I don't quite see it the same way as sprkplug, but that's ok and different opinions are what makes the world go round.
The amount of money they are requesting is way out of line. For them to cut it off without warning is in essence blackmail. Thousands upon thousands of websites are now scurrying about in dismay. Let's say you have a forum dedicated on how to build covered wagons. and you and all your members used photobucket for pictures. Let's say that during the past 10 years over 1 thousand wagons had been built of different designs. Now thanks to photobucket your forum is now worthless. Some members may be dead, some may have found different interests, etc. The how to's on some of those builds may never be able to be recovered unless you dig deeper in a site like way back machine. Now let's say I google covered wagons and find your site. I look around and all I see is that Dad blasted photobucket ad where they used to be pictures. Tell me, wouldn't that rile you up just a smidgen?
In my opinion, a better way they could have handled it was reduce the image quality unless you clicked on it and in turn was taken back to their website which is in essence all they want anyway. It would have left the websites operational and provided foot traffic for PB
