Paying for 'premium' versions of websites

[Daltonio]

Lots of websites these days have 'premium' or ad-free versions or whatever. Have you ever/do you currently pay for any? What would entice you to?

 

[passenger]

I felt like the 'lower-class' choice pay version of Photobucket was "worth it" to me; until they totally lost their greedy little minds.
I have not looked into the pay versions of Postimages or Imgur.

 

[MrDawn]

Lots of websites these days have 'premium' or ad-free versions or whatever. Have you ever/do you currently pay for any? What would entice you to?

Nope. uBlock Origin and Adblock extensions combined take care of ads on just about every website including YouTube. Opera ftw

 

[MamaFrankie]

I refuse to pay for them because I can't afford it but I wouldn't if I could because they already have more money than they know what to do with, especially Google.

 

[passenger]

Nope. uBlock Origin and Adblock extensions combined take care of ads on just about every website including YouTube. Opera ftw

On Photobucket it was not about the ads; it was about the amount or "bytes" of storage you could have there. The free programs were quite limited + ads; different pricing programs for larger amounts of storage. I think the program I was on was their lowest pay option, I think about $25 a year; I never exceeded my limit on that.
Then they hiked that price to about $400 a year... ... & you were not allowed to post your pics on forums, etc. .

"No good deals last forever"

In late June 2017, Photobucket dropped its free hosting service, and started requiring a US$99 annual subscription to allow external linking to all hosted images, or a US$399 annual subscription to allow the embedding of images on third-party websites, such as personal blogs and forums. This policy change, enacted with minimal advance notice, has been highly controversial. As a result, users who previously relied on Photobucket to freely host content embedded on forums, blogs, and websites must either pay the annual subscription (previously there was no charge), or switch to another 3rd party server (many of which are also shutting down or going to pay services; Tinypic, which remained free under Photobucket ownership, was shut down in 2019) and recreate every link (potentially thousands) for every photo previously linked to Photobucket, or have their photos replaced with an account upgrade notice.

 

[Nebulous]

I pay for the software / domain renewal / hosting plan here so you all can have an ad-free experience for free

On Photobucket it was not about the ads; it was about the amount or "bytes" of storage you could have there. The free programs were quite limited + ads; different pricing programs for larger amounts of storage. I think the program I was on was their lowest pay option, I think about $25 a year; I never exceeded my limit on that.
Then they hiked that price to about $400 a year... ... & you were not allowed to post your pics on forums, etc. .

"No good deals last forever"

In late June 2017, Photobucket dropped its free hosting service, and started requiring a US$99 annual subscription to allow external linking to all hosted images, or a US$399 annual subscription to allow the embedding of images on third-party websites, such as personal blogs and forums. This policy change, enacted with minimal advance notice, has been highly controversial. As a result, users who previously relied on Photobucket to freely host content embedded on forums, blogs, and websites must either pay the annual subscription (previously there was no charge), or switch to another 3rd party server (many of which are also shutting down or going to pay services; Tinypic, which remained free under Photobucket ownership, was shut down in 2019) and recreate every link (potentially thousands) for every photo previously linked to Photobucket, or have their photos replaced with an account upgrade notice.

I loved photobucket back in the day but I ditched them when they started being greedy bastards.

 

[passenger]

I pay for the software / domain renewal / hosting plan here so you all can have an ad-free experience for free

THANK YOU!! Love it!