that on the internet, you cannot charge much more than nothing for anything that is freely available for much less.  If you are going to charge $400, that's a whole lot of options available on the market and many are much less than that.

There will be no great wakeup call.  People will slide over to Imgur, or Deviantart, or any of the other millions of resources available for picture hosting across the internet.

I have a great sense that in a couple months, nobody will remember the name PhotoBucket in the same way they have forgotten PhotoPoint.

News

I just Googled photobucket and selected News. It is everywhere in different languages.

Interesting is my account is till open and it should have disappeared at least a couple days ago. I deleted all the photos anyway.

What a disaster.

Rich

I agree Chris that a legal

I agree Chris that a legal case is not likely. Is it a ransom/blackmail situation?....I think it is when you basically trash somebodys online store by locking out their pics that illustrate the goods for sale and tell them they have to pony up $400 if they want the pics re-activated....sounds exactly like being held to ransom.  Don't forget...that the terms of service were changed without prior notification and the 3rd-party hosting issue was hidden away at about line 500 of those changed terms of service. And many of the people whose pics are now not usable were fee-paying members of Photobucket, not freebies.

Simple solution, don't use a

Simple solution, don't use a third party service for your photos. Store them on your hard drive. If you want a back up get a second hard drive. If this site goes I will loose everything posted here, oh well. I still have the images on my computer for the most part. I believe it is unrealistic to expect to have space for free. I also do not like the idea of cloud based programs that require me to buy them every month, sorry guys it does not matter how great your recent widget is I will not buy it over and over, I will choose another option. Photobucket always seemed to be a pain to use when ever someone had a bunch of photos on there so I decided sometime ago whenever it said photos on Photobucket never to bother.

Photobucket

Like others I started using Photobucket in 2006 because the ads paid for the site. At that time, the forums I was posting pictures to did not have the ability to host photos, so linking them in from Photobucket worked well. There were a few other sites as well, but it seemed Photobucket had the least amount of issues. All the photos I've uploaded to Photobucket have come from my hard drive, so I'm not loosing anything, but at the same time I will not be uploading any new photos to their web site. From what I've read so far, most people are deleting their Photobucket accounts, so at this point I guess I'll just wait and see how long it take before someone pulls the plug on the Photobucket servers. How does that song go "Turn the page..."

My take on the Photobucket fiasco

Hi all.

What follows is an edited post that I put up on another forum earlier this week.

I think that there is some type of a 3rd party usage "tripwire". The photos have been disappearing by user at different times, not all at once. 

Every time someone looks at something on the web that contains a Photobucket-linked photo on that webpage. then the photo-owner's meter ratchets up a notch for each photo. If everyone races over to that particular webpage/forum posting to have a look, then this also ratchets up the meter for every looker multiplied by the number (size?) of photos looked at.

This meams that those users on multiple forums/sites who have multiple (1000+) lookers will hit and have hit the "tripwire" first and "Hey Presto!!", their photos turn into that Photobucket "expired meter" placeholder instantly. Eventually, with enough lookers, every Photobucket linked photo everywhere on the web will be a "placeholder" with that "3rd party Usage Expired" clockface, unless the photo-owner has "paid up". Even those who have paid accounts at lower subscription levels have been caught out by this change that now disallows previosly permitted 3rd party linking for those type of accounts.    

From other media reports, it appears that the change was made about 4 days before the company anounced the change in the terms of on its own Facebook site. The change in 3rd-party hosting policy was reported as being buried on page 26 of the terms of service change notification document. 

Those who thought this was a "good idea" deserve to be displayed on the flagpole in front of the Photobucket building. The executives who backed the idea and the method of implementation should be on adjacent flagpoles. They have forgotten to ask the most unasked question in project management - "How much can it cost if this goes wrong". 

If Photobucket is not careful, it and their executive salaries will go the way of the Dodo, and probably way sooner than anyone ever expected. 

If not ransom?

Not sure what it is?  I had been a member of PB since 2003.  I fully understand that it was free and I got what I paid for.  But for 14 years I have had to click through thousands of adds on that site that I am most certain they got paid for.   To me that is the exchange for "free", I see the adds and they get the cash.   Maybe with a better business plan they could have sold legitimate adds instead of all the junk pop up adds.

  If they had given some sort of notice I think they could have stood a chance at not committing business suicide.  If they had asked for just one dollar they would have made several million dollars quickly and probably very few complaints or at least people not leaving all together.  Waking up one morning to every picture of mine wiped clean and the demand of $399 to use my pictures was not the way to do it. 

 I will savor every moment of reading of their bankruptcy soon. I hope all the other host sites are prepared for the influx they will certainly get. Unfortunatley for PB they waited to long to say they were hacked by the Russians.   Of all the comments I have read the funniest was that someone expected them to announce the only form of payment they would accept was bitcoin.  HA

75 percent of Photobucket’s

75 percent of Photobucket’s costs originated from “non-paying users leveraging 3rd party hosting,” Corpus added. And it resulted in “zero revenue.”

$1000 Gross - $750 Cost = $250 net

If Gross stays the same @ $1000 but you can remove 75 percent of cost your new net will be $1000

$1000 Gross - $0 Cost = $1000 net or you just add 300 percent profit to your bottom line.

