Blogging - The Photobucket issue

[Eric the Shed]

Hi Folks

I thought I'd share my last two posts on my blog here just in case anybody else is in the same position

Posted on Tuesday

Good Morning All

For some strange reason I thought I had managed to escape the photobucket debarcle that arose earlier this year. This was on account of the fact that I already had a premium account with said organisation. This was a fair price (£36 /year ) if I recall and I could upload my images and use third party hosting.

However earlier this week I received this email

 Hi ,
This message is to inform you that we discontinued the Plus 20 plan in June of this year. We have grandfathered your expired plan for several months as a convenience.
In order to keep your account current and all of your content available, we are asking that you migrate over to one of our current Plus plan offerings: Plans
Failure to do so within 30 days will result in your billing to be suspended, and your account will be reverted to a free account.
If you have any questions about your account or which of our current offerings is right for you, please don’t hesitate to reach out.
Thanks,
Sebastian,
your personal account manager

This effectively means they are going to switch off all my images on the Shed Wars blog this December. Unless I pay them $399/year

It gets worse....I now have to do two things

1) retrieve all the photos uploaded on photobucket
2) find another site that offers a third party hosting service for a considerably lower fee

I'll deal with point 2 in time but my priority is to retrieve the photos currently stored on photobucket pronto. By my estimate there are over 5000 and these all have to be downloaded individually (Photobucket in their wisdom have disabled the download album function)

I spent a considerable part of yesterday retrieving around 1000 (these are now saved on my hard drive) - I just have to keep going. This blog has been a big part of my hobby in the last six years and I'll be buggered if this is going to beat me.

So what does this mean - well until they switch me off I'll carry on as normal (a bit like a duck serene on the topside whilst my little legs paddle furiously under the surface) - but it is likely that the blog will need to be rested/updated in the very near future.

The pain of re-attaching all the photos of the past fills me with dread

Thanks Photobucket !


Posted Today

Hi All

Following my previous post I took the liberty of using the last two evenings (I reckon about 14 hours of work) to down load every one of the photos I had on photobucket (count over 5500).

I tried using some apps to do this en masse but they kept falling over so it was the very painful task of doing each one individually - thank god my broadband speed was up to the job.

So eventually when I crawled into bed at 2am last night I could sleep easy knowing that all my hobby photos are now in my possession !

and guess what.....

I get this email from photobucket this afternoon....

Moss
Moss (Photobucket Support)
Nov 9, 11:25 AM MST
Hello,

Thank you for reaching out to us about this. In regards to the email you received, we have decided to make an exception for your account. You will be able to stay on your current Plus 20 subscription and will not need to upgrade your account at this time.

As stated in our current Terms of Use, you will continue to be grandfathered into 3rd Party Hosting capabilities until the end of December 2018 or when your subscription ends in 2019, whichever comes last.

We apologize for the confusion and any inconvenience this may have caused. Please let us know if you have any additional questions or concerns regarding this.

Sincerely,

Moss@Photobucket Support
Have a question about something else? Our help site is packed with articles to get the help you need quickly. Click this link to access our help site - http://support.photobucket.com/home.

is this a coincidence? I don't think so - I cannot be the only premium account holder they posted to on Monday who has decided to take matters into their own hands by downloading images from their own accounts.

Might this signify the start of a U Turn from Photobucket?

I have left all the images ( I have my own copies now) sitting on photo bucket for the time being and to all intents and purposes whilst they are still there and can be used for third party hosting I'll stick with them. It does mean that I can continue to use the account until June next year. So the pressure is off on what to do next.

I'll let you know my decision in the coming days

cheers

[Doug ex-em4]

Giles

Very interesting but what puzzles me is why you had blog photos on photobucket in the first place? Why weren't they just stored on the blog? Presumably they exceeded the storage limits provided by the blog?

It's also great that Photobucket are so devoted to the cutting edge of corporate-speak bollocks. Contacting them is apparently "reaching out" to them - ugh...! And WTF does "grandfathered" mean in this context? The more a company obfuscates the language to conceal their real intentions and meaning, the more suspicious it all looks.

Doug

[Eric the Shed]

I dont give them any money but they have never messed with my account or pics. I still use photobucket to put pics up here. I have no idea why though

Interesting - I understood that you could not third party host without a premium account forward going

Giles

Very interesting but what puzzles me is why you had blog photos on photobucket in the first place? Why weren't they just stored on the blog? Presumably they exceeded the storage limits provided by the blog?

