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Want your images back? That'll be $5

lutr.dev

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Re: Want your images back? That'll be $5

#161

Post by dylan604 »

Aurornis wrote: post #122
root-parent wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I predict that in the future, when you cancel an LLM subscription, they will threaten that unless you pay, to fully delete your anonymized chats, they will be public as paid training data. You know ...that is how we managed to offer you such a cheap subscription...

I wish there was some easy way to bet against this happening. I would put a lot of money on the side of this never happening for a multitude of reasons, but I bet I could collect a lot of money from cynics and doomers who think this stuff will happen.

As a devil's advocate, why do you trust the AI companies to behave as you suggest and not the other way? You say you have multitude of reasons, but list none. We have already seen by example that the AI companies do not care about laws and will circumvent societal norms as long as they get a leg up, so it's not a stretch to think they'd do things like this too.

Re: Want your images back? That'll be $5

#162

Post by lutr »

xp84 wrote: post #156
chabes wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 4. Customer found that the account was apparently unused and empty Empty does not equate to unused. This was their old account that they definitely used.

He said in the article that he guessed maybe he used a different account. This is a lot more believable (esp since he said it) than a conspiracy that PB deleted all photos and built this whole system just to steal $5 a pop -- especially considering how few people must be trying to get back into their 2-decade-old PB accounts in 2026. Hardly seems worth the effort for a scam.

Yes. I don't think I'd uploaded anything on that specific account that I recovered.

Re: Want your images back? That'll be $5

#163

Post by al_borland »

klodolph wrote: post #137
inigyou wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back in the 2000s there was an implicit social contract that websites would treat your uploaded data with respect. You weren't putting your stuff in Chad's garage, you were putting it in a professional seeming storage business that just happened to be free because none of us really understood how to monetize the net.

Back in the 2000s I think a much larger fraction of the web was running out Chad’s garage. You got a Pentium III and a DSL connection? Run a website! Run an IRC server!

I took a tour of the CBOE in 2011. The old trading pits that were no longer used were filled with a random assortment of desktop PCs running as servers for the exchange. At least that’s how it look and what they told us. I hope it isn’t still that way.

Re: Want your images back? That'll be $5

#164

Post by nekusar »

chabes wrote: post #151
xp84 wrote: post #141

Maybe I'm some kind of capitalist pig, because I can't find much to be mad about here. To summarize: 1. Customer took the initiative to check out a long-dormant free photo hosting account 2. Found that it required payment with a message implying strongly that the count of photos in the account was >0 3. Customer didn't like the idea of a subscription of any kind, but eventually figured out that you can just download…

> 4. Customer found that the account was apparently unused and empty Empty does not equate to unused. This was their old account that they definitely used.

They were underage when they made the account. That's a whole different and big fucking deal. Means any TOS and contracts and shit are basically null and void.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48571946

Re: Want your images back? That'll be $5

#165

Post by xp84 »

herf wrote: post #145
wang_li wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I, too, miss the time when I was a kid and people would give me free cookies. Now as an adult I have to buy my own cookies.

Yes, I think part of it was the "dark fiber" at the time, made bandwidth relatively cheap. But most personal photos don't use that much bandwidth - being able to use them anywhere online (which iCloud and Instagram don't allow) was a big idea. We went from "my content hosted in the cloud" to "Instagram's content" in a lot of ways. That is only partly a pricing issue.

I think the main thing here is merely that it's costly to keep a massive archive (of mostly garbage[1]) online and available on a long timescale. Not just the S3 bill (which I wouldn't underestimate the cost of, for a site that let just anyone upload basically infinite amounts for a decade), but the cost of having engineers maintain and monitor the site forever, either with revenue having dried up a decade ago, or, also having a staff of people to operate the whole business.

You're remembering that if you uploaded something to some free site in 2001, it was still there in 2004. That was because the same people and companies were still around 3 years later, it wasn't because they cared more about you than 2026 startups do. Sure, 2004 Photobucket may have cared more about us than 2026 Meta does -- but I doubt 2001 AOL or AT&T cared about us more.

[1] I only mean most of the content uploaded to Photobucket 2 decades ago is completely useless and abandoned with no one ever coming back to look for it. Memes or screenshots posted to forums that themselves have been offline for a decade. And just content that people don't remember even creating.

Re: Want your images back? That'll be $5

#166

Post by 827a »

I don't necessarily mean this to be dismissive, but it'll come off like that and it is what it is: Don't go through life getting this mad at something so inconsequential (five dollars). The typical response is "its the principal", but they're not beholden to your principals, and getting worked up because someone else compromised your principals is not healthy. Its just other people doing things. Neither money nor principals will save you from the downstream effects this attitude will have on your body and soul.

Re: Want your images back? That'll be $5

#167

Post by scjody »

lutr wrote: post #10
equinoxnemesis wrote: post #5

Considering they explicitly said they had some photos of yours ("You shared them. We protected them."), this seems like chargeback territory.

Right?? I mean again, I could have gotten a refund in 48 hours, per the smallprint... But I noticed it about ~3 months too late, while writing about this. But it's okay. Getting those $5 back would make Photobucket look slightly better in my mind, and I don't want that.

You can absolutely do a chargeback months later. This is fraud, and credit card companies are usually very willing to address that! Typically they'll put the onus on Photobucket to demonstrate that you received the service you paid for, and they won't be able to do that in your case.

Re: Want your images back? That'll be $5

#168

Post by xp84 »

ur-whale wrote: post #58

> Want your images back? Sure... That'll be $5! That kind of long con is (and has always been) part of the basic business model of most of the "free" service providers on the internet. First one is free, played on a decade time scale, works fine in a world where capital is quasi-free. The hyperscalers play it a little more subtly, but the principle is the same.

I really doubt anyone's getting rich off this. Genuinely doubt it. How many people remember their photobucket accounts, let alone bother to hunt them down, let alone want to bother getting a credit card out and remembering to cancel (or more hilariously, who's gonna pay $60 a year to keep that sub). I think whoever is running that site is probably barely breaking even at best, considering that they have to keep paying the S3 bill to store literally every image uploaded to PB ever.

Re: Want your images back? That'll be $5

#169

Post by realityfactchex »

What's the best alternative? Flickr?

I don't want to self-host my photos, too much management.

I don't want to use Apple or Google or MS Clouds for various reasons.

I do want to support a pure-play, independent-ish, profitable, consumer friendly platform. To upload hires shots and have them easy to tag/share/access among those to whom they may be of interest.

I expect to pay, but not through the nose. Reliability matters. I would want the company to be around in 20 years and still reasonably priced/useful. Suggestions?

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