Hi:
we have seen here many messages about decline in traffic, future of the site, customer support, or rather notorious lack of thereof. Some of us are still here, and do not want to go. It is a combination of satisfaction with Slug's ingenious concept, inertia and sentiment. Let me recap from the beginnings of PBase, what was so special about it:
In the beginning of image posting to the web several sites offered the (miserable) service, many claiming Copyright to your own images(!!) , image sizes were limited, description also, almost like Twitter: 100 characters (Yahoo Pictures), one had to tolerate ad's and a rigid layout with white background and flash animations. And some got cancelled, like Yahoo Pictures, all was gone! They made or bought Flickr instead, and I am stunned that people even trust them.
Pbase was a revelation. It was Ad-free, with user definable CSS style, clearly stating that Copyright to all images lies always with their poster and owner. Site was Photography oriented, with ability to specify camera, lens and film. Yes, a film, remember that one? An entire enthusiasm developed around this site. Constantly new records of number of users and images were reported. A Pbase magazine was issued and maintained for several years (2005-2010)! There is not even a visible link to the archive (http://www.pbase.com/magazine). Activist and Web guru's like Srijith and Arjun made this a special place. A story of Slug and Emily starting a family was greeted with a great participation here in these Virtual Rooms. It was like being a part of a great family.
So what happened? Let me try to iterate my private opinion about the major factors: ( your mileage may vary)
1. Raise of Social Networking, 1st MySpace than Facebook, or Instagram. Photography alone lost its appeal. Apparently people felt attracted to exchanging messages, naming "friends," even disclosing the entire private life to strangers.
2. Sites offering free image posting, such as Google and Flickr.
3. Lack of proper customer support, not responding to users requests.
4. Emergence of competing sites, such as SmugMug with their excellent customer service.
5. Lack of evolution toward mobile devices.
Personally I think that we cannot steer off (1): It is among us, including the raise of smart phones and their cameras. The camera makers have to adapt and change their portfolio of products, and photography sites have to adapt to the adjusted volume of participants. The (2) is due to activity of software giants operating via advertisements. Obviously many people do not mind that their images are being scanned for content and that content is evaluated by behavioral analytics, used to being targeted by advertisers. The front end of google images and flickr seem to be enough for the billions of miserable snapshots. Its for free, this is what counts. Thus (2) is also like a force of nature, let these users move on from photography sites and treat their images as superficial as they seemingly do.
Much worse is (3), this is a self made crisis. So many frustrated users moved out and moved on after being ignored for years. On a few occasions Slug posted a 'mea culpa' message, promising an improvement, or presenting new stuff, which was expected to maintain and further develop the site. Nothing happened. In many cases broken features were observed for years, like the geo-tagging. My personal "mini wish" was to finally remove the ".jpeg" suffix from uploaded files, avoid the never ending job of editing these out. Never introduced though, and that was really a mini-change. Everybody has his/hers own set of priorities, I am sure. Just look at the dates in these "requested feature lists", or "News" forums, to realize the extend of years of stagnation, and... we are still around, still staying and not wanting to go. This is a phenomenon which Slug should not be taking for granted.
And now finally, the (5), the mobile devices. Lack of support here can be "the final insult." Just look like an image-page displays on a mobile phone. The standard text is microscopic in size, it is virtually impossible to browse through the gallery. When I point someone to my galleries, travelers or sailors for whom I make the short story about the adventures, they are stunned about this. They ask "why do you post with such a site, how can we view the images??" This is about basic HTML-5 coding! This must be rectified. 99% of users, or about, will try to view the photography on the phone or tablet first, or even only there. We do not ask for much! Lets just allow to swipe to the next image, or even simpler: just tap on the right for "next" and on the left for "previous". We need pbase code to automatically turn display for landscape images, like almost every other photo app does, to use the entire surface. Please fix the CSS fonts and page layout adaptation for mobiles. This is not much! It is a matter of survival though, as I think.