And herein lies the PROBLEM...C'mon Folks!!!

[srijith]

So what happens after the 30 day trial?

Don't those who do not pay get deactivated?

Right now, their ability to upload more photos are gone. However,
the already uploaded photos remain. Soon slug ad team would make
a policy for how long these already uploaded pics will remain in
pbase, after which hopefully the owner will be sent a last email to
pay up and if he/she does not, their display will also be disabled.

[mrvco]

Seems logical.

Right now it seems that people would just keep making new accounts every 30 days, filling each up with pics and then linking to each gallery from a seperate home page, right?

[srijith]

Shhh!! Don't bring dark secrets to light!

[arev]

so I guess I am a freeloader. whilst pbase was down I made use of another site 90 days free for a limited amount of photos. this site is really cheap for just a small amount of photos and I will probably pay for that ($6 US per year)just in case pbase goes down again.
I hate being without a facility to upload photos as I like to post pics on dpreview etc.
I have now paid for 300 m of space here for the next year.
Works out at around 100 dollars australian but I think it is well worth it.
http://www.pbase.com/arev

[slug]

to address a few points in this thread.

trrsranch, thanks very much for your support. i mean it when i've said that the payments from you and others are the only reason pbase is still alive. don't worry about pbase "going down the tubes". the current situation is very healthy. the servers are running comfortably and it looks like revenue will keep up with the hardware and bandwidth demands.

the restrictions on trial accounts have been gradually increasing over the last year or so. things are pretty much where they need to be now so that people who have paid don't have to worry that they're giving everyone else a free ride.
also these changes are recent, so people are still deciding whether the service is worth it to them or not.

that problem with the thumbnails generating slowly a few days ago was not a server overload problem but a software problem.
there was a type of .gif file that some people were uploading that were causing the thumbnailers to die. i fixed things so they will ignore those rare .gifs and process everything else quickly. (for anyone who has one of those .gifs, sorry but i haven't figured out how to process them yet, but there are only about 20 of them out of millions of uploads)

apologies for any instability recently, but pbase is healthy, and things keep getting stronger and more reliable.

-slug

[trrsranch]

I'll back off the "Pay-Up' soap box. LOL We all have a great thing going with PBase, which in my opinion is far superior to other, similar sites, especially with the ease of use and the multiple ways to present our albums. Hopefully, all the new users will see just how good PBase is and will do the right thing. Long Live PBase!

TRR

[sheila]

Right on TRR! I have been a paid up member since Feb 2002 and this is still one of the best sites on the Web. Once we get the Right Click sorted, it will be THE best site.

Cheers
Sheila