Rongnongno Loc: FL

This is why I do not trust ANY 'free cloud storage services'.

SonyBug

It is a well known marketing strategy. Give something away for free for a while to build a base of users, then start to charge them for it. How in the world can anybody ever think that a free service will stay free forever? That does not begin to make sense. Why would I as a business owner want to loose money forever just to give it to somebody that may make money from it, for free?

I just do not understand anyone complaining about this. Like, why don't you start a website, buy the servers, and give me free bandwidth?

advocate1982

That's why I don't trust any cloud service at all. Free or not. It puts your work in a third party hands who's got no loyalty to you. If they go bankrupt, sold, close, etc. your work is gone. And it's happened more than once. So hard drives are cheap.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

I don't usually hot-link. The owner can move or remove them and then you have to repair the link.

hpucker99 Loc: Anchorage, Alaska

This is not the first time something like this has happened. Several years ago, Kodak shut down their cloud service and people scrambled to move/save their photos.

blackest Loc: Ireland

I've noy been caught with my own pics but it's fairly common on some forums for a pic to be hotlinked and there's been a few this weekend where a placeholder has been the result.

archive.org can help in some cases (there are even a few extensions for chrome to bring up data from there when its missing)

SonyBug

I have about 230 GB to back up off this little laptop I am on right now. It has a 750GB solid state drive and is blazingly fast with only a quad 1.5 ghz processor. The backing up was slow, something like 7 hours. So, I bought a 500 gb solid state external drive. I backed up the whole thing in 50 minutes on the USB 3.0 connection, so, every day for a few minutes, I plug it in, and let it back up the changes. No cloud, no links, no sweat...

Szalajj Loc: Salem, NH

A couple of weeks ago, there was a discussion about using "Cloud" storage services, vs. backing up on your own.

I warned at the time that those cloud storage services could change with little or no notice.

My warning was about going out of business, but this change to charging a large annual fee is similar.

Thinking that your photos are safe on any cloud storage service is in reality a false sense of security.

In this case, $400.00 gets you an awful lot of portable hard drive storage space, you just need to be vigilant and do your own back-up on a regular basis. As long as you keep the portable hard drives disconnected from your computer when they're not in use, they're hack proof!

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

"Free" is a good way to attract customers, but it's not a good way to stay in business.

cthahn

There is nothing free. Somewhere, some how, you are going to pay something. I do not trust any cloud for anything. They want it there for a reason, especially Google, Amazon, Adobe, and all the rest. The internet is getting to be a sewer pipe. Every scum operator is on it with the most inviting advertising you can imagine and once you give into their BS, you have lost control.

FotoPhreak Loc: Whittier, CA

I am a firm believer that you can never have enough backups. I backup all my photos to several external drives and I use cloud storage. The reason I also use cloud storage is that it is external to my house. I could loose my photos as a result of someone stealing my PC and external drives, or they could be destroyed in a house fire or earthquake. I trust cloud storage provided by major players, such as Amazon and Google. They are not going out of business anytime soon and we would have plenty of warning before they do. The major cloud storage providers actually back up everything at geographically separate sites to insure the integrity of your files. Before retiring, my employer was seriously considering backing up all their computer systems through Amazon. It turned out that a lot of major corporations use Amazon cloud storage and I am certain that Google is also hosts backups for many corporations. The bottom line is that cloud storage can provide very reliable and secure storage. Just stay away from the fly-by night providers. As they say, you get what you pay for.

AlMac Loc: Newcastle Upon Tyne - UK

I got caught. Been using Photobucket to show my photos on Model Space for my HMS Victory build diary.
No way in this this world am I paying £400 per year for the privilege so I mass resized all the pics to 600pixels on the long side in Lightroom and I'm presently editing my posts.

rvharvey Loc: Southern New Jersey

Few even raise their eyebrow that FreeCreditReport.com spends millions on TV advertising and even sponsors a race car in the NASCAR scene.

markngolf Loc: Bridgewater, NJ

My "cloud" usage is paid for and is a secondary backup. Not right or wrong, just my preference.
Mark

Yeti Bigtoe

I try to not let my fur get tangled over such things. I use them and respect them for what they do. Cloud services, just like any business, are there to ultimately provide a livelyhood to someone, may transform, and may increase their price.