Photobucket Killed My Blog

Yes, that's an exaggeration, my blog is still here, but almost every linked image, my article logos, the fake likes and other images I used in my old Facebook parody posts, it's all gone. Photobucket recently, without warning, just shut down every single free account, and replaced everyone's images with this.

I thought it was a mistake, so I went to the website, where all my pictures are still stored, to find nothing. Nothing looked different, so I went to the address in the picture, where they nonchalantly tell you that their terms of service do not cover image hosting for free accounts. But, you can get that service by signing up for a "Plus 500" plan. They also don't have any pricing plans visible anywhere.

This still seemed sketchy, so I did some digging, only to find post after post of angry people who's blogs and businesses have been essentially held for ransom by photobucket, who, without warning, have turned off every image hosted on their servers. This started happening a few weeks back, and they have just been slowly going through and turning accounts off. I suppose since I've been using photobucket for almost a decade, I had more time, which is why I didn't notice anything until just now.

Now, I understand that they need to make money, but they failed to notify anyone, and further investigation revealed that they aren't even being upfront about the price, because the "Plus 500" plan, the only plan available for image hosting, is $399.99! I would have been mildly miffed had it been something halfway to reasonable like $19.99, but had they given plenty of advanced notice, and time for people to transition, I would have understood. The way that they have gone about this is tantamount to extortion, (if not just straight up extortion) and even if I have $400 just lying around, I wouldn't even begin to consider it.

Normally I wouldn't even write anything about something this, but this affects my blog so completely that I felt like I had to address it. Just look at the current sidebar, and you can see all the missing logos. I don't have the hours upon hours of work it will take to go back and update links, so, for all the old blog posts that had photobucket hosted images, they're pretty much dead. The TIIA posts and the posts with logos will still be readable, but the Facebook parody posts are basically ruined. I might go back and fix them someday if I'm bored and have time, but for now, for all intents and purposes, they're ruined.

Anyway, my most used logos will be replaced eventually, so I am looking for a new image hosting site. Preferably one that is free, so if you know of any good ones, specifically ones that allow html embedding, let me know!