Speaking of not trusting for-profit companies to be a good home for fandom...

[owlmoose]

Photobucket discontinues 3rd-party image linking unless you get a paid account that costs $400 a year.

Without warning, either. So many sites host their images on Photobucket. This is going to break so much fandom history, I don't even know where to start.

ETA: Okay, maybe one thing. Looking at the new ToS, they offer a number of tiers of service, from free through the top-tier $400/year. Only the top level offers third party image hosting. Dear Photobucket, if you think millions of people were using your site just for personal image storage, I have a surprise for you.

Comments

[nanslice]

I haven't been able to use photobucket for a while (I could log in but I couldn't do anything because I'd immediately be logged back out) but I've used it since forever so this is a huge, huge bummer. :(

[owlmoose]

I've never used it myself, but ladybusiness does. We have another hosting option but switching is going to break all our existing image links; fixing that is going to be a headache and a half.

[ossobuco]

Whaaaat. The. Fuuuuck.

(All my Flight Rising stuff is hosted there! So many images I've posted to my DW are there! Yikes!)

[owlmoose]

Ugh, sorry. I have been using Imgur and am pretty happy with them so far, although I don't think we can 100% trust any site not to pull something like this. I've been thinking about letting my personal domain lapse, but now I'm wondering if that's really a good idea.

[princessofgeeks]

GOOD HEAVENS

[auronlu]

Oh wow, just saw this. That's huge.

I wonder how much of my stuff still links there? I retain my old webhosting from the early 2000s and have no reason to regret it. But yes, that's a lot of fandom history lost.