07-20-2017, 12:12 AM
(07-19-2017, 11:53 PM)EmptySea_imp Wrote: I need clarification. Kenny, are you saying that Photobucket is charged something with I embed an image I store there on this forum?
Yes, because it is not stored on this forum. It is stored on the Photobucket server and loaded to everyone's computer from there. Every time it is loaded, either on the photobucket website or this forum, photobucket pays money to their internet provider based on total amount of data transfered. They do get a large discount being a large website with a lot of traffic compared to a small forum like this one but they depend on ads bringing in more income than the cost of the "free" service they provide. They lose big on 3rd party hosting because they are still paying for the storage and bandwidth that your photo costs them with no ad revenue being generated.
This forum could host the photo's and skip that step but would face the same challenge of how much would the storage and bandwidth would cost. Some forums charge a small fee like $25/year for a premium membership to allow for extra features like photo storage.