Photobucket is trying to get us back on board

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
21

I’m not the sure the $99 offer is real? I clicked on the link in the Email, and tried to email the customer service email on the page explaining the new offer, and my mail was returned undeliverable.

That returned mail page had an attachment I did not open…

Also, from that page, link buttons to other plans or what should have been back to the Photobucket main page, did not work at all?

Is the Email a scam to get you to open that attachment on the returned mail?

From the photobucket main page, if you click on “plans”, you cannot find the $99 offer as decribed in the Email?

The question remains, how long will those others remain free? Nothing on the internet is free, we are all paying one way or another. Eventually, the “industry” will figure out its “best” economic model.

But as an electrician who helped build the infrastructure of the internet in its early days, I can tell you that most of you have no idea how much expensive electrical infrastructure it takes for you to post on this forum…

Sheldon

22

I was wondering what 3rd party imaging sites people were using instead of photobucket, and saw this post.

No way I would want to be a photobucket customer after what they did.

I have noticed that my photobucket images will show up when I do a Google search on various things, but of course when you visit the link where the image is you get the “Photobucket Please Update Your Account” image.

Thanks for the suggestions for the other 3rd party sites !

Ken H in OH

23

Never been there; Never will be.

24

And- lest we forget- Photo bucket removed the active links in older forum responses so that when a reader looks up a reference to a topic, no images are there anymore, rendering many of those responses less beneficial. Photo bucket appears to practice “historical revisionism” in this manner, so why give them any more business? And as for the cost of the Internet’s infrastructure, don’t think that the initial investment hasn’t been repaid hundreds of times since, given the high profits enjoyed by many internet-reliant companies. Given all this money being made, one would think that we could enjoy a pricing structure that cuts us a bit of slack!

Cedarwoodron

25

Sheldon, you are starting to sound like Al Gore. [(-D]

Seriously, though, in your estimate, how much expensive electrical infrastructure does it take for us to post on this forum?

Rich

26

If it was 1 dollar a month for up to 1000 views they would still make a profit with enough people. That’s because they are loaded up with advertising. Their performance is horrid as well. I’m about 2 steps away from writing my own hosting service on the cloud. Only thing stopping me is the $2000 for the site certificate and people who abuse it. (Don’t want to deal with potential legal issues)

27

Not that I don’t doubt you sheldon.,but with fiber and improved hardware that same data is now pennies on the dollar. Less than 1/1000th what it was back in the day to install better copper. They just replace the copper with fiber now.

The real cost is in redundant storage, backups, hardware maintenance. That’s why cloud services are so popular. You are handing your IT responsibilities to someone else.

28

LION posts on puter of him. Him has got 10+ TB of space. Got seven puters running in my office.

ROAR

29

Ok, you are starting to witness the teck crumble where investors are going to demand that companys be profitable, over 50% of tech companys are not. This always starts at small companys and works its way up. Some companys like the one in question shoot themselves in the foot as they try to adapt instead of having a viable long range plan without the hype.

30

When something is free it is customer volume that pays the bills. I wonder what the drop in customers coming through that virtual door was/is.

A local oil change place went from boom to bust when they dropped the free $14.00 touchless car wash with every oil change. I don’t know what the cost of every carwash was to them but they are slowly recovering by reinstating it. Still, there were loyal customers they will never get back.

31

Not only that, there are potentially new customers that will not go to them following that stunt. I’m one of them.

32

Yeaahhh… No. $100 is $100 mire than I was paying when I signed up for them. I get that websites have server overheads and stuff, but I am not paying for a digital phiti host that I used only casually. I tried using Flickr, and I still dont know how to post phitos from Flickr onto my phone. So now I just copy the img url off of a Facebook photo and post them in their in a private album. Free, and eaider than Flickr. If Photobucket wants to go back to a free user option, I eill resume. Otherwise, bye Felicia!

33

If they wanted to change a long standing policy, they should have done it gradualy.

34

I deleted all my photos and deleted the account. PB still sends me emails but I have convinced my email account to dump them in the Spam folder.

Many clueless do not realize these online companies are A.I. Artificial Intelligence. Essentially no way to get to a Real Person.

Rich

35

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. There is no reason to go back to them.

36

And so how much does it cost to have your own web site and host your own photos?

I ask because I know nothing about that sort of thing, and apparently a few of you do that?

Sheldon

37

Hi Sheldon:

I had the same experience. My message to the website listed on the offer bounced back too. I decided to go to their home page to see if I could find another email address and I did. When I sent a message to that address I got a response back that said the $99 offer was legitimate. Looks like they are pretty messed up if they can’t even get their email addresses figured out.

Dave

38

Well Sheldon,

That depends on locale.

You can buy a cheapo server $300 and pay about $100/year for a static IP and dns entry. Then depending on your internet connection. Where I am 100 mbit/sec is ~$200/month. But I would imagine that would handle all model railroading enthusiast needs. In an area where they offer fiber it would be a lot cheaper and faster.

39

So …

Your wife cheat’s on you, you get divorced. She get’s all your railroad stuff ( even though you’ve had it before you met her )

Then she “play’s nice”, and says …

“For $100 you can have me back.”

ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR -_ MIND ???

There are NOT enough bad word’s in the English language to cover this “Dispicable” act !!!

Photo bucket is DEAD ! I pity the fool’s who would go back.

Just look up ANY thread from a year ago and tell me what you see.

You think my response is “Hostile” ?

I would rather have my teeth drilled while waiting in line at the D.M.V. than go back to Photobucket !

40

Thanks Don.

We have Fios fiber, 50 mbit/sec, $65 a month. We could get faster for about $100.

So to host my own photos I would have to spend $400, spend more per month, learn a bunch of stuff I don’t know much about, invest a lot of time I don’t have?

I understand it would do other stuff - stuff I don’t need/want to do.

OR, I can struggle with learning some new free site, again wasting time I don’t have, which may or maynot remain in business, or may start charging as well (still not sure how they make money?).

Or I can pay photobucket for their service which for me has always been reliable and easy to use…

The co-founder of one of the largest privately held companies in the US, very successful for some 60 years, in the fortune 500, once said “Everytime someone somewhere gets something for nothing, someone else somewhere does something for nothing - how much can you afford to do for nothing?”.

There is no question Photobucket handled things poorly, but unless someone has seen there books, or is otherwise an expert on their type of business, it seems unfounded to assume you know what their profit/loss situation is.

To the earlier question of the cost of building the internet, yes it was some years ago, and yes advancements in equipment have allowed the internet to grow exponentially with only minor upgrades to the “power side”.

But 18-20 years ago, as this was all starting, I wired seve