It's also great that Photobucket are so devoted to the cutting edge of corporate-speak bollocks. Contacting them is apparently "reaching out" to them - ugh...! And WTF does "grandfathered" mean in this context? The more a company obfuscates the language to conceal their real intentions and meaning, the more suspicious it all looks.

Doug

I went past my blog limit three years ago 

Its all corporate american speech -= in plain English it means we are keeping your account alive until we decide otherwise

[Cubs]

Basically you called their bluff and they presumably decided £36 was better than nothing ... they will no doubt do the same for others if the pressure sale angle fails with them as well.

[Eric the Shed]

and another email comes in ...

I asked if I renewed my account would I be able to keep this account running?

Their response....

Hi Giles,

As long as you keep your recurring billing active your plan will automatically renew for another year of the Plus 20 plan.

Please let me know if you have any additional questions regarding this.

Thanks!
________________________________________
Moss@Photobucket Support
Have a question about something else? Our help site is packed with articles to get the help you need quickly. Click this link to access our help site - http://support.photobucket.com/home.

[westwaller]

Wasn't Moss a Character in The IT Crowd?

[Yankeepedlar01]

Had the same emails and the same outcome!

[dampfpanzerwagon]

Slightly Off-Topic, but still associated.....

I have found that many modelling forums have become almost useless since the Photobucket Ransom, with huge threads that just repeat the same Photobucket logo stating update your account. I can't help wondering if in years to come whether this ransom/payment demand won't be seen by many as both a negative marketing campaign (and switch people off using Photobucket) or even worse the equivalent of burning books and therefore also seen as a negative campaign.

My personal view is, that not having used Photobucket, I will now do everything I can to never use any of their products and secondly recommend that others never use their products.

Rather than a win-win. I think you can see where this post is going. They have just shot themselves in the foot.

Tony

[Dr. Zombie]

I would not give photobucket any more of my money. Like so manny others I have been well and truly screwed by them. I downloaded all of my pics and I closed my account. I had used photobucket since 2008. So that is 8 years of painting projects, battle reports and other hobby doings down the drain. As I do not have it in me to recreate all of it. I am not sure I could even if I wanted to.

But that isn't really what is bugging me the most. What really infuriates me is that they have effectively burned all records across the web. A lot of old threads now have the Photobucket picture of doom making them next to useless. For me that means all the beautifully laid out battle reports, painting tutorials and other reference material that I use for inspiration and guidance have just gone overnight.

May photobuckets noses always itch and their arms be to short to reach!

[dampfpanzerwagon]

I would not give photobucket any more of my money. Like so manny others I have been well and truly screwed by them. I downloaded all of my pics and I closed my account. I had used photobucket since 2008. So that is 8 years of painting projects, battle reports and other hobby doings down the drain. As I do not have it in me to recreate all of it. I am not sure I could even if I wanted to.

But that isn't really what is bugging me the most. What really infuriates me is that they have effectively burned all records across the web. A lot of old threads now have the Photobucket picture of doom making them next to useless. For me that means all the beautifully laid out battle reports, painting tutorials and other reference material that I use for inspiration and guidance have just gone overnight.

May photobuckets noses always itch and their arms be to short to reach!

I could not have put it better.

Tony

[Mad Lord Snapcase]

Glad to hear we can still see the Shed blog, a source of great inspiration for me! Keep on blogging!

[Mad Lord Snapcase]

Wasn't Moss a Character in The IT Crowd?

My favourite character!

[Eric the Shed]

Thanks guys....

Quick update

1. ALL the photos are now downloaded - found a stash of 500 in a sub album
2. I took the opportunity to resize all the downloads on my PC and organise them better if push comes to shove and I have to find alternative quickly
3. Shed Wars will keep going as long as photo bucket don't screw me over - happy to pay the current fee with 3rd party hosting


Cheers and thanks for everybody's comments   

[Marine0846]

We have all be burned by Photobucket.
Either by messing posts up or the chance to see photos.
Their greed knows no bounds.
I will never use their site again and will go out of my way to bad mouth it.

[Etranger]

If you type '~original' after the jpeg in the photograph address on PB the photo will still show. It's a pain to do for lots of photos but where there's the odd one that you still want to show it's a work around.