Heartbreak and Photobucket image hosting

Maybe you’re as interested in image hosting as I am with my belly button. It’s there–so what? But this isn’t just a story about web services, this is the story of betrayal, a handsome hero, and a fairy-tale ending (sort of).

Once upon a time there was a poor, peasant girl who used Photobucket to host her images since she was 9 years old. Time passed uneventfully until one day (today), she discovered a strange notice that looked like a hostage letter. “We have your images. They will not work on any of your sites unless you upgrade to our plan that supports image hosting,” the letter warned.

“No problem. I don’t mind paying for services I need,” the girl thought. And then she found the price, scrawled in tiny print at the bottom of the page: _{$400 dollars every year.}

“400 dollars?!” She gasped. Then she fainted.

When she awoke the girl fretted, but she understood. Image hosting requires a lot of bandwidth. Still, her mind brought her back to other image hosting sites who offer their service for free…

What made Photobucket think charging for image hosting would be a good idea? Especially since many of their users have used their services so long that it would take a lot of effort to move all their images to another–

Oh…

But let’s get back to our story…

When her mind recovered she immediately jumped into denial. “Surely this is a joke and my images still work,” she hoped. But as she dug through her blog posts she couldn’t ignore the evidence of the betrayal.

Enraged, she took action. If they thought they could take her images and take her money, they didn’t know her very well! She did a quick google search and stumbled upon a familiar name. She knew him from other bloggers who used his services, and he became her first and only choice.

Introducing: ImgBB! The caped hero of our adventure!

She’s used his services for all of 2 hours so far, but if you ask her she’ll say it’s been phenomenal. Sure, that sounds unrealistically optimistic but you don’t understand the deep wound she received from Photobucket’s betrayal.

She awed when ImgBB’s home page loaded instantly. She oooed at the flawless log-in process. And she giggled like a child when the account activation required one quick click in a text-based email. As with most breakups, her time spent with the new guy showed the peasant girl that she should have left Photobucket long ago, when the relationship first became rocky.

She should have said goodbye when…

…she had to log in every time the page changed.

…she had to close 5 or more pop-up ads every time she logged in.

…they changed their uploading app to a clunky, hard to navigate version.

…their video ads would blare through her speakers, reminding her that she left the volume up.

…they wanted to charge $400 for image hosting. And she finally left!

Sadly, discovering a better image host was just the beginning of her struggles. Our poor peasant girl used Photobucket to host images on wattpad, deviantart, neopets, client websites, and even her personal blog windmillways.com. She learned a hard lesson that day–sometimes choosing the easy road at the start means it will be more difficult to get back on a better road later on.

So long Photobucket. There’s a tougher, nicer image host in town…

And the girl lived happily ever after.