I'm sure the people that are paying for the service will keep paying.  Money from them will stay them same.  The leaches on the other hand are a drain on profits and that is about 75 percent of Photobuckets cost.  Cut the fat keep the meat.

Cut the fat keep the meat.

That is pretty much the gist of it.  PB would either have to raise the fees for its paying members to keep providing the free service for those of us who were only using PB for third party hosting or drop the freebies.  The paying people will keep paying and continue to get the service that they are paying for.  Losing the leaches (such as myself) will not hurt their business, but will significantly improve their bottom line.  

I had 36 photos saved ... all them specifically use to post an image in another forum.  I hated using the site because of the adds, but tolerated them long enough to upload a photo and get the link.  Nodays, most places provide for their own hosting ... safer that way.  

Lots of angst here...

...and I'm not convinced much of it is justified.

Is Photobucket's change unethical, as some have claimed? Not at all. Unwise in its implementation, certainly. But not unethical. Not even bordering on unethical. They've always claimed the right to make whatever changes they want, at any time.

If you're that upset about losing links to photos in things you've published on the web, then maybe using a FREE photo hosting service over which you have no control wasn't a real wise move from the git-go.

In the early 2000's, when I was first wanting to share some photos of my layout construction, I looked into photo hosting sites. I gave up on the idea when I read some of their terms of service. The photos become, at best, public domain as soon as uploaded. Some sites even claimed all rights to anything loaded to their servers. No thanks! My work is my work, and I wasn't about to give it away for free (even if it has little to no real value). I don't remember if one of them was Photobucket or not.

Anyway, I opted to set up my own website ( http://www.thecbandqinwyoming.com). Since I own it, no one else will be coming along to tell me what I can and can't link to within it (and if they try, I can just change website hosting services).

My point - If YOU want control, make sure you set things up that way.

Agree with Mark 100%

I did the same, hosting my own photo's. I was on a metal working sight that was sold. The new owner claimed rights to all the pictures posted on the site. I left forum because of that. I got my own website to host pictures for $180 a year and have complete control over the contents and where I post them. All I need to do is change one character in my folder for that forum and it's bye bye pictures.

Bernd

Not even bordering on

Even though you undoubtedly don't work for them, it wouldn't be hard for someone to mistake you for a PR person for Photobucket based on the above statement.  PB can hide behind legalize, but it may not protect them from backlash and ill will which could spill over into negatively imapcting their profitable slice of users.

I think Joe has summarized things well.  It will be interesting to see how much ill will this brings down on PB and what the consiquences are.

One commentary called it "content hijacking"

One commentary I read on Photobucket's move called it "content hijacking".

Consider this ... you open a web business offering to host photos online for free but has advertisements. Millions Billions of photos get posted on your site, including millons of product photos for stores and other business listings on eBay, Amazon, and Craigs List. They went with free photo hosting because their income is tight with not much margin and you offered to host their photos for free, albeit with tons of ads.

Now, suddenly, you drop a $399 annual fee on everyone in order to get their photos "out of hock". You give no warning because you know most will have to pay you because they will be desperate since they have loaded thousands of photos on your site. You have effectively hijacked their content and are holding it hostage, having given NO warning.

You call that ethical?

Ethical??  No way!  

Ethical??  No way!   Photobucket deciding to suddenly change their terms of service and wanting to charge for  a particular service is fine. Almost nobody disagrees that, it is their right.  BUT the way they have implemented the change is totally unethical....they are holding millions of users, including those who have been paying for years, to ransom. Not only that but they have inadvertently trashed sites like Amazon,Ebay,Etsy etc.  The whole thing stinks of the kind of predatory practise that got Shkreli into hot water.

Did anyone consider that

Did anyone consider that Photobucket can not afford the 75 percent cost to host Free 3rd party sites?  As for the adds on photobucket.  People are getting around it by posting photos to 3rd party site like eBay,Amazon,MRH and what ever forum you want to name.

?  You see a photo here on MRH that is hosted from PB.  Do you jump from MRH to PB to view the photos that go with that add?  No, you stay on MRH view the adds posted on MRH so MRH makes money from it's adds.  Does MRH or anyone give PB a kick back for that free view?  Did any one of PB adds or sponsers get viewed, No.  

MRH is add supported and how does MRH get add revenue?  People coming to MRH to view the adds.

You sell model trains on eBay and Amazon.  You use MRH as a hosting site and jump off point for your photos and post all your eBay sales in the forums.  You do not pay MRH for any adds or add space.  What do you think will happen?  Joe will axe those post and photos asap, then send you an eMail about paying for add space etc.  You want to host you photos and place your adds on MRH pay up Now.

Photo bucket did the same thing. You want to post your eBay and Amazon pictures on photobucket and use our site to make money?  It is time to pay up.  

Joe would do the same thing.  But he would not let it ride for years.

Nobody disputes the Why....it

Nobody disputes the Why....it is the HOW that has people up in arms.

Not in my house

Do you let people rob your house, watch them steal you blind.  Then you tell then nicely to leave?

Do you?

You kick them out of your house as soon as possible to prevent loss and damage to your property.  Photobucket kicked the thieves out of it's house to cut the theft.

Now the Squatters and thieves are all upset about being put out on the street.  Should of paid the rent and not robbed your host.  

I'm sure people say the same thing about the Door Man and Bouncer after they get shoved out of a Club or Bar for being rude and obnoxious too.