Photobucket And Their Greed

Question for members and moderators:

Would it be "in bad form", aka "not cricket" for users to be able to somehow report or delete OTHER people's old posts that have bad Photobucket links? In one way, it would be a good way to thin the ranks of older threads (like the engravings thread in TOPICALS). But it could also be seen as "iffy", a non-moderator being able to delete things like that.

Just thought perhaps it would help remove now-blank posts.

So what is the substitute for PB?

Upload here.

I gave up on all of these free photo services. They all can pull the plug, change terms, hold you hostage, etc.

I use Smugmug. $48 a year. Unlimited photos and videos. Tons of professional grade tools including extensive forum posting options.

It's a little more than I want to spend, but I use it for a ton of stuff.

I see pb has dropped the "forum-friendly" (i.e., noncommercial) price to $100/year. Still extortionate, but headed in the right direction? I wouldn't be tempted until it dropped to $20 or less.

I didn't read closely enough to see if "noncommercial" excludes linking to ebay auctions, but I'd bet they are not included.

For ebay, check out jpegbay.com

Inexpensive and user-friendly once you have experimented a bit. Also a free version.

Bobby is right - upload here. Anytime you add a middle man they take a cut.

TANSTAAFL - Their ain't no such thing as a free lunch.

Did anyone get an email from Photobucket today, saying:

"We have exciting changes on the horizon including two new plans for 2018. As a sneak peak, we are offering our latest plans that have increased benefits at a far greater value. "

Just to be clear though, even if they announce they are doing away with the fee for forum use, I won't let them back here. They just caused us too many headaches with their greed.

All the philatelic forums I visit can host images so no need to use an outside host for almost all situations.

There is one advantage to using a host site: IMAGE SIZE. I don't know how else to post a large image to show details and keep it under 200KB.

Photobucket did just post NON-COMMERCIAL pricing! I think they got slammed by complaints!

It's not hard. Most people think the compression has to be up around 95-100% and it absolutely does not. 75% is perfectly fine for the internet....

I don't have any stamps here but this coin image is 800px square at 75% compression. Trust me when I tell you, you can see every single solitary little nick that you can see with the coin in hand even much more than the naked eye. It's 153KB, 25% under the limit.

Here's your last uploaded image. 92% compression, 186KB...



Here's the same image at 75% compression. 69KB. 63% reduction and there's nothing you can see in yours but not in mine...

I guess I am just PICKY!

;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-)

Looks like Photobucket may be sort of caving in. Per the email I received recently:

Hello,

We've taken your feedback and are now offering lower priced plans!

For a limited time all of your 3rd Party Hosted Images have been restored. Please login to choose the plan that best fits your needs in order to continue hosting your images.

If a free plan is all you need, we have it! Need 3rd Party Image Hosting for your forum, website, blog, or online store? We have it! Need more storage... yes, we have it too!