Photobucket broke links for millions of photos, requires $399 subscription to fix them

If you’re embedding images from Photobucket to other websites, prepare for an unpleasant surprise. They have changed their subscription rules, and consequently broke links of millions of images across the internet. In case you want to embed the photos from Photobucket to another website or forum, you have to pay $399 per year to make the photos visible on third-party websites again.

According to Norvic Philatelics, this change happened without any previous announcement. Everyone with the lower subscription level will have to upgrade to the highest one in order to make their images visible on other websites and forums. And as you can expect, this made many users feel cheated and furious.

According to Photobucket’s homepage, they host over 15 billion images. With this change to their subscription policy, they broke links to millions of photos on all kinds of websites and changed it with this icon:

It’s good to note that the photos are still hosted on Photobucket, they’re just not visible on third-party websites anymore. To make the embedded photos visible again, the users are required to pay for the Plus 500 plan. In other words – the most expensive one. That will cost them $39.99 a month, or $399 a year.

According to Ghacks, when you click on the icon to open it in a new tab, the actual photo is shown on Photobucket. This wasn’t the case for me. When I clicked on the icon, it opened on Photobucket as well, instead of the actual image. I guess it depends on the browser, but still – it makes the whole situation even more limiting for those who embed the photos from Photobucket. If you want to try, you can use this forum as an example.

Of course, many users were angry because of this sudden change. Not only the subscription is really pricey, but they also weren’t notified in advance. This, in a way, looks like a ransom. “If you want your photos to be visible again, send us 400 bucks.”

Suddenly, all my work for the past 10 years, has been reduced to rubble, no warning! It's really bad. This ransom…..

— Siena Gbudje (@SienaGbudje) July 2, 2017

Now, I know “there’s no such thing as free lunch.” Image hosting doesn’t need to be free, and paid subscriptions have their benefits on different websites. I just think this isn’t a way to make people pay. It’s unfair and unethical, and I believe it will cause Photobucket to lose many of their users.

Do you host your photos on Photobucket? Have you experienced this problem and what will you do? Pay the subscription, or host photos elsewhere?

[via PC Mag]