photobucket users, no more hosting of pics... Options

[njccmd2002]

what are you guys using now.

looks like the death of many, many build threads..

and this site maybe...

[Langing]

The $400/year at Photobucket gives an account capable of 500 gigabytes of photo storage, with 3rd party linkage, fast bandwidth and no advertisements. Photobucket seems to have been intentionally signalling their move for some time by slowing down operations of all free accounts and sticking so many ads in your face that you could hardly navigate. Individuals would choose giving up rather then face that Photobucket system.

Judging from all the bad comments I found on downdetector.com, people are thoroughly frustrated and want off the Photobucket system as fast as possible. And, remember, Photobucket's 'come on' at first was free image hosting, but they provided easy ways to imbed photos into THIRD PARTY WEBSITES, such as ours. Ethically speaking, due to their 'bait and switch' attitude, they ought to grandfather all people who used their system to THIRD PARTY link to on-line fora, and there must be a great many that have used Photobucket that way up until now. Likely, what they are doing now is what they planned from the get-go, cause they wanted to make money.

If Photobucket would provide help to consolidate all individual accounts making up any single on-line forum into one $400/year account, and all members of that forum contributed whatever small amount would be required if the cost was distributed over the entire membership it would take to make up that cost, keeping our images on Photobucket would be far better than the service we currently get (or don't get). After all, no matter where we get on-line photo storage, it costs someone to provide that storage, and eventually we would have to begin paying something.

Consider also the notion of providing that image storage on our own website, run by Coomer. Supposing he would consider doing that, would members be willing to be 'taxed' a small monthly fee to help Coomer deal with that cost, or the costs he has already borne? When is it ethically right for people to feel they should 'pay' for services they receive on the internet that they are used to getting for free?

It seems to me that the information gathered on our website has intrinsic value that needs to be added to the commonwealth of value to be used by all who need it. Maybe that's not politically correct thinking, but that's how it appears to me.

I said all that because I cannot sleep thinking of the harm being done to the 6GC website by the decision made by Photobucket, along with the way they went about enforcing their need to 'monitize' their website, and my mind keeps searching for a solution that would resurrect our valuable collection of information on the 1994-1999 Toyota Celicas and doing the least harm in the process. Members are already trying to off-load their photos and going to alternate hosting sites, some will even expend the time to seek out and relink their photos.

If we could find a 'principal' at Photobucket with whom we could negotiate a solution to our problem, one single Photobucket account that all 6GC members could access to store their photos, that Photobucket solution would apply to all other forums in similar situations, so it would be in their interest to facilitate it's happening. They want to make money, we want to keep our information in tact. Are our members willing to pay a small monthly fee? How do you 'old timers' feel about having to pay a small monthly fee? What if it were only $5/month?