Too right, no doubt hundreds/thousands of forums just like this one.........toast.
Just do an internet search. iboats is one of thousands feeling the hurt this ratbag organisation is causing. And yes, thousands of hours of hard work and documented history has just been flushed. As already said, many many threads use the photos as the main information tool. Without the photos, the rest of the text is pointless.
My take.....
I believe it's called a 'moral responsibility'...
"We'll set up this great site so people can upload (fill in this space), and we'll make it free and just make a killing on the ads. After about 10 years, when everybody has become comfortable and we hold millions of (fill in this space), we'll hold all those (fill in this space) as hostage and demand everybody using our FREE service pay an extortionate amount to continue using what we originally offered for free"...
In every language on this planet, that is blackmail! (although, I'm sure some lowlife scumbag lounge-chair lawyer would argue it as 'good business') Well, I think it's bad business, and will send this business to the wall. (please let it be me who fires the first shot!
)
And I guess it should also serve as a warning of what can happen when good people go bad. How many of you have a lot of valuable and critically important information stored on some 'cloud'? This PB issue may set a precedent. It may be time for all forums to set up their own photo servers, keep as much of the valuable resources 'in-house' as humanly possible. Yes, that will be an extra cost to that forum owner. The alternative is what we are seeing now, a complete collapse of a huge resouce, and those resources being held for ransom.
I have never used the 'cloud' for storage for this very reason, and I have been saying for years that what PB have done will happen... I feel sadly justified in my mistrust of people.
. Yes, I used PB for a few hundred photos which I was 'third partying' here, but I kept the orginals on my own hard drive, and backups, and was able to just change a few links (we are working on getting you the edit function restored), and all is good again.. Unfortunately a LOT of the old resto threads, where the owners has 'moved on', will never be restored, and that is a terrible loss.
Chris...
